Thrive in Five Newsletter: You Can’t Deploy AI from the Bottom of Your Inbox
The ask from Washington is clear: agencies need to move faster on AI. OMB Memo M-26-05 makes that expectation explicit. The window is real, and the pressure is mounting.
The GAO counted 94 government-wide AI requirements across federal laws, executive orders, and guidance — as of July 2025. Ninety-four. And that was before M-26-05. The pace has only quickened since. The people being asked to meet that moment are the same ones who can’t find two uninterrupted hours in a day. That’s not a time management problem. It’s the operating environment federal leaders actually work in — and it’s exactly what makes execution so hard. This month’s five resources address both sides: the policy landscape pressing in from above, and the operational realities making it hard to move.
How do I close the gap between AI policy and AI delivery?
🔗 The White House wants quicker AI adoption. Can agencies make it happen? — FedScoop
Jesse Lambert, Senior Principal, Evans Incorporated
The “should we use AI?” debate is over. The new question is whether agencies can close the widening gap between policy direction and actual execution. Jesse Lambert breaks down what OMB Memo M-26-05 actually means for execution. New risk-based guidance gives CIOs and CDOs the policy backing to move faster, but flexibility alone won’t deliver results. The real bottleneck is structural — approval processes built for predictable enterprise software can’t keep pace with tools that evolve weekly. And workforce hesitation isn’t just a training gap; it’s a trust and incentives problem. Read this for a clear-eyed view of what execution actually requires.
How does my agency stack up against peers on AI adoption?
Before you can close the execution gap, you need to know where you actually stand. These three sources give you that picture.
🔗 Artificial Intelligence: Federal Efforts Guided by Requirements and Advisory Groups — GAO
U.S. Government Accountability Office, September 2025
That 94-requirements figure from the opening? It comes from here. This is the report that maps the full compliance architecture your leaders are navigating while also trying to move faster. It’s dense, but the highlights page alone is worth bookmarking. It makes the execution gap feel less like a management problem and more like a structural reality.
🔗 Public Sector AI Adoption Index 2026 — Public First / Center for Data Innovation
Sponsored by Google, February 2026
A survey of 3,335 public servants across 10 countries — including the U.S. — confirms what Jesse’s FedScoop piece argues from the American side: the debate has shifted from whether to adopt AI to how to operationalize it. The gap between ambitious strategies and everyday practice is wide, and it’s showing up across governments worldwide. Useful context for leaders who want to benchmark where their agency stands against a global peer group.
🔗 Key Insights: ROI of AI in the Public Sector — Google Cloud
Google Cloud / National Research Group, 2026
The ground-level complement to the other two. This survey of 251 senior public sector leaders shows where agencies are already seeing ROI — 55% have deployed AI agents in production, and constituent services and internal productivity lead the returns. The harder finding: change management and workforce upskilling remain the top unmet needs. Research consistently backs this up — leadership support, strategic alignment, and organizational culture matter more to AI adoption success than technical factors. The tools exist. The readiness often doesn’t.
How do I stay strategic when the day goes sideways?
🔗 The Wednesday That Went Sideways — Evans Blog
Bob Etris, Managing Partner, Evans Incorporated
This piece addresses the gap between having a plan and having a system. Bob Etris walks through a single derailed day — eight meetings, a Congressional data call, vendor slides that materialized out of nowhere — and uses it to surface the three questions every federal PM should ask before running with an unplanned request. The scenario is fictional. The reactions from a room full of FAA program managers were not. If you’ve ever hit 6 p.m. wondering what you actually accomplished, start here.
What tools can I use right now to triage and recover?
🔗 Wednesday Went Sideways — PM Field Guide
Bob Etris, Evans Incorporated
The companion handout to Bob’s blog is a four-tool field guide built for high-tempo federal environments. Tool 1 is a triage framework: two questions that help you plot urgency against mission impact before you move. Tool 2 gives you the three clarifying questions to ask before accepting any unplanned request. Tool 3 is a daily planning ritual: three micro-moments, under ten minutes total. It keeps you ahead of the day instead of chasing it. Tool 4 covers real-time recovery when the day breaks anyway. Download it before your next day goes sideways.
Is constant disruption a problem to solve — or a reality to work with?
🔗 The Necessary Chaos of Management — Richard Brisebois, PhD
If you’ve ever ended a day feeling like you got nothing done — despite being busy every minute — this one is worth a quick read. Brisebois makes a simple but disarming argument: the scattered, nonlinear, constantly interrupted nature of your day isn’t a sign that something’s broken. It’s what the job actually is. The shift that follows isn’t about managing time better. It’s about building the capacity to maintain coherence and make good decisions inside the noise — and that’s exactly what this moment is going to require.
Final Thoughts
These five questions form a simple diagnostic. Taken together, they map the full terrain: the policy pressure bearing down from above, the data on where agencies actually stand, the human reality of days that derail before 10 a.m., the practical tools to navigate them, and the mindset shift that makes sustained, strategic work possible inside the noise.
The triage framework, the three clarifying questions, the two-minute midday reset — these aren’t productivity hacks. They’re the preconditions for doing the hard work transformation is asking of you. AI adoption doesn’t stall because of bad tools. It stalls because the people responsible for deploying it don’t have the operational capacity to lead through the noise. Build the system first. The transformation follows.
Want to go deeper? Connect with Jesse Lambert and Bob Etris on LinkedIn.
