IT GOVT ONLY_DRAFT ECM ITPM SS BPA PWS.docx

Enterprise Case Management Information Technology Portfolio Management Support Services (ECM ITPM SS)

Draft Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) Work Statement

April 4, 2024

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables Table 1 BPA Labor Categories 17

C.1 BPA INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

0. Purpose The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to enter into one or more General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) against Information Technology (IT) Category Special Item Numbers (SIN) 54151S to obtain Enterprise Case Management Information Technology Portfolio Management Support Services (ECM ITPM SS). IRS may issue firm-fixed price, time & materials, or labor-hour type calls against the BPA which will have a five-year ordering period. IRS will use fixed-price orders to the maximum extent practicable. Comment by Author: Are we not just doing Firm fixed price orders? Explain why and what type of orders will be T&M and/or LH Services will be acquired under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.4 which governs orders placed against the MAS contracts. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 541519, Other Computer Related Services.

This ECM ITPM SS BPA will be established to support the IT Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO) transformation of case management systems across the IRS by acquiring services for:

ECM ITPM SS BPA Task Orders will provide program management capability within the overarching ECM Program Acquisition Strategy that encompasses separate acquisitions for application development services, business-driven program management services, end-user customer support, and operations and maintenance services as part of the ECM lifecycle investment. The level of support needed is dependent upon the level of transformation and application development/configuration taking place across the IRS. The IRS may scale the program management services to be accomplished under the ECM ITPM SS BPA via Task Orders that accommodate the IRS delivery schedule.

0. ECM Introduction ECM is a business-driven transformation program that addresses the need to modernize, upgrade, and consolidate case management systems with similar functionality that are running in the IRS ecosystem today. IRS is in the process of establishing a cloud-based ECM platform to collect and analyze data, catalog issues and potential solutions to accomplish its mission. The legacy case management systems in use result in significant redundancy and overlap in data; and the maintenance on multiple legacy systems with numerous languages, and different structures is costly.

The IRS ECM Office (ECMO) and IT Program Management Office (IT PMO) are partnered organizations responsible for jointly managing the ECM implementation effort. The ECMO is associated with the IRS Services and Enforcement (SE) organization and referred to as the “business organizations”. The IT PMO organization is associated with the Operations Support (OS) organization referred to as the IT organizations. Figure 1 illustrates how ECM is structured within the IRS.

Figure 1 How ECM is Situated Within the IRS (March 2024) The ECM ITPM SS will be awarded under the ECM IT PMO and will be responsible for setting and coordinating priorities, activities, and collaboration between Applications Development, Business and the IT Delivery Partner organizations. ECM ITPM SS contractors are expected to be a contributing partner to concepts, plans, and activities identified in Task Orders that may be awarded under the BPA. The federal government is responsible for program decisions.

The ECM Program will deliver a cloud-based ECM platform that contains a Portfolio of case management Solutions/Products capable of supporting issue-resolution across all IRS’ Lines of Businesses (LOBs) utilizing a selected Commercially available Off-the-Shelf Software (COTS) development platform, currently Pegasystems. The ECM Portfolio of Solutions/Products shall give every authorized IRS employee the ability to see the entire range of issues and communications with an entity, quickly resolve concerns cost effectively, and give visibility to responsible managers. This comprehensive transformation strategy will enhance taxpayer service, modernize business processes, and improve the efficiency of IRS operations.

ECM Portfolio’s Solutions/Products are envisioned to comprise data-driven applications and services that allows for the facilitated sharing of case data and the disposition of cases across multiple user communities and organizational functions. IRS Business and IT organizations partner to define the direction and delivery of case management for the enterprise and to consolidate processes.

The partnership engages all Business Owners by LOB, to identify, standardize and simplify their combined business processes within the LOB into Operational Value Streams (OVS). The Business and IT jointly with the OVS’s Business Owners identify every legacy case management system involved in their OVS along with the system’s capabilities and/or data contained within them. The Business and IT partner initiate the creation of a Portfolio Epic for the OVS in the ECM Portfolio Backlog and determine its initial sequencing/prioritization based on business and IT considerations including decommissioning.

C.1.3 ECM Current Technical Environment The ECM Platform is built on the Pegasystems COTS product hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Gov Cloud. The ECM case repository is the reference source for case status information that will be referenced by all other IRS systems that need case data information. ECM aligns with other enterprise modernization initiatives to lay down a solid ECM Platform foundation of capabilities to support both the technical and business needs of migrated systems. These initiatives currently include:

LOB Migration: To accelerate onboarding of related systems and maximize reusability of common functionality.

Enterprise Digitization and Digitalization: Digitizing paper submissions and extracting pertinent data for processing from different intake channels.

