RFI_Responses_To__Industry_Questions.xlsx
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- Attached to
- FBO FLASH UPDATE- Reconsideration Federal contract opportunity
- Solicitation number
- DHS-AGILE-00001
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Sheet1
| Industry Questions: THE RFP WILL HAVE PRECEDENCE OVER ANY RESPONSES PROVIDED BY THE RFI. | Government Responses |
| As part of the acquisition process, when does the DHS anticipate vendors submitting their video response, after the Industry Day? | Vendors may submit their video responses no later than July 1, 2016. |
| Elaborate on the procurement strategy for future task orders. | Procurement strategy will be determined at the task order level. |
| Anticipated number of awardees: Given the cost of supporting a large contract |
vehicles, some vendors must consider the opportunity cost and likelihood of being
| competitive if the government clearly intends to award work to multiple candidates. | The Government anticipates 8 to 12 awardees. | |
| Has DHS released an anticipated date, location and registration procedure for the Agile Development Services industry day that is to take place this month? | Industry Day will be on 6/29/2016. Location posted on FBO. | |
| How much advance notice would we receive from DHS when the 1 day challenge will be held? | This information will be in the RFP. | |
| Will this procurement contain a small business set-aside track? | To be determined | |
| At what point in the acquisition process will the Government feedback video be an option? | The video submission is optional and does not preclude vendors from submitting proposals. Government anticipates feedback no later than July 8. | |
| Will this be an optional first step in the process? | The video is optional. This does not preclude vendors from submitting RFP proposals. | |
| What is the anticipated number of awards? | See row 4 | |
| What is the expected number of task orders in first and subsequent years? | The Government anticipates decentralized ordering therefore this information is unknown. | |
| What is the range of size of awards? | The Government anticipates decentralized ordering therefore this information is unknown. | |
| What is meant by non-traditional organizations? | Non-traditional companies are vendors that do not normally do business with the Federal Government. | |
| What will be the mix of small, large, and non-traditional business awardees? | To be determined | |
| Will the procurement evaluation be weighted for small or non-traditional businesses? | To be determined | |
| Is DHS-specific past performance required or weighted favorably? | This information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| Would DHS be open to using contractor facilities and assigning a DHS proctor (or team) | ||
| to each competitor site? | This information to be determined at the task order level | |
| What are the start and end times for the challenge? | To be determined | |
| Will DHS require Offerors to submit a written proposal as part of this procurement? | This information will be in the RFP. | |
| In addition to the technical evaluation criteria, will there be other evaluation criteria such as past performance, management, key personnel, or cost? | The evaluation criteria will be outlined in the RFP. | |
| When is the anticipated RFP date and award date? Can DHS please provide a rough timeline of events for this procurement? | The anticipated RFP release date is 7/11/2016 and award date before the end of the fiscal year. Rough timeline of events will be provided at the industry day. Industry Day slide presentation will be posted on FBO. | |
| How many awards does DHS anticipate making as a result of this procurement? | Please see row 4 for Government response. | |
| Under which schedule or contract vehicle does DHS anticipate releasing this procurement? | This procurement strategy will be discussed at the industry day. The Government anticipates an DHS-wide Enterprise IDIQ contract. | |
| Are indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts anticipated? | See row 23 | |
| Will this acquisition be a single award IDIQ or are you expecting to award to multiple vendors? | The Government anticipates multiple IDIQ vendor awards. | |
| Will all CLINS be a Fixed Price contract type? | The Government anticipates firm fixed price CLINS with the exception of T&M for travel purposes only. | |
| Does the government expect all task orders to follow the Firm Fixed Price (FFP) model? | See Row 26 | |
| For how many awardees is the government planning? | See row 4 | |
| Under what contract vehicle will this be released? | See row 23 | |
| Classical firm fixed price and/or labor hour contract types may not enable DHS to achieve its intended outcomes. Vendor recommends that the pricing model focuses on outputs and/or deliverables. Would DHS consider optional pricing models such as T&M, Labor Hours, or Cost Plus? | See row 26 | |
| At the task order level, will DHS prescribe the exact number of resources per team? | TBD at the task order level. | |
| Similar to the GSA Agile Delivery BPA, how does DHS anticipate this BPA working in co-ordination with EAGLE II and Oasis? | This information will be discussed at the Industry Day. | |
| Is the Government expecting Small/Large business awardees for this BPA? If so, how many of each? | See row 14 | |
| Can you provide an anticipated size range of TOs – small, medium, large? | See row 12 | |
| Will all the task order will be Firm Fixed Price? | See row 26 | |
| Which DHS components is this contract vehicle anticipated to support? | The Government anticipated a DHS wide enterprise vehicle. | |
| Does DHS anticipate multiple awards on this contract vehicle? How many? | See row 4 | |
| Does DHS anticipate separate large business and small business tracks for this contract vehicle? | This information will be in the RFP. | |
| Where in the evaluation timeline does this optional evaluation occur? Is it before or after the technical evaluation? | Video submission are prior to RFP proposal submission | |
| How many awards is the government planning on issuing? | See row 4 | |
| If this was a new requirement or if there was an incumbent contractor currently performing these services? If there is an incumbent can you please provide the Contractor, Contract #, Award date, Expiration, and value? | This acquisition is a new requirement. | |
| Expected number of awards under the contract vehicle | See row 4 | |
