70SBUR25I00000008_FIRE RFI_20241220_Final.pdf

Request for Information – FIRE (Flexible Innovation for Rapid Engineering) - 70SBUR25I00000008

1. 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 industry best practices in Agile and DevSecOps to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Systems Delivery Division’s Digital Innovation and Development, DID(it), branch.

This notice is issued solely to conduct market research in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10 and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposals, or Request for Quotations

2. Digital Innovation and Development (DID(it)) Overview

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 for custom development of small to enterprise web applications consistent with the USCIS enterprise architecture models. DID(it) drives innovation at USCIS by evaluating open source and “bleeding-edge” technology, processes, and practices.

Specifically, DID(it) reviews, experiments with, and potentially adopts different agile software development practices, processes, and techniques 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. Overall, USCIS realizes value by delivering products faster and with higher quality when using improved agile software development practices.

3. Scope of Work

The DHS, USCIS, Office of Information Technology (OIT) requires support to provide services in development of new and enhancement of existing capabilities for information technology systems and applications. USCIS will create and maintain system roadmaps, project plans, and product and release backlogs that will be the basis for the DID(it) Contractors’ work. The USCIS product manager, in collaboration with the USCIS product owner, will specify high-level requirements to the DevSecOps teams. As in typical Scrum-based Agile processes, the USCIS product owners will collaborate with the DID(it) product teams to develop and estimate user stories and establish acceptance criteria. USCIS may adopt other Agile processes such as but not limited to Kanban and Lean, and the Contractors will be expected to conform its processes to these approaches.

As part of the sustainment effort, DID(it) Contractors will include in its DevSecOps teams members who can create and update ad hoc and recurring reports, system administrators, and persons who are able to maintain the development environment(s) used to support the named systems and applications. The intent is to create DevSecOps teams that can build and support enterprise-class applications. To accomplish this, robust communication between the OIT- Program Manager (OIT-PM), OIT Product Manager, business owners, the project team and other stakeholders to research, design, architect, engineer, document, and maintain the systems in OIT.

DID(it) Contractors are expected to provide high-performing, skilled teams. Critical elements shall be: • High productivity • High quality-work • Collaboration and cooperation with other teams and participants • Technical skills and expertise as necessary (see below)

• Estimation and planning skills

• Creativity in problem-solving

• Innovation around process, people and technology

• Efficient use of team resources to maximize productivity in named tasks

The providers of DID(it) services shall adopt evolving USCIS design and coding standards during their application development. The Contractors shall provide technical methods, techniques, and concepts that are innovative, practical, cost-effective, and conducive to Agile application development and Lean sustainment. DID(it)’s portfolio currently consists of 34 applications used internally by various USCIS directorates. These applications are in various stages of the software development lifecycle. Before this contract is awarded, new applications will be deployed, and current applications may be sent into a maintenance phase or decommissioned. The Contractors shall maintain, modernize, create, or decommission applications based on requirements that are evolving and emerge as the business climate shifts.

DID(it) developers will be required to develop high-quality code and will be responsible for any technical debt that is incurred as a result of their sustainment-related development activities.

Agile development work involves some degree of analysis, requirements research, design, development, and test, in addition to the support functions of configuration management, planning, project management, infrastructure, incident support, reporting, security, and system administration.

4. Current Technology & Tools

USCIS uses a variety of tools and applications to perform work. These tools and applications are fluid and frequently change. The contractor shall adapt to the changing environment and conform to USCIS standards, policies, processes, and procedures. Table 4.1 lists the current technologies to deliver DID(it) services.

Table 4.1 – Current Technologies

Frontend Backend Infrastructure

Primary Primary Primary React Ruby on Rails Amazon Web Services CSS ColdFusion Docker HTML PostgreSQL GitHub Enterprise JavaScript Microsoft SQL Server

Secondary Secondary Secondary

Hotwire Stimulus Java Ansible Storybook Redis PKI Redux

Nautilus

Bootstrap

FuseGuard jQuery

Terraform

Apigee

HAProxy Jenkins Kafka New Relic Splunk Amazon EKS

5. Information Sought

Interested parties are encouraged to respond to this notice. Please provide feedback in the following areas:

Feedback on Acquisition Strategy:

1. What are your preferred contract vehicles for Agile DevSecOps services and why?

2. What acquisition strategies and/or pricing models would you recommend to streamline procurement and delivery of Agile DevSecOps services?

Federal Contract Experience:

3. Experience with the DID(it) Technical Stack: Detail your familiarity with the primary technologies identified in Table 4.1 in this RFI and your previous/current experience with custom software development.

4. Experience with Delivering Value: What methodologies and tools have you used to help clients define, measure, monitor, and increase value delivery while maintaining quality, reliability, and security?

5. Innovation: Discuss how your company has leveraged innovative data modeling or analytics practices to modernize processes, software delivery, and web applications.

6. Response Instructions

Responses are due by 3:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) on January 8th, 2025.

1. Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI with responses to the questions in Section 5. Responses should be submitted in Adobe PDF format via email only to Kaitlyn.A.Desranleau@uscis.dhs.gov with a CC to Nicholas.A.Hart@uscis.dhs.gov and Monty.N.Kurtz@uscis.dhs.gov. Responses shall be no more than eight (8) pages to include graphics. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. To aid the Government in managing proprietary information, please segregate it. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

2. In the emailed response, provide the following additional information:

a) Vendor Profile

i. RFI; 70SBUR25I00000008

ii. Vendor’s Company Name, Address, Contact Person Information (including telephone number and email address);

iii. Vendor’s Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) from SAM.gov;

iv. Business Size and Size Standard / Classification related to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code;

v. In addition to the preferred vehicle information provided in Question 1, please identify all other DHS-specific or Government Wide Acquisition Contracts that you currently hold (including your contract numbers) that could be used to procure the services described above. Please also indicate whether you are a small business: HUBZone small business; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small business; women-owned small business; or small mailto:Kaitlyn.A.Desranleau@uscis.dhs.gov mailto:Nicholas.A.Hart@uscis.dhs.gov mailto:Monty.N.Kurtz@uscis.dhs.gov disadvantaged business to assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition strategy, including the possibility of a set-aside.

Reminder: This RFI is for informational and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for Bids, Request for Proposals, or Request for Quotations.