ASI EDUCATION BOOK LIST

Contracting Office Supervisors: Are you cultivating your teams to be top-notch professionals?? Here’s an idea…

With the emergence of new digital technologies, contracting office managers are facing equally new challenges in cultivating world-class contracting teams that can keep up with the pace.?

Workforce development can be tricky, and the excuses for not providing robust workforce development programs are universal:? low staff, large workloads, too many fires, too busy, etc.???

To make things worse, most mandatory professional trainings for certification do not adequately equip contracting professionals to be ninjas.? That level of expertise takes an extra boost, and office managers hold the keys to making that happen.

One excellent idea we would suggest is setting up an “Acquisition Book Club” for the team.? Read one book per month.? Pick a day at the end of each month to discuss the book. ? This is not only informative,? but depending on the book – this is incredibly morale-building for the team.?

Regarding the point above on “depending on the book…”? - teams would need to choose the books wisely. ? You don’t want to pick the FAR, of course.? You don’t want to make it too dry. No one likes that. ? You want it to be a book that is both interesting to read and relevant to your employees’ jobs so they can see how important and significant the work they do is.?

To this end, try to pick a book on best selling lists that many non-acquisition folks like to read, but are riddled with government acquisition.? These are the special books.?

Another tip is to ask your team to get their highlighters out while they read and take note of questions like:

1. What parts of this book discuss relationship between government and industry?
2. What parts of this book reveal any significance of the role of the government acquisition professional??
3. Are there any lessons our team can take from this book that could improve the way we work or understand our market?

To start you off with some suggestions, we provided our own book list (all of which have been part of a Book Club conducted by a (very busy) team at the DoD Joint AI Center (JAIC) Acquisition team).???

Try it out, your team may love it

Books on Tech Industry?

The Code, Margaret O’Mara?

Genius Makers, Cade Metz?

Competing in the Age of AI, Marco Iansiti, Karim R. Lakhani?

AI Technology & Government?

AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee?

T-Minus AI, Michael Kanaan ** book club favorite

Army of None, Paul Scharre?

Wired for War, P.W. Singer ? ** book club favorite

AIQ, Nick Polson, James Scott?

The Kill Chain, Christian Brose ? **book club favorite

Government Contracting and Technological History?

Freedom’s Forge, Arthur Herman ** book club favorite

Boyd, Robert Coram?

Never Mind We’ll Do It Ourselves, Alec Bierbauer and Col. Mark Cooter

Skunk Works, Ben Rich and Leo Janus?

American Moonshot, Douglas Brinkley?

Fictional Scenarios Regarding Adversarial Threats?

2034, Elliot Ackerman, Admiral James Stavridis

Ghost Fleet, P.W. Singer and August Cole?

Change Management and Office Productivity

The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford

The Unicorn Project, Gene Kim ** book club favorite

Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

Inside the Five-Sided Box, Ash Carter?

Mr. William (Will) Roe Roberts is the Director of Acquisition Solutions for ASI Government, LLC.? Previously, he was Acquisition Director for the DoD Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC).? Will is a member of the Florida Bar and has over 15 years of experience in Government Procurement. His notable work includes the creation of guides, trainings, and contract vehicles to assist the DoD in acquiring and delivering emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.??