| Ceiling value of the contract vehicle | This information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| What kind of fixed price? The most efficient way for the contractor and the government is the Fixed Price Incentive Fee (FPIF), which provides less risk to the government and increased incentive to the contractor to meet the quality, time and performance standards. | See row 26. This information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| Is DHS intending to award to both large and small businesses? | TBD | |
| Will a certain number of awards be set aside for small business primes? | TBD | |
| Will the prime contract holder be required to have a facilities clearance? Will | ||
| subcontractors be required to have a facilities clearance? | Information will be provided in the RFP | |
| Since this is a multi-vendor BPA, will each call be a separate competition? | See row 25. The government has not determined the procurement strategy. | |
| It appears the approach to this procurement is to have a multi-award contract vehicle where the selected vendors compete for individual Task Orders. Is it DHS’ expectation that each vendor will have the flexibility to move resources on/off the contract team as needed? | TBD | |
| Will experience gained as a subcontractor count towards past performance citations? | This information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| We request that DHS identify how many contractors DHS intends to select as a result of this acquisition, and define DHS’s approach for using this flexible vehicle to assign work across Contractors. | See row 4 and row 23. | |
| Will this be a single or multiple award? | The government anticipates a multiple award. | |
| How do the challenge exercise (Attachment B) and video submission (Attachment C) factor into the evaluation process? Are both required of all vendors that submit a proposal? Is there a written proposal as well? Is there a downselect process where a subset of the vendors will be invited to participate in a challenge exercise? | The video submission is voluntary. All other information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| Are all components in DHS planning to use this BPA? | This will be a strategically sourced contract vehicle that the government anticipates to be mandatory for use. | |
| How many BPA awardees does DHS anticipate? | See row 4 | |
| Will there be a small business component requirement for large businesses? | TBD | |
| Will all task orders released on the BPA be full and open or will there be some that are a small business set aside? If there will be a set aside, has DHS determined this ratio? | Procurement strategy is still to be determined. | |
| Will there be a mandate at the department level that software engineering services will be directed toward this vehicle over component contracts such as FEMA EADIS or DHS EAGLE II? | This will be a strategically sourced contract vehicle. | |
| Do you anticipate an on-ramp procedure for this contract? | TBD | |
| Is past performance as a federal prime contractor required for this contract? | See row 16 | |
| Is it the government’s intent that the Challenge will be the sole source of evaluating the vendors’ competency? | No | |
| How many vendors does DHS intend on awarding this vehicle to? | See row 4 | |
| Will the contract award be a single award or multiple award, and if a multiple award how will the Department oversee the interaction of the multiple contractors? | This contract award will consist of multiple decentralized orders. | |
| The method by which DHS will select the organizations to participate in the one | ||
| day prototype development. | TBD | |
| The steps DHS will take to ensure a fair and equitable evaluation environment for | ||
| the demonstration of capabilities. | Evaluation team with follow RFP criteria and the source selection plan. | |
| We would like to know if the opportunity will be small business set-aside? | TBD | |
| What is DHS’ current timeline for this solicitation? When does it expect to issue a final RFP? | See row 21 | |
| Will there be separate Small Business (SB) and Unrestricted tracks for the new contract vehicle? If there is a SB track, will such businesses be allowed to “bid up” and compete for task orders competed on an unrestricted basis? | TBD | |
| If a SB track is offered, can a SB be included in the unrestricted track if it graduates out of its SB size standard (we strongly recommend such a path so as not to penalize SB firms that achieve sustainable growth)? | TBD | |
| How will DHS conduct the acquisition? After the optional Government feedback period, what will be the next phases of the acquisition leading to award? | Instructions will be in the RFP. | |
| How many awards does the Government intend to make – both in total and between any SB and Unrestricted tracks? | The Government anticipates 8-12 awardees | |
| Will any written documentation be required from Offerors during the acquisition process? | Yes | |
| Does DHS intend to “down-select” to a set group of Offerors who will then participate in the technical evaluation process described in Attachment B of the RFI? If so, how does DHS intend to go about the down-select process, and what criteria and evaluation factors will be established for it? If not, how will DHS accommodate the expected large number of firms who will likely bid on the vehicle? | The voluntary video submission will be used as an advisory down select. | |
| Will the new contract vehicle be “mandatory for use” or “mandatory for consideration” by DHS’ component agencies? | This strategically sourced vehicle is anticipated to be mandatory for use. | |
| For a previous bid in which we did a similar exercise, they provided us with a sample exercise. |
Will there be a sample? The sample allowed us to gauge how many people we would need on the
| team, and prep our staff for what a potential exercise would be like. | This information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| Does the Government intend to use a multi-stage down-select process to identify offerors who will be invited to the 1-day technical evaluation? | no | |
| Interested in finding out more information on as to what type of help the government will provide small organizations that are starting up or entering the federal marketplace to represent on this proposal? | TBD | |
| What will be the duration and timeline for this contract? | Information will be released in the RFP | |
| In the industry day, will DHS help connect small business with prime contractors pursuing this proposal? | yes | |
| When is the anticipated date of the RFP? | RFP release date is tentatively set for 7/11/2016. | |
| Is this BPA positioned as the contract vehicle for all of the DHS components to consider first before turning to other contract vehicles for software support services? | See row 21 | |
