DID(it) paired Programming
***Modified on July 19, 2018
to add Questions and Answers at end of announcement***
Sources Sought Notice
This is a Sources Sought Notice to identify potential business sources with the authority, capacity, and technical capability necessary to successfully provide Digital Innovation and Development DID(it) Industry Best Practices through Paired Programming.
This notice is issued solely for the purpose of conducting market research in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10 and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposal, or Request for Quotations. No solicitation is being issued at this time and the Government makes no assertion that a solicitation will be issued. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract, nor do they affect a potential offeror's ability to respond to any future synopsis/solicitation which may or may not follow or restrict the U.S. Government's eventual acquisition approach. Additionally, the U.S. Government is not obligated to, and will not provide reimbursement for any information that may be submitted in response to this notice. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding.
Background:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Office of Information Technology (OIT) Systems Delivery Division (SDD) Digital Innovation & Development (DID(it)) Branch provides an innovative development approach and technology stack for development of small to enterprise web and database applications at the local and headquarters levels consistent with the USCIS enterprise architecture models. DID(it) drives innovation at USCIS by evaluating open source and “bleeding-edge” technology, processes, and practices, and helps determine their usability at USCIS through small application trial efforts that may grow into larger IT solutions and new USCIS OIT standards.
Specifically, DID(it) reviews, experiments with, and potentially adopts different agile software development practices, processes, and techniques in order to drive innovation. New practices, processes, and techniques should promote adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourage rapid and flexible response to change. One such agile software development technique is pair programming which has two programmers work together on one project/workstation. The benefits of pair programming are continuous code learning, improved code quality, improved design quality, stronger communication, and team-building. Overall, USCIS realizes value by having products delivered faster and with higher quality when using improved agile software development practices.
Scope of Work
Expert consulting and development services shall cover agile software development and DevOps industry best practices, to include processes, tools, and techniques.
Expert consulting and development services shall provide best practices that result in improvements in, but not limited to, the following areas:
· Increase flow of work (i.e. value delivery) while maintaining quality, reliability, and security.
o Enable lean startup and lean product management practices and techniques that focus on quick value delivery to the customer. Using a Build Measure Learn process, shall be able to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere.
o Enable user-centered design and other user research practices and techniques that results in end-user driven requirements, user interface prototyping and development, and business layer development and validation.
o Enable optimal architecture design patterns such as microservices or other loosely-coupled Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs). The architecture pattern should provide a way to optimize the design of central data components such as employee models, organizational models, and case management service models. Optimal architecture patterns should be applied to both new and existing solutions.
o Enable a software development platform strategy that increases efficiency and automation throughout the software development process. The platform strategy should include the implementation and enablement of a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution.
o Enable practices and techniques that ensure quality, reliability and security are a part of the software delivery value stream.
· Increase flow of feedback so that fast, frequent, high quality information flow throughout the value stream and organization which includes feedback and feedforward loops.
o Improve feedback loops throughout the value stream.
o Define, measure, and report on business value metrics.
o Create telemetry to enable seeing and solving problems (both business and system).
o Collect data and capture effective metrics in the business logic, application, and environment layers.
o Analyze telemetry to better anticipate problems and achieve goals.
o Identify tools or software solutions that facilitate the increased flow of feedback (systems monitoring, customer feedback, and other feedback tools).
· Acceleration of organizational learning and improvement through continual learning and experimentation.
o Build a high-trust culture and a scientific approach to organizational improvement.
o Enable and involve learning into daily work to ensure continuous learning and improvement.
o Convert local improvement discoveries into global improvements.
o Improve internal coaching and enablement in order to spread expertise across the organization.
o Improve organization strategies such as organizing as a Market Oriented Organization that is optimized in responding to customer needs.
Expert consulting and development services provide high-performing teams that will work alongside The DID(it) Team using workforce pair techniques, such as pair programming, to learn and utilize agile software development and DevOps industry best practices.
The objectives of agile software development support services are the following:
· Provide consulting services to the DID(it) team that includes agile software development and DevOps industry best practices, to include processes, tools, and techniques.
· Provide development support services to the DID(it) Team that results in high-quality shippable code and Minimum Viable Products (MVP) with a focus on Application Programming Interfaces (API), data services, code reuse and decoupling, and extending existing functionality.
· Provide consultation and development support services for the DID(it) standard toolset engaging in mobile first development using open-source technologies (such as Ruby on Rails, HTML5, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, Responsive Web Design, etc.) and agile methodologies (such as Test Driven Development, Behavior Driven Development, Automated Testing, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, etc.), and other agile development practices.
· Provide consultation and development services for identifying and developing optimal architecture design patterns such as microservices or other loosely-coupled service-oriented architecture (SOA) models.
· Provide consulting and development services for identifying and implementing an optimal software development platform strategy that increases the speed and efficiency in software delivery. Platform strategy should include a Platform-as-A-Service (PaaS) solution.
· Evaluate new tools, software products, and open source technologies, and provide hands-on enablement of new tools, software, and technologies.
