Senior executives inside the federal government are facing a rare, if uncomfortable, opportunity this holiday season: a brief pause to take stock of how Project 2025 and the current continuing resolution will shape what, how, and from whom they buy in 2026. This is not about partisanship; it is about understanding the roadmap that is already influencing your organization and using it to steer mission delivery, workforce plans, and acquisition strategies through an increasingly turbulent environment.
What Project 2025 Really Is Inside Government
Project 2025 is a comprehensive conservative governing blueprint that lays out how to reshape the executive branch, expand presidential control over agencies, and redirect federal priorities across regulation, social and climate programs, immigration and the civil service. Analyses from public‑administration and workforce organizations highlight that its proposals reach deep into internal operations; calling for mass reclassification of civil servants, potential purges, weakening of unions and expanded use of political appointees. For senior executives, that makes it less a “think tank report” and more an operating design for how your agency will be structured, staffed and overseen.
To date, multiple trackers show clear alignment between Project 2025 themes and early second‑term Executive Orders and regulatory actions, including efforts to revive Schedule F‑style authorities, reorganize or shrink agencies and shift enforcement priorities. Those moves directly affect your span of control, the durability of your programs and the discretion you will have as stewards of public resources and public trust.
The Jan 30, 2026, CR Establishes Your Planning Window
The current continuing resolution, enacted after the 2025 shutdown, funds most agencies at FY2025 levels through January 30, 2026, and provides full‑year funding only for a subset of accounts such as agriculture, the legislative branch and military construction/VA. CRs constrain new starts, delay major reorganizations, and limit your ability to rebalance portfolios, even as political leadership signals new priorities and structural changes.
By January 30, lawmakers must decide how to fund the remaining appropriations bills or risk renewed disruption, and those full‑year bills are the vehicles through which Project 2025‑aligned restructuring and riders can be operationalized. For executives, that means the months leading into that date are the time to scenario‑plan your budgets, workforce and acquisition pipeline, once final appropriations land, you will mostly be executing under conditions set by others. At this point, one of the only ways to stave off the continued destruction of the US Federal Administration is a full year CR.
Know Your Customer: Political Leadership and the Public
In government, your “customer” is both political leadership and the public you serve. Project 2025 gives a candid view into what key political principals and allied networks want the administrative state to become, including the extent to which they favor privatization, centralization or deconstruction of certain functions. Many public servants initially treated the document as fringe, yet its themes now echo through official guidance, restructuring proposals and workforce actions.
For SES and senior career leaders, ignoring that signal is a governance risk. Understanding the roadmap allows you to anticipate where mission will be intensified, where it may be hollowed out and where guardrails around impartial administration and merit‑based service will be tested. It does not require agreement with the agenda, but it does require professional clarity about what turbulence is coming so you can protect core statutory obligations and navigate role ambiguity for your teams.
What and How You Buy Are Changing
Because Project 2025 reaches into core structures, it will influence your purchasing decisions in several ways. Proposals to shrink or restructure agencies and to expand political control over policy and enforcement will change which programs grow, stall or disappear; affecting which contracts you recompete, which you scale and which never get off the ground. Climate and environmental programs, some public‑health and social‑safety‑net initiatives, education policy functions, and certain civil‑rights and consumer‑protection activities are flagged by experts as especially vulnerable, while immigration, border enforcement, national security and some law‑enforcement capabilities are expected to see sustained or increased emphasis.
At the same time, potential workforce reductions, reclassifications, and constraints on internal expertise will push some agencies toward greater reliance on external support for analytics, operations and specialized capabilities, even as they navigate tighter budgets and more politicized oversight. As a senior executive, that combination (shifting missions, constrained resources and changing internal capacity) should drive a deliberate reassessment of which capabilities you must preserve in‑house, where strategic partnerships are necessary, and how you design acquisitions to maintain continuity of service under volatile conditions.
Leadership Tasks Over the Holidays
Leading through this period calls for the same disciplined management competencies that apply in any turbulent environment. First, conduct an internal “mission and portfolio” scan: Categorize programs and contracts under your purview as likely to be favored, neutral or exposed under Project 2025-aligned scenarios and under alternative congressional outcomes, and assess the operational and workforce implications. Second, map the decision landscape: How many key choices that affect your acquisitions and staffing will sit with career officials versus political appointees under the new structures being contemplated?
Third, invest in your people. Research on federal employees in turbulent times underscores rising risks of role ambiguity, job insecurity and burnout; clear communication about possible changes, transparent criteria for decisions, and targeted development opportunities can mitigate those risks. Finally, revisit your own ethical and stewardship commitments: When structural and political pressures intensify, leaders who are clear on their obligations to law, merit and the public interest are better able to navigate conflicting demands while maintaining trust.
Approached this way, Project 2025 and the looming end of the CR become not just sources of anxiety, but structured inputs into your broader strategic recalibration. That same recalibration lens (understanding the roadmap, anticipating turbulence, and aligning portfolios and governance accordingly) also applies to the companies that serve you in the federal marketplace. For more on that, this broader article picks up the story from the perspective of your industry counterparts.
Matthew Kilbane is a seasoned leader with expertise in AI Governance, technology business management, and IT program leadership. With a decorated 20-year career in the U.S. Army, extensive service with the Department of Homeland Security, and experience in Fortune Global 250 companies, he excels at building high-performing teams and driving innovation. Holding an M.B.A., advanced certifications, and a background in cutting-edge AI technologies, Matthew brings a passion for problem-solving and advancing technology for positive public and private sector impact.
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