| What will the timing be for delivery of the “low cost video” in relation to the final solicitation and will DHS | ||
| encourage potential teaming partners to coordinate in submitting the video? | The voluntary video submission will be due no later than July 1, 2016. | |
| Does your company currently have any contracts that would meet this requirement, if so what are they? What is your business size (small business, other than small, etc.)? Are you a non-traditional? Is the intent of the question to do a Market Analysis on contract vehicles (such as Schedule 70, Alliant, Eagle) available in the community of vendors who respond? Or are you looking for Task Orders to understand the Past Performance of vendors who respond? |
| The intent of the question was to obtain information for market research purposes. | ||
| How many vendors are you considering for this BPA | See row 4 | |
| How are you planning on evaluating small business submissions over large business submissions? | TBD | |
| There are situations where a contractor working on one contract may create an OCI for another procurement. Are there any OCI concerns that will prevent companies from participating on this procurement? | OCI concerns will be addressed in the RFP. | |
| For Top Secret software development efforts, how is the Government going to keep the teams isolated from the other Agile teams? | TBD | |
| Does the Government have a scoresheet with metrics they will be evaluating against? If so, can the Government please release the metrics? | The evaluation factors will be addressed in the RFP. | |
| Would this technical evaluation be done for each individual offer under this agile | ||
| structure, or would it be undergone one time to be an "approved" agile vendor? | TBD | |
| The cost to bring 5+ individual to Washington D.C. and put them to work for one |
day on this evaluation is not insignificant. We estimate that salary and travel and housing expenses would be at least $6,700. Will the teams be compensation for this evaluation or is it at our own expense? Should it be build into the cost of the fixed-price team. This is more or less of an issue depending on the answer to
| question #1. | The Government will not compensate vendors for travel for the one day evaluation. | |
| Who owns the work product produced in the evaluation? What will happen to it | ||
| after the evaluation? | The vendor will own the product. | |
| Will there be a separate track for different socioeconomic categories? | No | |
| Will the offeror be required to provide any written proposal highlighting their expertise in Agile Software Development to include their successful Technical approach, responsive Management and Staffing approach and relevant corporate experience delivering similar Agile Development support? | TBD | |
| Does DHS place any limitations on working with agency project team members who are | ||
| not U.S. nationals but are working in the U.S. on visas or green cards? | The Personal Security Division (PSD) does not determine whether foreign nationals can work on a contract. However, there are residency requirements in order for our office to complete a background investigation. Individuals must have resided in the U.S. for at least 3 of the last 5 years in order for us to possibly obtain sufficient background investigative coverage. |
Once an agency has been selected as a primary vendor to provide agile design and development support to DHS, will there be an annual process for agencies to maintain
| their status as approved vendors? | TBD. This information will be provided in the RFP. | |
| Will the contractor’s proposed teams need to have a security clearance at time of submission of the proposal, will an active clearance be needed for team members who will work on the challenge exercise? | Clearances requirements are determined at the task order level. A clearance will not be required for the Challenge. | |
| Discuss how the EOD/Clearance process will be handled across components. | Clearances are evaluated at the task order level for each order | |
| Facility clearance level: The government indicated that approximately 5% of the work |
will require a top secret clearance. Will the government accept Prime contractors who are not currently supporting cleared work? This may eliminate some non-traditional, product only
| driven, or industry focused vendors. | Only eligible contractors (e.g. those who hold the required level of security clearance) may be submitted as candidates to work on a classified contract. They must already have their security clearance, which is issued by DoD and not DHS. | |
| How will the personnel security process work? We know that each DHS component has a separate clearance process to on-board resources. If a team is cleared in one component will there be reciprocity for agile teams to then go and work at other components? | ||
| DHS utilizes reciprocity in accordance with federal regulations and Executive Orders (E.O.), unless there is information indicating an employee may not satisfy the E.O. standards. | ||
| Which security clearances and levels in particular would likely be most applicable to DHS? For staffing purposes, such information would allow a contractor to better respond to DHS staffing surge requests or when team sizes change. | DHS national security positions require either a Secret or Top Secret security clearance. SCI access may also be required. | |
| How long does the DHS security clearance process take before new personnel can start on the contract, both for personnel who do not have an existing DHS security clearance and for those who already have one? | The time frame varies widely depending on whether an individual already has the required investigation and clearance, or what is in an individual’s background. Individuals could start as soon as a few days or weeks upon PSD’s receipt of the request. In other cases, it could take several months. | |
| Which roles will require a top secret clearance? | TBD at task order award. | |
| How will the DHS security clearance process work if teams can support any DHS component? | DHS utilizes reciprocity in accordance with federal regulations and Executive Orders (E.O.), unless there is information indicating an employee may not satisfy the E.O. standards. | |
| Attachment A (under Scope) states the contractor shall have the capability to provide teams and individuals at all security clearance levels. The Government (including DHS) has recently released numerous RFPs and RFIs seeking contractors to provide agile teams in a timely manner. One significant limitation for contractors to do this is the slowness of the Government’s security clearance process - sometimes it takes months for the Government to clear a contractor. Is there any way the Government can accelerate this process to help meet its requests for rapidly available, complete agile teams? | DoD issues security clearances for contractors, DHS does not and has no input into their timeliness. | |