Enterprise Taxpayer Services: Modernizing communication between taxpayers and the IRS (e.g., WebApps/eGain) Enterprise Cloud Services: Providing enterprise-level services in the cloud (e.g., NetHub transit and external gateway services) Enterprise Data Access Applications Programming Interfaces (API) Services: Utilizing strategic initiatives (e.g., Enterprise Data Platform and CADE2 MarketPlace) and modern data access patterns to support ECM.

ECM Data Store: Incorporating secure flexible data storage technology (e.g., MarkLogic NoSQL database) Enterprise Calculator Services: Providing financial, compliance, tax computations and analysis of taxpayer obligations.

C.1.4 ECM Scaled Agile Framework ECM has adopted the Scale Agile Framework (SAFe® ) (https://www.scaledagileframework.com) as its development methodology for ECM Portfolios of Solutions/Products and utilizes the IRS’ tailored One Solution Delivery Life Cycle (OneSDLC) Agile Path based on SAFe® . The Applications Development, Business and IT Delivery Partners contribute their skills within the SAFe® and work is coordinated through the ECMO and IT organizations.

· The ECMO acts as a PMO for IRS Business stakeholders. The ECMO Support Contractor works with Business Owners to prepare for change, provides orientation to the Pegasystems product, analyzes as-is business processes, architecture, and data to provide strategies, plans, lessons learned for Business organizations transitioning to the ECM platform. It provides Business users with ECM platform release training and configuration support related to use of the ECM platform.

· The IRS IT Enterprise PMO acts as the IT PMO for IRS IT Delivery Partner stakeholders. The ECMO and IT PMO are jointly responsible for ECM governance and program decisions. The IT PMO and its ECM ITPM SS Contractor provide program management and coordinate IT delivery partner efforts through the IT PMO task activities described in the Performance Work Statement (PWS) (Task 1). This includes partner commitments to the overall ECM program schedule and PI planning. It provides program management coordination of the ECM technical solution through the Release Management task activities that include coordination of the ECM solution and engineering architecture, enterprise operations, cybersecurity, and Information Resources Accessibility Program (IRAP) supporting these IT delivery partners.

· The Applications Development (AD) IT Delivery Partner delivers the ECM solution's IT application development, operations, and maintenance services. AD contractors work with ECMO, IT PMO, and other IT Delivery Partners, to perform the Development/Modernization/Enhancement (DME) and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of the deployed ECM platform. AD and its contractors work with Business and IT Partners to plan ECM Solution deployment. It maintains requirements, test plans, and configuration changes. It executes development based on PI commitments, conducts unit and integration testing at each iteration, executes performance, regression, 508 and automated testing at each PI.

Partner organizations staff specific roles within federated delivery teams and participate in the governance and planning activities for the ECM Program. Contractors coordinate with the federal employees that lead the ECM delivery efforts. The ECM ITPM SS will provide program management, oversight and governance in support of the IRS IT Delivery Partners identified in the ECM ITPM SS BPA Work Statement.

The ECM Program’s adoption of SAFe® process flows align multiple agile teams and various development lifecycle activities for analysis, design, development, testing, and deployment to a common goal, to deliver value.

C.1.4.1 ECM Development Value Stream Journey Map The Business and IT jointly deliver Epics for OVSs to deliver Solutions/Products utilizing IT Development Value Streams (DVSs) is a tailored OneSDLC Agile Path based on SAFe® . Agile Release Trains (ARTs) of Agile Federated Teams create reusable products, components, and common services to maximize reusability. Solutions/Products within these DVS’ include IT development/configuration, Business prototyping/configuration, and data connections utilizing APIs, Common Services or ETLs to enable targeted legacy system retirements to reduce the IT footprint. As the ECM Portfolio of Solutions/Products matures, individual organizations will retire their legacy case management systems.

C.1.4.2 ECM Program Cadence The ECM Program DVSs produce deliveries of Solutions’/Products’ releases, for both new development and O&M respectively, on a consistent six (6) month cadence and are represented as the Program Release Plan (e.g., Solution Roadmap) which begins with Product Planning Phase and ends with the System Development Phase. Each Program Release follows a tailored OneSDLC Agile Path to meet the IRS governance and compliance which is reviewed/approved represented by the OneSDLC Office Product Planning Review (PPR) then subsequently approved by the appropriate IT Governance Board (GB). The approved PPR represents the set of Solutions/Products releases to be delivered during the System Development Phase along with their associated artifacts. At the end of the System Development Phase of the Program Release, an Integration Readiness Review (IRR) is conducted by the OneSDLC office in which a bundled delivery of all the artifacts associated with the set of Solutions/Products releases artifacts are reviewed/approved by the OneSDLC Office then subsequently approved by the appropriate IT GB.

The portfolio’s future state is created through a purposeful and flexible roadmap. Because some of ECM Portfolio’s initiatives may take years to develop, a planning horizon longer than that captured in the PI roadmap (two to four PIs) is required. The ECM Portfolio and Solution Roadmaps (e.g., Program Release Plan) integrate aspects of the lower-level roadmaps into a more comprehensive view, communicating the larger picture to enterprise and portfolio stakeholders.

