Attachment 2 - Analysis of Alternatives Template.pdf

Acquisition Sensitive – Do Not Forward

Department of Veterans Affairs

[Demand Name] [Demand Number]

Analysis of Alternatives (AoA)

Office of Information and Technology (OIT) Software Product Management (SPM) Corporate Intake & Solutioning [Date]

Analysis of Alternatives Template V2.6, December 2021 1

Document Version History

The document version history will be used to track document changes throughout the cycle of the capability planning process. When changes are made, please provide the version number, name, job title and organization of the person updating, version date, and a description of the basic changes made by the respective version of the document.

Version Number

Person Updating

Version Date Version Description

V0.1 CIS Intake 5/1/2023 Initial Draft V1.0 CIS Intake 5/22/2023 Review and updated per CIS Team feedback

V2.6, December 2021 2

Table of Contents 1 Analysis of Alternatives Purpose 2 Executive Summary

2.1 Assumptions

2.2 Strategic Sourcing

3 Problem Statement

3.1 Scope of Analysis

3.2 Key Points of Contact (POCs)

4 Evaluation Criteria 5 Findings

5.1 Summary

5.2 Detailed Findings

5.3 (Optional) Recommended Solution

5.4 (Optional) High Level Roadmap

6 (Optional) Detailed Cost Estimate (Level 2) 7 Conclusion 8 Appendices A. Epic & AoA Artifacts B. References C. Acronyms

V2.6, December 2021 3

Analysis of Alternatives Template Guidelines – For CIS Staff

<Please adhere to the template guidelines as they apply to the document under construction. All sections of the template should be completed. If a section cannot be completed, provide the rationale for omission as well as future date for completion if relevant. In addition, ensure that all Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) requirements are met.>

Updated Guidance as of July 2020 When recommending the types of AoA that are available to the business owners, the available AoA format options are as follows:

A. Option A: Traditional AoA with weighted scores and product recommendations.

B. Option B: Modified AoA with no scoring and no recommendation. While there are no scores provided, there will be documented analysis of business capabilities against each alternative, as to whether they meet the business needs;

C. Option C: Hybrid AoA with weighted scores and no product recommendation

This template has been updated VIto reflect the available AoA formats.

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1 Analysis of Alternatives Purpose This Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) is a planning document enabling informed decisions for addressing IT needs or to assist in the design of a solution fitting unique requirements. This document clearly defines the scope of the AoA, problem being addressed, evaluation criteria used to conduct the AoA, and findings from the analysis performed by the Office of Information and Technology (OIT), Software Product Management, Corporate Intake & Solutioning (CIS).

This AoA was completed by a core team consisting of business, technical, and/or AoA subject matter experts (SMEs).

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2 Executive Summary In this section, the AoA team member should tailor these paragraphs to provide a high-level summary of the AoA. This will be equivalent to the Bottom-Line Up Front (BLUF) slide in the assessment deck. The executive summary should be a brief overview that emphasizes the business impact of the findings. This section should not exceed half a page. Detailed content should be elaborated on in following sections within the document.

How to Populate this Section – For CIS Staff

1. High-level summary of the sponsor’s problem and customer’s objectives.

2. Type of AoA performed (Industry Survey or one of analysis of alternatives formats, as noted in the guidance above). If an Industry Survey was performed, use this content: “An industry analysis was performed against a set of defined evaluation criteria of potential COTS/GOTS products that are available in the industry or other government agencies.” If an AoA was performed, use this content: “An analysis of [#] of alternatives was performed against a set of defined evaluation criteria and weighted according to business priority, in order to enable informed decisions for addressing IT needs or to assist in the design of a solution.” If providing a recommendation and cost estimate, state this as well.

3. Identification of criteria used to perform the industry analysis or alternatives analyzed.

4. High-level summary of findings.

5. If specifically requested, please include Intake & Analysis Service’s recommendation.

2.1 Assumptions

In this section, describe any assumptions made in the development of this document as well as any general assumptions made when conducting the AoA.

2.2 Strategic Sourcing

Where there is an available or intended contract vehicle to accompany and support each AoA alternative, the details should be captured here. The business owner(s) should provide this information, if available.

3 Problem Statement This section briefly describes the context, goals, and objectives of the sponsor’s problem. Pre-kick-off communications, prior assessments, user stories, discovery sessions, and greater-VA and business goals and objectives may be inputs into this section, which describes the sponsor-validated problem statement for the AoA. See Appendix A for the associated epic.

