Buy Runs, Not Players: Rethinking How Government Buys IT Outcomes
Federal IT acquisition has traditionally been structured around people, labor categories and hours. But as technology — particularly artificial intelligence and automation — changes how quickly and efficiently work can be performed, government agencies have an opportunity to rethink what they are actually buying.
Instead of focusing primarily on the number of people assigned to a contract, agencies can increasingly focus on something more important: the outcome.
Bill McKenna, Chief Growth Officer at Trilogy Innovations, explores this idea through a simple analogy: buy runs, not players.
From Labor Hours to Mission Outcomes
For decades, much of federal IT services contracting has centered on staffing requirements: specific labor categories, defined experience levels and a set number of hours.
That model provides predictability, but it can also create a disconnect between effort and outcome.
An agency does not ultimately need 10 developers working a predetermined number of hours. It needs a secure application deployed, a system modernized, a vulnerability addressed or a mission capability delivered.
The distinction becomes increasingly important as AI, automation and modern development practices allow technology teams to accomplish more with fewer manual processes.
What Moneyball Can Teach Federal Acquisition
Baseball provides a useful analogy.
For years, teams evaluated players using familiar statistics and traditional scouting. Moneyball challenged that approach by asking a different question: which measurements actually correlate with winning games?
Federal acquisition can apply a similar mindset.
Rather than beginning with:
How many people do we need?
Agencies can increasingly begin with:
What measurable result do we need to achieve?
That changes the conversation from buying inputs to buying outcomes.
The Role of Firm-Fixed-Price Contracting
Firm-fixed-price contracting can support this approach when requirements and outcomes can be clearly defined.
Instead of compensating a contractor primarily for hours worked, an agency defines the required result and establishes a price for delivering it.
Done well, that creates incentives for contractors to improve processes, automate repetitive work and find more efficient ways to accomplish the mission.
It can also encourage industry to invest in technologies that improve productivity.
If automation allows a qualified team to accomplish an objective faster without compromising security, quality or mission requirements, efficiency becomes an advantage rather than a penalty.
AI Changes the Productivity Equation
Artificial intelligence makes this discussion increasingly relevant.
AI-assisted development, automation, analytics and other emerging technologies can reduce the time required for certain technical and administrative tasks.
That raises an important acquisition question:
If technology allows a contractor to deliver the same or better mission outcome with fewer labor hours, should government continue measuring value primarily by the number of hours consumed?
Increasingly, the better measurement may be whether the required capability was delivered securely, reliably and according to clearly defined performance standards.
Better Outcomes Require Better Measurement
Outcome-based contracting does not eliminate accountability. It requires agencies and contractors to become more precise about what success actually means.
That may include measures such as:
System availability and reliability
Application performance
Delivery milestones
Incident resolution
User experience
Processing time
Modernization objectives
Measurable mission results
Clear performance measures allow agencies to evaluate what they received rather than simply how much effort went into producing it.
Understanding What Technology Should Cost
This approach also places greater importance on should-cost analysis.
As AI and automation improve productivity, historical labor assumptions may no longer accurately represent the resources required to accomplish certain technology tasks.
Government and industry will both need better ways to understand the relationship among labor, technology, automation, risk and outcomes.
The objective should not simply be to reduce costs.
It should be to understand what successful mission delivery should reasonably cost — and create acquisition models that reward organizations capable of delivering those outcomes efficiently.
What This Means for Federal IT
The transition from labor-based contracting to outcome-oriented acquisition will not happen everywhere at once, nor will every requirement be appropriate for the same contracting model.
But the underlying question is becoming increasingly important.
As technology improves productivity, federal agencies have an opportunity to define requirements around what they actually need accomplished.
For industry, that creates an equally important challenge: demonstrate value through measurable mission results rather than simply the amount of labor applied to a problem.
In other words:
Buy the runs, not the players.
About Bill McKenna
Bill McKenna is Chief Growth Officer at Trilogy Innovations, where he leads the company's federal growth strategy. His experience spans federal IT strategy, cybersecurity, emerging technology, acquisition and mission modernization.
About Trilogy Innovations
Trilogy Innovations supports mission-critical federal technology environments with capabilities spanning cybersecurity, Zero Trust, identity and access management, cloud and application modernization, software engineering and emerging technologies.
Editor’s Note: This article is based on Bill McKenna’s original “Buy Runs, Not Players” commentary published in The Edge Brief on Substack. It has been adapted for Trilogy Innovations with additional context around federal IT acquisition, technology modernization and mission delivery.
Read Bill McKenna’s original “Buy Runs, Not Players” article on Substack: https://bmac4fedit.substack.com/p/buy-runs-not-players
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