What Can You Show Me in 90 Days? The New Standard for Federal Modernization

As every agency leader knows, the federal landscape has changed significantly in the past few years. Agencies face growing pressure to demonstrate efficiency, measurable outcomes, and mission impact. Increased scrutiny of how tax dollars are spent means less tolerance for lengthy discovery efforts, open-ended modernization programs, or projects that can't show value quickly.

As a result, expectations and approaches are shifting. Agencies and mission owners are transitioning from legacy systems to proven (and secure) commercial platforms. Federal leaders demand technology providers that can solve program problems and deliver measurable results faster, not just implement the latest tools. And contracting models that accelerate acquisition and increase accountability for outcomes are becoming common.

Agencies need a different breed of contractor

While agencies may still pursue large, multi-year modernization programs, they're increasingly requiring contractors to demonstrate progress and evidence of value much earlier in the lifecycle.

Today, delivery expectations more often include prototypes, minimum viable products (MVPs), and phased approaches with meaningful milestones. Non-traditional contracting paths, such as Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs) and Commercial Solutions Openings (CSOs), support the need to test ideas, evaluate outcomes, and reduce risk before scaling.

In many cases, the question is no longer, What can this technology do? It's What can you show me in 90 days?

Answering the demand of today’s federal missions

This evolving public-sector reality echoed throughout Dreamforce 2026. Across keynote sessions and product announcements, one key theme emerged: reduce the friction of modernization, adapt to changing conditions, and enable agencies to move at mission speed.

Whether through embedded AI capabilities, prebuilt industry solutions, implementation accelerators, or more flexible consumption models, Salesforce consistently emphasized the need to help organizations achieve value faster while reducing adoption risk.

We’ll talk in depth about AI and consumption-based pricing in upcoming posts. But for now, suffice it to say that, as a platform, Salesforce is keeping pace with federal expectations. With the right professional services specialists, Salesforce can deliver value quickly, minimize complexity, and avoid the need to duplicate investments in AI and other technologies – while also enabling agencies to reduce costs through hybrid consumption models.

Delivering value faster

For Thunder, Dreamforce’s announcements align closely with requirements we’re seeing across the federal market. Our customers increasingly define success by outcomes delivered in weeks, not months or years. Their leaders want confidence that we can implement quickly, demonstrate measurable operational value, and help them transition seamlessly into production if results justify additional investment.

Our federal projects – including high-visibility programs such as the Golden Dome Hub, a Department of War portal for missile defense industry engagement – share several characteristics:

• Rapid team mobilization – Agencies want confidence that the right expertise can be brought to bear immediately rather than assembled over time.
• Prebuilt components, accelerators, and proven implementation patterns – Starting from a strong foundation reduces risk and compresses timelines while still allowing solutions to be tailored for agency-specific requirements, security needs, and mission objectives.
• Clear milestones defined at the start – Whether the mission is case management, fraud detection, innovation intake, or field operations, agencies want success defined (with incremental milestones) before work begins.
• Speed paired with context – Federal agencies need partners that understand the operational realities of government and can apply lessons learned from similar environments. Moving quickly isn’t enough. Benefits come only by moving quickly in the right direction.

5 ways agencies can maximize value faster

For agency leaders evaluating modernization investments, these five actions can help position programs for success:

1. Inventory and capture the current state. Understand existing workflows, pain points, systems, and performance metrics before exploring a pilot.
2. Define measurable outcomes in advance of award. Define what success looks like and how you'll compare and evaluate it against the baseline.
3. Structure pilots around mission value, not technology features. Focus on solving agency problems rather than showcasing capabilities.
4. Select partners with proven federal MVP experience. Look for teams that can demonstrate a track record of delivering meaningful outcomes in compressed timelines.
5. Plan for production from the beginning. Successful pilots should demonstrate not only that a solution works, but also that it can scale securely and sustainably across the agency if successful.

These steps sound straightforward, but execution is where programs succeed or fail.

The right modernization partner can help assess current environments, define measurable outcomes, manage risk, and build a practical path from pilot to production, while bringing both federal mission understanding and experience scaling successful MVPs.

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