| Will the Government treat task orders with a secret clearance separately as a part of the procurement process? | TBD at task order award. | |
| What will be the evaluation criteria for the BPA responses? Attachment B contains evaluation criteria directed at the one-day demonstration not the complete response. How are the other parts of the response evaluated and weighted – e.g. video, two page methodology, team composition, price realism? | Evaluation criteria will be addressed in the RFP. | |
| Will DHS consider maintaining clearances/EODs at the vehicle level so that individuals can stay cleared between active tasks? | DHS does not maintain contractor clearance levels. They do reciprocally honor those that are valid by DoD. | |
| In regards to security clearance levels, what is the expected range of clearance level requirements for partnering with DHS on an agile design or development engagement? | TBD at task order award. | |
| Can the DHS provide insight into the application development needs (e.g., PHP, headless, etc.)? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| The statement of work mentions an Agile team typically will consist of a product manager, designer, engineer, and developer. What type of skill sets and experience levels is the DHS looking for as part of these Agile teams? | This specific skills and experience level required within a team will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Will the contractor’s Agile team be working with DHS in-house staff as part of this DHS Procurement Innovation Lab? If so, can you provide any insight as to the skill set of the in-house DHS team? | No | |
| Will the contractor’s proposed teams need to have a security clearance at time of submission of the proposal, will an active clearance be needed for team members who will work on the challenge exercise? | No | |
| Does DHS intend for this work to be performed on-site a Government location? Or can the Contractor hold daily standups and scrums via teleconference? | Place of performance is dependent on the task order level requirements and could include onsite performance. | |
| However, would the government consider a hybrid of FFP and labor hour for each Agile Team? Meaning an initial T&M budget would be established for the dedicated team of FTEs and an NTE bucket of hours for FFP that would allow the flexibility to have additional team members engaged. | See row 26 | |
| Clearly define the expected minimum duration and size of each engagement/task order. | No minimum duration or size planned. | |
| Describe DHS’ plan to incentivize the components’ use of the vehicle. | As a DHS strategically sourced vehicle, this vehicle will be mandatory use for DHS components with requirements that fit within the contract scope. | |
| Elaborate on the procurement strategy for future task orders. | All DHS components will have access to the vehicle and it will be mandatory for components to use when they have requirements that fit in the scope. Additional information will be provided at the industry day event. | |
| Specifically, the type of software development the Agile teams would be performing. Is this intended for multiple Applications? Specific COTS or customer build software? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| The structure / size of the Agile teams were included but it did not mention the number of teams planned for this work. | The maximum size for task orders will be 4 agile teams per task order with a maximum of 10 people on each team. | |
| It was not clear who is responsible for delivery of software to the Production environment. Is this truly a DevOps environment and an Agile team should include those skillsets? Or would there be a separate group to actually release the code. | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Would appreciate additional information on hosting requirements / solution in regards to cloud computing. | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| How would the government determine “high quality” code? Recommend running a code quality software package after the development is completed. | The government is planning to do a code review as a part of the demo day. | |
| Would the teams be required to pre-package a CI solution prior to their technical demonstration (TD) meeting? Or would that be part of the session? | The government does not plan to require pre-package a CI solution; however, will not preclude use of predeveloped scripts or installed software in the vendor cloud instance. | |
| Enterprise accreditation: Will the government require the vendor to possess any |
enterprise-wide accreditation (i.e. CMMI, ITIL)? This may also eliminate potential candidates who are not accredited or in the process of working towards accreditation, and
| are not yet in a position to fully support the mission. | No | |
| What is the application landscape? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| What is the Definition of Done? Once this is established, assumptions can be made in-order | ||
| to make a better business decision. | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Will there be an independent functional |
testing organization besides the embedded
| tester? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Who is responsible for Data Management? Are there data management strategies, | ||
| processes and tools in place? | Government is responsible and tools/processes vary depending on the task order | |
| Will the challenge be based on existing code base? If so, please provide the technology stack to align the right resources. | No, the challenge is currently not planned to be based on existing code. The challenge will allow greenfield development in any modern technology stack. | |
| What is the expected usage of the vehicle, and can DHS provide additional information regarding the tasks: |
o Information on the strategy of how the vehicle will roll out to DHS components, including information on which components will have access to it and when.
o The targeted average duration of a task.
o The intended scope of the vehicle, if it will be available for new development efforts, O&M tasks, or a combination of both types of work.
o How will the personnel security process work? We know that each DHS component has a separate clearance process to on-board resources. If a team is cleared in one component will there be reciprocity for agile teams to then go and work at other components?
