The workforce capability GovCon leaders are underestimating

This is the final part of a three-part series on the Defense Department’s shift a Portfolio Acquisition Executive structure. Read part one here and part two here.

You ask your program manager how the customer relationship is: "Solid. They trust us. We deliver on time, no issues." You push harder. "Any concerns about portfolio pressure? Budget cuts? Competitive threats?" "Nothing they've mentioned. If something was wrong, they'd tell me. We talk every week."

That confidence is the problem.

Eighteen months from now, that program gets defunded mid-execution and awarded to a competitor who saw the shift coming. Your PM was in the same meetings, heard the same intel, but was focused on delivery, not competitive intelligence.

The gap between hearing intel and not recognizing the opportunity is the highest business risk most executives aren't tracking. Most contractors are operating on assumptions about relationship quality they've never measured, with delivery teams who were never trained to gather the intelligence that protects those relationships.

WHERE ARE YOU?

Most executives overestimate their readiness for the shift to the Portfolio Acquisition Executive model by 30-40%. They see experienced program managers with strong technical track records and assume those teams can adapt to portfolio dynamics with a growth mindset. Systematic assessment reveals a different reality.

The gap isn't obvious because executives aren't asking the right questions. Can your delivery teams explain portfolio context beyond their own programs? Do they surface risks and frame them as trade-off decisions rather than problems to solve? Can they translate technical issues into operational language that helps customers make decisions under pressure?

Do they recognize when stakeholder stress indicates portfolio pressure instead of program-level friction? Can they ask questions that reveal political context, not just technical requirements? Can they build relationships that generate intel without sounding transactional?  Do they know what is really driving the customer’s decisions? 

Can your delivery teams share customer insights systematically with capture and BD, or does intel stay trapped in individual heads? Does your organization reward delivery teams for credibility and intelligence contribution, or just flawless execution?

Do business development and delivery teams operate as integrated intelligence units, or does critical context get lost in siloed handoffs? Does your team model curiosity over defensiveness when uncomfortable situations surface?

Most executives can't answer yes to half of these questions. The more dangerous reality: they don't know they can't.

For 20+ years, success meant avoiding mistakes. The PAE era demands judgment under ambiguity, rapid prioritization, and intelligence gathering. Experience alone doesn't prepare teams for that shift. Training does.

WHAT THE GAPS LOOK LIKE

Your PM meets with an Army PM who mentions budget pressure, portfolio priorities, competitive threats. They hear the intel. They don't recognize it and when they do, they lack the skills and  confidence to dig deeper. 

When a customer mentions "we're looking at alternatives," most contractor PMs think it's casual conversation and move on. A trained PM recognizes this as a portfolio pressure signal and asks, "What's driving the reevaluation?" They discover the PAE is consolidating vendors and position themselves to be part of the consolidation instead of getting cut.

The difference isn't the meeting or the stakeholder. It's recognizing which questions unlock intel.

WHY GOOD PMs STAY SILENT

Your PMs aren't avoiding growth conversations because they don't care. They're avoiding them because they're scared of coming across as salespeople, which could damage their credibility.

"If I ask about future needs, will I damage my technical credibility?" "Will probing on budget make me seem presumptuous?" "If I explore portfolio priorities, will they think I'm selling?"

These are legitimate concerns from professionals who were trained to deliver flawlessly, not to gather intelligence. The result: they stay safely technical, maintain surface-level relationships, and miss the intel that predicts portfolio shifts.  The irony: these skills are easily taught and learned.

When PAE deputies can shift funding between programs with little notice, organizations with superior customer intelligence will win. That intelligence won't come from quarterly executive visits. It will come from daily delivery team interactions if those teams know how to gather it and report back. Most customers don't share unless you know how and when to ask.

Your competitors are figuring this out now. While you're assuming your delivery team relationships will hold, they're training their teams to read portfolio pressure, ask better questions, and position naturally without sounding like sales reps. They're differentiating on capabilities you're not tracking. 

WHAT WINNERS DO DIFFERENTLY

Shift 1: Leadership Changes What It Rewards

Leadership behavior and accountability set the culture. When a PM surfaces a risk early and frames it as a trade-off decision, that's a win, even if the customer doesn't like the options. When a PM maintains stakeholder confidence during a funding pivot, that's performance. When a PM captures intel about portfolio pressure and shares it with capture, that deserves recognition.  These deeper conversations are often the difference between winning and losing.

Shift 2: Engagement Becomes a Core Discipline

Winning organizations won't assume PMs will "figure out" customer engagement. They'll develop it systematically, the same way they build cybersecurity or quality management. The gap between knowing these capabilities are critical and systematically developing them is where most organizations stall. They leave too much to chance.

Shift 3: Intelligence Flows Through Process, Not Heroics

Intelligence gathering requires delivery teams to act as sensors, connecting with customers, watching for intel, and sharing what they learn with BD and capture. Winning organizations make it easy for delivery teams to share customer intelligence, align messaging before meetings, and debrief after to extract what matters. When multiple people from your organization engage numerous stakeholders, coordinated relationships matter. No conflicting messages. No surprises. No duplicate asks. Intelligence flows through intentional practice and process or gets lost in chaos. That difference determines who wins.

THE COST OF DOING NOTHING

Organizations that treat engagement and intelligence gathering as optional won't fail immediately. They'll lose slowly, one missed signal at a time. Here's what that looks like:

A PAE deputy will mention "looking at alternatives" and your PM will think they're fishing. Three months later, your funding shifts to a competitor. An Army PM will ask about "flexibility on delivery" and your PM will offer to accelerate the schedule. What they're really asking is whether you can handle a 40% budget cut. A requirements officer will say "we're reevaluating priorities" and your PM will stay focused on the current SOW. Your competitor will already be positioning to replace you.

By the time you notice the pattern, it will be too late to fix.

Winning organizations won't have better technology or lower prices. They'll have delivery teams who recognize portfolio pressure in real time and know how to respond without waiting for guidance. They'll have teams that share intelligence systematically instead of hoarding it. They'll have executives who reward early warnings instead of punishing bearers of bad news.

Your competitors are building these capabilities now. While you're waiting to see how PAE shakes out, they're training their teams to gather the intelligence that yours is missing. The gap between hearing intel and recognizing it will separate organizations that stay relevant from those that wonder what happened.

In the PAE era, intelligence gathering separates winners from losers. Better questions create better relationships.

YOU'RE ALREADY LATE

By now, you should have reviewed your pipeline. You should have stress-tested your capture strategy. You should have assessed whether your BD team is positioned for the PAE model.

Have you reviewed your delivery teams?

Most executives haven't. They're assuming experienced PMs with strong technical track records will adapt. They're betting on relationships with overinflated quality scores.

The 2-Minute Pulse Check tells you exactly where you stand, not where you hope you stand. Ten questions reveal whether your delivery teams are positioned as competitive intelligence assets or hidden revenue risks. You'll see immediately which capability gaps are putting programs at risk and what your competitors are already training for.

→ Take the PAE Readiness Pulse Check

The assessment scores your organization across engagement readiness, intelligence-gathering capability, and trust mechanisms. The full PAE Readiness Checklist (73 checkpoints) downloads after you complete it.

PAEs reached Initial Operating Capability in January 2026. The organizations investing in delivery team capabilities now are positioning to win. The organizations waiting for proof are already behind.

The gap between knowing you have a problem and fixing it is where most contractors will lose ground they'll never recover.

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