Note: Attach the AoA Epic, if this is a standalone work effort (i.e., not associated with an existing CIS planning analysis effort); otherwise, attach the Business Epic. Ensure information in this

V2.6, December 2021 6 section does not duplicate information in section 1.0 Executive Summary. Section 2.0 forward should be where the detail is contained. Keep 1.0 concise.

3.1 Scope of Analysis

Describe the sponsor’s requirements for this analysis. Clearly articulate if the intent of the AoA is an industry survey to identify germane technologies, COTS, or Shared Service solutions, or an in-depth analysis of the feasibility of a particular alternative to meet the product requirements.

Include the timeline scope of the analysis: any urgency impacting the length and depth of the analysis as well as the expected period of relevancy (short vs. long term). Likewise, state the expected deliverables produced to satisfy the analysis, such as list of IT systems/applications researched/evaluated, scores, and possible implementation dependencies.

3.2 Key Points of Contact (POCs)

Describe key stakeholders and POCs as identified during the discovery and kickoff sessions.

This may include program owners and project managers. Roles played by the POCs can span from Business Owners, Analysis, SMEs, CIS staff, Product Line staff etc.

First Name, Last Name Official Title Department/Office

4 Evaluation Criteria This section identifies the criteria used to conduct the analysis and its importance to AoA sponsorship.

If the AoA consists of an Industry Survey, provide the following. If a larger AoA, delete Industry Survey-related content.

• Describe the criteria used to guide the industry analysis; e.g., constraints/limitations of As Is solution and alignment with Enterprise Design Patterns.

• Describe the methodology followed to perform the industry survey.

• Identify the sources of data used (e.g., Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Government Agency), references (e.g., representative names if meeting/telecon, document names, URLs), and information about the data that demonstrate credibility, viability, and currency (e.g., meeting date, document date, forecast timeframe).

• Complete the below table.

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Criteria Source Reference Description e.g., Gartner e.g., POC, Document name Date/Timeline

If the AoA consists of identified alternatives scored or tallied for feasibility, provide the following. If an Industry Survey was performed, delete the below text.

• Identify high-level business capabilities that will be used as the evaluation criteria.

Sources of the capabilities could include the following: business epics from the VIP process; use cases from the VIP process and business owner(s); requirements (functional and non-functional business requirements from business epics, sub-epics, and other sources); Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

• Complete the below table with the high-level business capabilities to be used in conducting the AoA.

• Include following paragraph if applicable; otherwise, delete:

Business criteria are derived from business epics, requirements, use cases, indicators, and other sources. Management criteria typically are based on cost, time, and risk. Finally, technical criteria come from VIP alignment epics and other non-functional requirements. The evaluation criteria and its prioritization were used to identify potential alternatives. As alternatives were identified, their capabilities were cross-referenced with the evaluation criteria to check for any gaps. For the full list of criteria, please reference the embedded spreadsheet in Appendix D.

Use the following table for AoA types of “Options A” and “Option C”:

Criteria Weight Description Source Business % of total weight

vs. Management or Technical

High-level critical criteria

% weighting of specific criteria

Describe the criteria. Sponsorship, Gartner, etc.

High-level optional criteria

% weighting of specific criteria

Describe the criteria. Sponsorship, Gartner, etc.

Management % High-level critical criteria

High-level optional criteria

Technical %

V2.6, December 2021 8

Criteria Weight Description Source High-level critical

Use the following table for AoA type of “Options B”:

Criteria Description Source Business High-level critical criteria

Describe the criteria. Sponsorship, Gartner, etc.

High-level optional criteria

Describe the criteria. Sponsorship, Gartner, etc.

Management High-level critical

High-level optional criteria

Technical High-level Criteria

5 Findings This section summarizes the results of the analysis performed.

5.1 Summary

If an Industry Survey was performed: Summarize the results of the industry survey.

For AoA types of “Options A” and “Option C”:

If an AoA was performed: Summarize the capabilities of the different alternatives at a high level.

For specific details on scoring, reference the scoring spreadsheet in the appendix.

For AoA type of “Options B”:

If an AoA was performed: Summarize the capabilities of the different alternatives at a high level, noting the alternatives that most meet the business needs. For specific details on the assessment, reference the evaluation spreadsheet in the appendix.

5.2 Detailed Findings

This section describes detailed findings of the analysis, including gaps, discoveries, and possible next steps.