What is the expected timeframe of the acquisition and the period of performance?
How will the ordering/proposal process work after the vehicle is established? Will the proposal process include a written response to a Task Order RFP, or will there be a different bid process?
| All DHS components will have access to the vehicle and it will be mandatory use. The average duration of a task order is projected to be 1-2 years. The scope include design and development of new and existing systems. Additional information will be provided at the industry day event and in the actual RFP. |
| 1. Does DHS Plan on implementing this product within the Cloud? There is mention of Cloud Computing and Agile Development and Mobility within Attachment A – Page 1 (Background) |
2. If this solution will be stored within the cloud, will security requirements be needed to ensure the solution is secure?
3. Scope (Page 1): Agile Teams include 5-10 contractor staff contradicts Attachment B – Page 1 – Paragraph 3: Maximum of 12 individuals to perform as a team. Does DHS anticipate a surge in development that is required to complete the task?
4. Will Video Submission be mandatory? Will Orals be acceptable in lieu of video submissions?
5. Will DHS Accept Multi-disciplinary personnel to reduce the size of the desired Agile Team?
6. Is DHS willing to provide an overview of the desired solution so Offerors can determine the Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) to give DHS a competitive price that will ensure the project will not have to be re-released and/or recompleted?
| 7. Attachment D – Pricing Methodology: Will DHS release examples of Task Orders so review of ceiling prices can be accurately qualified to support all DHS Task Orders released? Scope, Size, and Complexity impact potential hours needed to fulfill Task Order Execution and Completion. | 1. & 2 .This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. 3. Fixed priced teams will be provided via this contract. 4. No to both questions. 5. Yes 6. Yes. 7. Yes | |
| What types of work does the government intend to procure under a future solicitation? Does it make sense to offer multiple tracks or portfolios of “work” based on technology and/or mission capability? | Work that fits under the scope of this vehicle, including design and development support. | |
| What are the outcome-based deliverables from this solicitation or task order(s) expected under this | ||
| contract? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Will the government describe the Agile technical and management standards the Government intends |
to use? Examples include: 1) Scaled Agile practices and frameworks (e.g., SAFe); 2) tools for software development, version control, code quality, testing, continuous integration and delivery, and Agile lifecycle management; 3) platform and component technologies; and 4) metrics for assessing
| performance. | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Does the government expect to deliver Agile Design and Development Support Services using a | ||
| common model and framework, and TRM? Will task orders incorporate local component variations? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| What is meant by non-traditional organizations? What are example non-traditional | ||
| organizations? | Non-Traditional organization is intended to mean an entity that is not currently performing and has not performed work/support for the federal government. | |
| The list of agile ceremonies is very Scrum-specific. Will DHS be open to Kanban, Lean | ||
| UX, and other agile methodologies beyond Scrum? | Yes | |
| Will other DevOps tasks like infrastructure as code or continuous monitoring be included | ||
| as possible scope? | Yes | |
| Will challenge parameters be provided in advance? | The government plans to provide the challenge details to Offerors in advance, however the prioritized backlog will be provided to each Offeror by the government on the day of the challenge. | |
| Are we limited to 12 participants in total or active at any point in time during the | ||
| challenge? | Yes, 12 in total and any participants must be onsite. | |
| Will the government assign a product owner to work with the team? | Yes, the government plans to assign a product owner. | |
| What facilities will be provided: white boards, wall space, table sizes and configurations, | ||
| etc.? | The government will define what facilities Offerors will have access to in the RFP. It is anticipated that vendors will be required to bring their own IT hardware and software, including Wi-Fi & computers. | |
| Aside from working code, what are the expectations for the end product? Will functional | ||
| prototypes be accepted? | The government plans to require a minimum viable product that demonstrates a user experience. | |
| Would DHS be open to using contractor facilities and assigning a DHS proctor (or team) | ||
| to each competitor site? | No | |
| What are the start and end times for the challenge? | Current plan is a start time as early as 7am and as late as 10am and an end time as early as 4pm and as late as 7pm. | |
| Will DHS perform dry-runs of the challenge to ensure that the facilities are appropriate, | ||
| especially mobile hot-spot connectivity? | DHS is planning to provide vendors access to the facility/space before their assigned day for the technical challenge/exercise. | |
| Why is the presentation scheduled for a full hour? Is it expected to be presented on the |
same day as the challenge? Are teams expected to deliver supporting collateral with the
| presentation (narrative of approach and activities / outcomes) | Yes | |
| GSA provided a helpful list of detailed of evaluation criteria prior to the challenge | ||
| portion of their Agile Delivery Services procurement. Will DHS do the same? | The evaluation criteria will be outlined in the RFP. | |
| What roles should be include in the estimates, i.e. product manager, designer, engineer, | ||
| and developer? | The information will be in the RFP. | |
| Given DHS’s desire for experienced teams, will DHS mandate minimum years’ of | ||
| experience for agile team members? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| In Attachment B, Technical Evaluation, Section Engineering, Last bullet: “The degree to which the Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline is automated to provide continuous deployment” will be hard to measure. What metrics will DHS use? | The evaluation criteria will be outlined in the RFP. | |
| Attachment C, DHS Agile Design and Development Contract Support Government Feedback video submission appears to be a new approach with regards to Agile support acquisitions. Will the government also request a written response to accompany the video and how long will the government give the offerors to produce this video from the official government video request date? | No, the Government will not be requesting a written response with the video. The voluntary video submission is due no later than July 1, 2016. | |