The Contractor shall:
· Provide high-performing teams to work alongside the DID(it) team using such techniques as pair programming in order to enable the use of industry best practices.
· Understand USCIS business domains in order to effectively discover business needs and business problems in order to provide rapid and high-quality solutions through the analysis, design, coding, testing, implementation, and maintenance of software solutions.
· Provide high-quality shippable code and Minimum Viable Products (MVP) for data services and components that will be utilized by new and existing USCIS applications.
· Provide platform strategy that includes a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution.
· Provide hands-on support for the setup and implementation of new tools, software, and technologies while enabling the DID(it) Team.
Information Sought:
Interested businesses and government or non-profit organizations are encouraged to respond to this notice. Please provide feedback in the following areas:
1) Methodologies for the enablement through pairing of best practices for, but not limited to, the following areas:
a. What are the methodologies that will enable DID(it) to increase flow of work (i.e. value delivery) while maintaining quality, reliability, and security?
b. What are the methodologies that will enable DID(it) to increase flow of feedback to ensure fast, frequent, high quality information flow throughout the value stream and organization which includes feedback and feedforward loops.
c. What are the methodologies that will enable DID(it) to accelerate organizational learning and improvement through continual learning and experimentation.
2) Tools and software solutions that facilitate best practices. Tooling needs include, but are not limited to, the following areas. What is your experience with these tools, also, what are any new or cutting edge tools that you are using?
a. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
i. Pivotal Cloud Foundry
b. Automated testing (Section 508, Security, Functional, Unit)
c. Lean product management
d. User-centered design and user feedback
e. Systems monitoring
3) What are your available acquisition vehicles and strategies/pricing models that optimize in the following areas:
a. Expert consulting and development services (#1 above)
b. Tools and software solutions (i.e. licensing, support, maintenance) (#2 above)
4) Please provide a statement on why your company/culture will result in a valuable partnership with the DID(it) team.
Response format and Guidelines
Responses are due by 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday, July 25, 2018.
Responses to this notice shall include a cover letter. The cover letter shall, at a minimum, include the following information: 1) Response to Sources Sought Notice 70SBUR18I00000020; 2) Vendor’s Company Name, Address, Contact Person Information; 3) Vendor’s DUNS Number; 4) Business Size and Size Standard / Classification relative to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code of 541511 and 5) All Contract vehicles you currently have and the contract numbers associated with those vehicles (ex: GSA Schedule 874 GS-00X-1234Z). Include whether or not you are a small business; HUBZone small business; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small business; women-owned small business; or small disadvantaged business in order to assist the government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible.
USCIS requests that the responses not be in excess of four (4) pages.
Please note that the collection of this data does not obligate the U.S. Government to the incorporation of the solicited comments in any future procurement action nor does it obligate the Government to the procurement of any services or products related to this notice.
Proprietary information should not be included in the responses.
Responses to this notice will not be returned.
Market Research Meetings
The Government may request meetings with some contractors. The meetings, if conducted, will be held in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
POINT OF CONTACT
Information submitted in response to this notice must be submitted electronically (via email) to the following:
Name: Charles E. Julian, Contracting Officer
Email: Charles.E.Julian@uscis.dhs.gov
Phone: (802) 872-4667
All questions shall be submitted to Celina Hemingway, Contract Specialist, in writing, at celina.r.hemingway@uscis.dhs.gov no later than 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday, July 18, 2018.
All responses shall be in MS Word, or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), and submitted in writing using the following format for the subject of the email “RFI Response DidIT Pairing – Company Name, LLC”, to the POC email addresses above, no later than 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday, July 25, 2018.
Telephonic and mail/courier responses will not be accepted.
Additional Information
There is no commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation, to make an award(s), or to be responsible for any monies expended by any interested parties in support of any effort in response to this sources sought notice. Any information submitted in response to this sources sought notice is a strictly voluntary. This sources sought notice is for information planning purposes and the Government will not pay or otherwise reimburse respondents for information submitted. It is the responsibility of potential offerors to monitor this site for the release of any follow-on information. All documentation shall become the property of the Government. Unless otherwise stated herein, no additional information is available and any request for additional information will be disregarded.
Questions and Answers
Q1) Who is the current incumbent?
A1) The current vendor performing the work is GovPlace.
Q2) Is there a contract name / number that can be shared?
A2) The current contract number is HSSCCG-17-F-00571.
Q3) Is there a desire to compete some or all of this work as an 8
(a) set-aside or small business?
A3) This requirement is still in the market research phase. The
acquisition strategy has not been determined at this time.
Q4) Is there a sources sought response requirement in order to
receive any future RFO/RFQ information?
A4) There is no requirment to respond to the sources sought in
order to receive any future RFP/RFQ information.
Q5) Does the cover letter count towards the four-page count limit?A5) No, the cover letter does not count towards the four-page
count limit.
Charles Julian, Contracting Officer, Phone 802.872.4667, Email charles.e.julian@uscis.dhs.gov - Celina R. Hemingway, Contract Specialist, Phone 8028724536, Email celina.r.hemingway@uscis.dhs.gov
