Contracting as a delivery discipline: rethinking how government buys software

Most government software programs are debugging a problem that was written into the contract two years before anyone wrote a line of code.

Contracting is often treated like a back-office function in most programs, when it's actually the most upstream operating decision a leader gets to make.

In this Mission O/S Live, Rise8 VP of Growth Carlo Viray and Jonathan Mostowski, President of Agile Acquisitions, join host Rachel Del Vecchio to talk about what most programs get wrong before delivery even starts, and what it looks like when contracting is treated as a delivery discipline instead of a procurement event. Jonathan has spent decades shaping acquisition strategy across public and private sectors, including US Digital Service, Defense Digital Service, and NGA. Carlo previously served as an Air Force and Space Force acquisition officer before joining Rise8. Between them, they've seen this from every angle.

You'll walk away with:

• A clearer read on why your contract vehicle shapes delivery culture more than any methodology layered on top of it
• A practical sense of what outcomes-based contracting actually requires, and why most attempts quietly revert to output-based contracts with new vocabulary
• Specific moves change agents on the program side can make to influence acquisition outcomes, even when they don't own the strategy

If you've ever watched a great team get boxed in by a contract that was never going to let them succeed, this conversation is for you.