| First, what level of access and involvement will the contractor(s) have with end-user customers making use of the vehicle? | The access and involvement with users is expected to be high. | |
| What is the government’s vision of a successful staffing process? | Vendors should have access to highly-qualified resources to quickly meet the government's technical requirements at the task order level. | |
| How will DHS procurement practices support Agile projects. Will it expect to have procurement staff dedicated to handling Agile procurements, or will its existing staff support them in addition to traditional procurements? In addition, will DHS tailor its System Life Cycle (SLC) processes to blend with Agile and its compliance gate reviews to enable Agile teams to meet their commitments within their Sprint Cycles will further our ability to fully understand the implications of Agile procurements. | Yes, acquisition staff will be familiar with agile. DHS is in the process of tailoring the DHS SELC to better facilitate agile development. | |
| Explicit expectations of where the contractor development teams are to be located are suggested. Might they need to be onsite, at the DHS HQ or its satellite office, or offsite at the contractor facilities with a secure access to the DHS OneNet? | The locations of contractor teams would be determined on a task order basis. It is anticipated that most of the onsite work would be done in the DC, MD, VA area. | |
| Metrics reporting – Can consistencies be identified across DHS components? How often should project metrics be used and communicated? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| For the proposed technical evaluation, when would the government provide its questions to the Offeror; will it be during the 60 minute demonstration or during the status checks? | The government plans to ask questions throughout the day of the challenge. | |
| Must the Offeror’s team be fully comprised of individuals that are being bid on the proposal for which the technical evaluation is being done? | No, the offeror's team does not need to be fully comprised during the technical evaluation. | |
| With the 5-10 individuals making up a proposed fixed price Agile team, would the government ever expect to have them be named or designated as key personnel in certain procurements? | Yes, an individual could be considered Key, however an entire team would not be considered key. | |
| Will DHS issue a detailed Statement of Work for this requirement? | The RFP will clearly define the contract requirements. | |
| Can DHS please provide a representative example of the type of challenge exercise that will be used to evaluate Offeror teams? | DHS will not provide a representative example of the type of challenge exercise that will be used to evaluate Offeror teams. | |
| How involved will DHS staff be, specifically the stakeholder community? For example, will stakeholders be an active part of every sprint process, or will delegates be established? If delegates, will these be delegates from the stakeholders’ program areas, or IT delegates? | Yes, DHS stakeholders, across both business and IT, are expected to have an active role in the development lifecycle. | |
| Will DHS be actively operating as product owners? This includes being the ultimate decision maker on priorities, features, timing, etc., as well as product direction. If not, how is this expected to be handled? | Yes, DHS stakeholders are expected to have an active role. | |
| What tools does DHS specifically have and want to continue using? What tools or tool categories is DHS open to contractors using on DHS’ behalf? | This level of detail for tools and categories will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Does DHS currently have a group managing the DevOps toolset? If so, could you give more detail on how this is being managed (e.g., 24x7; just the infrastructure; full tool management including templates, reporting, and metrics)? | No, each component has a group managing the DevOps toolset at the component level. | |
| The agile software development model is a framework that involves constant reprioritization of backlog items, and as a result a constantly changing feature set for deliverables. This model means that rather than defining deliverables up front, you are constantly re-evaluating what will be delivered. How would DHS characterize the stakeholder level of commitment to the agile framework? | A high level of stakeholder commitment to the agile framework exists. | |
| A DevOps(Sec) model requires ongoing collaboration across all teams, beyond the typical development team disciplines. How involved will the DHS operations and security teams be? | It is expected they will be very involved. | |
| How close are DHS Ops and Security teams to doing all their work in an automated manner? For example, building all environments using automated scripts, scanning machines and collecting the data using automated scripts. | This level is defined at the task order level as each component has differing processes. | |
| Is DHS planning to deploy the agile and DevOps(Sec) environments in a real cloud that supports instant elasticity and integration with DevOps toolsets (e.g., AWS or Azure)? | This information is at the task order level, however yes there are current DHS components that use AWS or Azure. | |
| Details on how the Government plans to evaluate the agile approaches (Scrum, Kanban) | ||
| that Offerors use during the challenge exercise | Details on how the Government plans to evaluate the agile approaches will be outlined in the RFP. | |
| Clear definition of prescribed agile roles (i.e.: mobile vs. web developer, developer vs. | ||
| engineer, product vs. delivery manager) | DHS is not prescribing Agile roles. DHS provided example roles and is expecting Offerors to propose roles in their task order level proposals that are appropriate to the requirements. | |
| How are you defining the difference between an engineer and a developer? | DHS is not prescribing Agile roles. DHS provided example roles and is expecting Offerors to propose roles in their task order level proposals that are appropriate to the requirements. | |
| Define “modern technical stack”. Is there a list of technologies that Offerors | ||
| need to have experience/expertise with? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Does the Government require that all source code be released as open | ||
| source? | No, all source code is not expected to be required as open source. This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Provide more clarity around the automated testing requirements. |
Recommend splitting the automation tools and implementation methodologies into two separate requirements. Automation tools and implementation methodologies be identified at the task order level.
