The hidden risk in the Army’s new ‘speed to capability’ doctrine

Editor’s note: This is part one of a three-part series.

Most defense executives are reviewing pipelines and capture strategies in response to the Army's PAE transformation. Almost none are reviewing their delivery teams. That's the gap.

The Army is consolidating 12 Program Executive Offices into six Portfolio Acquisition Executives under the new Warfighting Acquisition System. The mandate: deliver 85% solutions now, improve them in the field. Speed over perfection.

Most executives understand the technical changes. Almost no one sees the people risk.

When the government buys speed, it buys risk. When customers buy risk, technical excellence alone stops winning. Trust under pressure and the ability to manage uncertainty become the differentiator.

Your program managers will either become your competitive advantage or a single point of failure.

FROM PROGRAM MANAGEMENT TO PORTFOLIO ACCOUNTABILITY

PAEs aren't "fewer PEOs." They're portfolios aligned with warfighting outcomes, not rigid requirement documents. Each PAE oversees multiple former PEO elements with embedded contracting, sustainment, testing, and finance.

Trade-off decisions (cost, schedule, performance) now sit with the PAE—including the authority to defund your program mid-execution if a competitor can field capability faster.

This eliminates the assumption that once a program is awarded, it's safe.

SPEED CREATES TRUST AND INTELLIGENCE GAPS

The Army is explicitly asking industry to deliver imperfect capability faster and improve it later. This creates a trust gap. 

Government leaders are fielding systems they know are incomplete, betting you will close today's threat challenges and adapt for tomorrow's at a faster pace than the adversary. 

Who manages this? 

Not a vice president of business development who visits quarterly. Not a capture manager once the award is signed. 

The trust gap is managed daily, sometimes hourly, by your program managers, subject matter experts, and delivery leaders. In the PAE era, your PMs are no longer solely accountable for cost and schedule. They're responsible for confidence, clarity, and decision stability in an environment where priorities shift quickly and trade-offs are constant. 

But trust alone doesn't win contracts. It unlocks the intelligence needed to win, and most organizations have no system to share it. 

When government stakeholders trust your delivery teams, they share operational realities, budget constraints, and mission pressures you'll never see in formal solicitation requirements. Your program managers gather this intelligence daily. Your business development team gathers it quarterly at best. That gap is either your competitive advantage or your competitor's.

The PM who explains why a delay is the right portfolio decision preserves trust and gathers intelligence. The PM who retreats into defensive technical speak does neither. 

Most organizations have PMs doing the latter while wondering why their pipelines are drying up.

WHY THE OLD HANDOFF MODEL IS DEAD

The old model (where business development wins the work and hands it "over the fence" to delivery teams who "don't do sales") is incompatible with portfolio-based acquisition. When speed is a determining factor, there is no time for handoffs.

Delivery teams are no longer downstream from growth. They are now growth.

If your technical experts still roll their eyes at customer engagement, they are operating with an outdated playbook. Today's Army does not have the time or obligation to decode the value of your work. Your teams must translate it in real time into the language of risk, speed, portfolio outcomes, and competitive intelligence.

THE WORKFORCE PROBLEM NOBODY IS SOLVING

The PAE transformation began in October 2025. Initial Operating Capability is January 2026.

Yet the workforce this system assumes (program managers who embrace risk, gather intelligence through authentic engagement, coordinate across functional boundaries, and maintain trust under pressure) does not exist at scale.

For over 20 years, success meant compliance. Innovation meant career risk. Now, overnight, these same people are expected to accept risk, make trade-offs, gather intelligence, and maintain confidence during pivots.

Without training, they will resist. Not because they lack talent, but because they lack the frameworks, practice, and confidence to operate in this new environment.

Organizations that recognize this as a skill gap, and address it, will accelerate. Those relying on experience alone will stall.

AUDIT YOUR TEAM READINESS NOW

You've reviewed your pipeline and capture strategy. Have you reviewed your delivery teams?

The organizations that will succeed under the Warfighting Acquisition System will treat intelligence-gathering and engagement as core capabilities, not optional skills.

If a PAE deputy calls tomorrow and wants to pivot strategy mid-stream, who do you trust to walk into that room? And when your PM walks out, will they recognize and capture the strategic intelligence in the conversation?

If the answer to either question is no, your operating model is already misaligned.

Speed without trust compresses margins. Speed with trust protects them. Trust without intelligence delivers neither.

Take the 2-Minute Pulse Check

Before you audit your entire organization, start here: 10 questions that reveal whether your delivery teams are positioned as hidden revenue risks or competitive intelligence assets under the PAE model. 

The assessment scores your organization across engagement readiness, intelligence-gathering capability, and trust mechanisms. You'll see immediately where you're aligned with the Warfighting Acquisition System and where you're exposed.

→ Take the PAE Readiness Pulse Check 

The full PAE Readiness Checklist (73 checkpoints) downloads after you complete the assessment.

Look out for article #2 of this 3-part series: "Why Some Organizations Are Accelerating While Others Stall."

Nic Coppings is Senior Partner at Hi-Q Group, where he helps government contractors transform customer engagement into competitive advantage. With more than 20 years of experience in federal contracting, Nic has worked with hundreds of contractors to develop the human intelligence capabilities that drive on-contract growth, win recompetes, and identify adjacencies competitors never see. He can be reached at ncoppings@hi-qgroup.com