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If an Industry Survey was performed: Provide detailed results of the industry survey. Include known gaps in your survey (e.g., lack of objective information, unavailability of subject matter experts). Include your assessment of the results as they relate to the business or IT need. If applicable, provide a list of potential vendors; rank vendors according to relevant information (e.g., cost, industry reputation, existing relationship with VA, existing presence in VA).

If an AoA was performed: Provide detailed results for the different alternatives evaluated. Include deficient areas as well as where they excel. Identify system and/or programmatic dependencies for viable alternatives; include a fishbone or other diagram, if helpful.

5.3 (Optional) Recommended Solution Complete this section if the customer has requested a Recommendation from CIS; this section applies only to AoA Option A. If no Recommendation was requested, indicate this section is not applicable (N/A).

This section describes the recommended solution to satisfy the evaluation criteria in alignment with VA and industry best practices, risk tolerance, and overall VA direction.

5.4 (Optional) High Level Roadmap Complete this section if the customer has requested a Recommendation from CIA and providing an associated roadmap is applicable; this section applies only to AoA Option A. If no Recommendation was requested, indicate this section is not applicable (N/A).

This section provides a high-level roadmap to provide some sequence to achieve the proposed solution.

Include a fishbone or some other diagram to provide an overall indication of dependencies, easy actions, and sequence of events to achieve the target solution. Be sure to make any assumptions explicit.

6 (Optional) Detailed Cost Estimate (Level 2) This section will contain acquisition sensitive information that should be entered last by the Intake Lead. The Intake Analyst should work to complete all sections except this section. The Intake Analyst will work with the Intake Cost Estimation Analyst to populate the Cost Estimation Questionnaire, but the Cost Estimation Analyst is responsible for the creation of an estimate.

Once a cost estimate is generated by the Cost Estimation Analyst, the Intake Cost Estimation Analyst will import Table 1 from the CE Tool.

V2.6, December 2021 10

Note: Because cost estimates contain acquisition-sensitive content, once the cost estimate is integrated into the Analysis of Alternatives, only Intake Leads or Intake Cost Estimation Analysts should handle these contents.

A version of the document without the cost estimate will be uploaded to the public-facing DEMAND Documents (No Cost) SharePoint folder, with naming convention “DEMAND#_DEMAND Name_AoA-NoCE”. The Intake Analyst should add the following statement to the NoCE version of the document:

Contact VA OIT BIOS Corporate Intake Team for a version of this document with the Cost Estimate.

The Cost Estimate for this initiative is displayed in Table 1.

To prepare the final version with cost estimate, the Intake Analyst will forward to the Intake Lead with the file name “DEMAND#_DEMAND Name_AoA-CE”. The Intake Lead will upload the full and final version of the AoA with the cost estimate to a SharePoint location with restricted access and submit the AoA to the IT Account Manager and Business Owner via email containing a link to that folder.

mailto:bioscorporateintaketeam@va.gov

V2.6, December 2021 11

Table 1: Cost Estimate (Level 2) (Millions $)

This is for internal VA use only and is not intended to create or contribute to any contractual estimate for services or other legal obligation. This is a high-level cost estimate, driven by historical VA cost estimating data and other assumptions.

7 Conclusion Summarize the problem statement, high level criteria, alternatives, and outcomes of the assessment. If applicable, include the overall recommendation to the sponsor.

V2.6, December 2021 12

8 Appendices

A. Epic & AoA Artifacts

Provide a link to the DEMAND folder where the DEMAND Epic and AoA Artifacts associated with this work effort are stored (Parent folder:

https://vaww.vashare.oit.va.gov/sites/dmo/dmdocsite/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/DM%20Extern al%20Government/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2Fsites%2Fdmo%2Fdmdocsite%2FDM%2 0External%20Government%2FVIPR%20Documents%20%28No%20Cost%29&FolderCTID=0x0120 00B3F56795B312EA4FB9636DB1EB60E01D&View=%7BB5B65B30%2DD31D%2D4613%2D872F

%2D55FDF2346F0C%7D).

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B. References

Describe key inputs to the AoA. This should include internal documents, external documents, and any SMEs interviewed. Previous assessments and other artifacts may be included here.

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C. Acronyms

Make a summary table of acronyms used throughout the document.

V2.6, December 2021 15

Template Version History

Version Number

Version Date

Version Description

0.1 5/3/2023 Adopted previous Intake and Analysis team’s AoA template v2.6 and updated it to reflect the Organization Name changes.