| Provide more clarity around – “The contractor shall support its own code | ||
| while in production.” | The contractor will be required to provide support to the code that they have developed and deployed into production. | |
| Include details of security testing, specifically, static code analysis. | Security testing, specifically, static code analysis will be addressed at the task order level. | |
| More clarification needed on the challenge and the associated skill sets | ||
| required. For example: Building web or mobile apps. | The intention for the challenge is to require Offerors to design & develop a web application. |
Additional information pertaining to the challenge will be in the RFP.
| How much detail, if any, will be provided to Offerors regarding the | ||
| challenge prior to the event? | The government plans to provide the challenge details to Offerors in advance, however a prioritized backlog will be provided to each Offeror by the government on the day of the challenge. | |
| We assume that all the work could be conducted at the contractor’s location given the appropriate security environments are available. Is this correct? | Security levels and details will be identified at the task order level. | |
| Attachment A references the U.S. Digital Services Playbook. Play 5 from the playbook references the TechFAR Handbook_2014-08-07. In part C, question 1, Agencies using Agile software development can meet FAR requirements (15.203) by identifying a Product Vision in lieu of full requirements. Will DHS employ this methodology and if so, how will project scope (for pricing and scheduling purposes) be identified from the vision? | Yes, components within DHS can employ this methodology. Project scope and pricing will be identified at the task order level. | |
| Will a there be a requirement to be appraised at least at CMMI Development Maturity Level 3 or demonstrate equivalence? | It is not expected. | |
| Is the challenge exercise the only technical criterion that will be evaluated for a contract award? | No, Evaluation criteria will be identified in the RFP. | |
| Will the location of the challenge exercise be in the Washington, DC area? | Yes | |
| The requirement to post the video to YouTube may limit the project options an offeror may use to garner feedback from the government. Many Department of Defense projects forbid publication of any project-related information on forums such as YouTube. Would DHS consider alternate secure file transfer options? For example, would downloading the video from the offeror’s FTP server be acceptable? | No alternate secure file transfer options are not currently being considered. | |
| Is DHS proposing the use of fixed price teams for a fixed amount of time (schedule) to accomplish a fixed set of functionality? Alternatively, will the definition of “complete” evolve through the execution of the Agile Scrum process? | Yes, DHS is using Fixed Priced teams to support DHS components in delivering capabilities. The definition of complete will defined at the task order level. | |
| What is the smallest number of time increments the Government expects to procure Agile design and | ||
| development team(s) for? | No minimum duration or size planned. | |
| Given that most small businesses do not typically maintain a bench of highly-qualified, skilled developers | ||
| with the necessary clearances, what is the ramp up/transition period for these micro acquisition task orders? | After task order award, the ramp up timeframe will vary depending on the DHS component and the complexity of their requirements | |
| DevOps” (p. 3) Is the contractor responsible for standing up the CI/CD environment and associated | ||
| automated workflow processes? | This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| User Training” (p. 3) Can the Government clarify what is meant by “user-centered, task-based training | ||
| to users in support of system deployment? | Specific user training requirements will be defined at the task order level. | |
| “Metrics Reporting” (p. 3) Can the Government confirm that the Contractor will be responsible for | ||
| developing release roadmaps, and schedule? | This level of metrics detailed in requirements will be defined at the task order level. | |
| How does the Government plan to safeguard against these types of tactics intended to undermine the | ||
| integrity of the demo process? | The Government is contemplating requiring Non Disclosure agreements for Demo participants. | |
| In regards to the “Agile” technical evaluation factor (p. 2), |
• How will the Government objectively determine the “degree to which the Offeror fosters efficient communication in their team” or “effectively uses artifacts in their Agile process?”
| • What constitutes “efficient communication” or “effective use of artifacts” in an Agile process? | The evolution criteria will be clearly identified within the RFP. |
| In regards to the “Design” technical evaluation factor (p. 2), |
• How will the Government objectively determine the “degree to which the Offeror’s approach to learning about users is effective” or the “degree to which the design yields an optimal user-experience?” What are the metrics for determining optimality of user-experiences? Will this information be provided as part of the initial input to the Offeror’s team on the demo day? Is this determined based on the 60-minute demonstration and the ensuing Q&A discussions?
• How will the Government objectively determine the “degree to which the Offeror effectively makes tradeoff decisions between user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility?” Is based on the 60-minute demonstration and the ensuing Q&A discussions? Is the Offeror’s team expected to document their design
| decisions/rationale, given the limited allotted time? | Section M (Evaluation Criteria) of the RFP will clearly outline the government evaluation criteria and approach. |
| Is each Offeror expected to stand up/stage its own Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) |
environment for the purpose of the technical demo, prior to the demo day? Similarly, is each Offeror expected to
| establish a code repository in preparation for the technical demo? | The government does not plan to require pre-package a CI solution; however, it not preclude use of predeveloped scripts or installed software in the vendor cloud instance. | |
| How does the government anticipate fixing scope under this methodology (Function Points, Development Milestones, Specific Deliverables, Hours Worked, etc.) in order to determine when a change of scope has occurred? | Changes of scope will be identified and addressed at the IDIQ level. | |
| Under what conditions can/will changes to team sizes occur, and how will those adjustments be evaluated and approved? | Changes to team size and conditions will be defined at the task order level. | |
| What percentage of opportunities |
will require the vendor to perform
| onsite? | This will be determined on the task order level as each component has different requirements. |
| What is the expected typical |
engagement period (base period)
| for an agile team? | The typical engagement period would be 1-2 years however that is determined on the task order level. |
| What are the expected minimum |
and maximum engagement periods
| (base periods) for an agile team? | There will be no minimum or maximum engagement periods. |
| The “Code Development” bullet did |
not mention the use of Open Source Software (OSS) – what is
| DHS’s attitude towards OSS? | DHS is a proponent of open source software. | |
| What are DHS’s requirements around architecture and security? | The high level requirements for architecture and security will be provided as part of the RFP however more detailed requirements may be provided at the task order level. | |
| What is DHS’s attitude towards the use of commodity cloud infrastructure? | DHS is a proponent of commodity cloud infrastructure. | |
| Does DHS allow vendor employees to use their secure, vendor-owned | ||
| laptops? | This depends on the task order requirements but yes some components allow contractors to work on their own laptops using VPN and initiatives such as DHS Work Place as a Service. | |
| Will the government require a written technical response in addition to the challenge exercise? | Yes, the government will require a written submission along with the challenge exercise. | |
| Is it the expectation of the government that the offeror will provide a fully configured suite of |
Application Development Life Cycle Management tools in addition to the specified equipment and hotspot to satisfy the DevOps, automated test, and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) aspects of the challenge? Or is the suite expected to be configured during the challenge? Offerors will be required to bring their own IT equipment, including hardware and software.
The government does not plan to require a pre-packaged CI solution; however, will not preclude use of predeveloped scripts or installed software in a vendor cloud instance.
| Does the government expect demonstrations of software or instead strictly dialogue with project | |
| team members? | The government expects demonstrations of software and dialogue with project |
team members?
| Can the offeror feature more than one project in the 5-minute video submission? | Yes | |
| Does the government intend to use any of the ideas, processes, and best practices demonstrated in | ||
| the offerors’ videos as input into upcoming solicitations? | No the government does not intend to use any of the ideas, processes, and best practices demonstrated in the offerors’ videos as input into upcoming solicitations? | |
| Do you envision scenarios where DHS employees would also have a role on the |
team as developers, product owners and designers? We have found that projects tend to be more innovative and produce greater results when the customer is able to have multiple active roles on the team. It also fosters a much more collaborative learning environment because everyone is bringing a
| tremendous amount of expertise to the team. | Yes that is possible, including as a Product Owner, Product Manager, or Scrum Master in some cases. This level of detail will be defined at the task order level. | |
| Is Cloud Native platforms for enabling Devops and building and deploying cloud | ||
| native applications in scope? | Yes | |
| Does DHS envision adopting multiple forms of agile development? For example, | ||
| eXtreme Programming, Scrum and SAFe, | Yes | |
| How does the offeror handle changes in requirements based on changing | ||
| business requirements. | The agile methodology is designed for facilitating changing requirements due to changes in business requirements. | |
| How much notice will we have to prepare logistics for the challenge? | The government plans to provide the challenge details to Offerors in advance, however the prioritized backlog will be provided to each Offeror by the government on the day of the challenge. |
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