C.1.4.3 ECM Strategic Portfolio Review Cadence The ECM Portfolio holds a Strategic Portfolio Review (SPR) event to provide a continuous strategy, implementation, and budget alignment to the Solution Roadmap (e.g., Program Release Plan). The event is focused on achieving and advancing the portfolio vision. To enable DVSs to prepare and respond to any changes, it’s typically held on a quarterly cadence, at least one month before the next PI Planning. Portfolio Sync events also occur monthly when the Lean Portfolio Manager (LPM) uses the lean business case to make a ‘go/no-go’ decision. ‘Go’ confirms Epics are approved for implementation. Some of the changes introduced during the SPRs to achieve the future state will require implementing large initiatives (Epics). Business Epics directly deliver business value, while Enabler Epics are used to advance the Architectural Runway to support upcoming business or technical needs. LPM visualizes and manages the flow of Epics through the Portfolio Kanban following the Portfolio Roadmap. Since Epics often have lots of uncertainty, ECM is utilizing SAFe® ’s Lean Startup Cycle for Epic implementation.

The LPM reviews the Lean Business Case to understand an Epics’ costs while maintaining a high-level view of when the potential new value can be delivered. The Epic’s total cost is the cost of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) within the Epic, which proves or disproves the Epic’s hypothesis and the forecasted implementation cost if the Epic hypothesis is proven true. Upon completing the review, the LPM makes a go/no-go decision for the Epic.

Once approved, Portfolio Epics stay in the portfolio backlog until implementation capacity and budget becomes available for Suppliers and/or one or more ARTs. ECM will integrate with external initiatives per Supplier schedules and priorities. Some examples include integrations with the external Digitized Solution initiative and the Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) initiative. Upon review of Epic’s Business Case’s Incremental Implementation Strategy and Sequencing & Dependencies the implementation will either be pulled into the Solution Train’s Solution Backlog and/or one (1) or more ARTs’ Program Backlog. If the Epic is being implemented by the Solution Train, the Business Case will be reviewed at the next Solution Train – Solution/Product Managers and Solution Train – Solution Architect/Engineers Syncs along with the Epic Owner at which time they will update their Solution Roadmap by creating Solution Epics (Releases) containing the capabilities and/or Supplier Milestones referenced in the Business Case. If the Epic is being implemented by one ART with no Supplier Milestones, the Business Case will skip the Solution Train all together and will be reviewed at the ART’s Product Owner Sync – Product Management meeting only along with the Epic Owner at which time they will update their Program Roadmap by creating/updating Solution Epics (Releases) containing the features referenced in the Business Case.

Once approved, Solution Epics stay in the solution backlog until implementation capacity and budget is confirmed for either the Solution Train and/or ARTs. Based on each Pre-PI Planning event, the Solution Train (based on Solution Roadmap) and/or the ARTs (Program Roadmap) the Solution Backlog Refinement and/or Program Refinement sessions respectively will create/update the Solution’s Vision / Intent for each solution Epic’s capabilities / milestones (Solution Train and Suppliers) and features (ARTs) by finalizing the capabilities (PI+2) and features (PI+1) prior to PI Planning in the Iteration & Planning Iteration for future PIs. Epic Owners help prioritize these items in the Solution and Program backlogs and have some ongoing responsibilities for stewardship and follow-up.

C.1.4.4 ECM Continuous Exploration Cadence Approved, ECM Portfolio set of Solutions/Products Portfolio Epics have exited the SPR / Portfolio Sync processes and are pulled from the Portfolio Backlog into either a Solution Train and/or ART’s Continuous Exploration process via elaboration in which both the Solution Train’s and ARTs’ DVS executes a thirteen (13) week Program Increment (PI). During the thirteenth week of each PI, the ECM Program (including IT AD O&M) conducts a three (3) day PI planning event for the upcoming PI attended by the ECM Program and teams performing Continuous Exploration via Elaboration for the Solution Train and each ART.

For each Solution, high priority capabilities/enabler capabilities (with two iterations of features/enabler features) and acceptance criteria are identified within the Epic’s Lean Business Case based on business needs and are aligned to readiness criteria. Each Agile Federated Team (AFT) performing Continuous Exploration via Elaboration within the Solution Train for a Solution selects a set of capabilities/enabler capabilities and produce PI Objectives that are a summary of the business and technical goals of the AFT performing Continuous Exploration via Elaboration which are then aggregated into the current PI plans. During the execution of PI, Solution Train – Solution/Product Managers and Solution Train – Solution Architect/Engineers Syncs are held weekly to review then approve any Capabilities/Enabler Capabilities that meet “Ready for Approval” (RfA) for entry into the Solution Backlog.

For each Product, high priority features/enabler features (with two iterations of stories/enablers) and acceptance criteria are identified within the Epic’s Lean Business Case based on business needs and are aligned to readiness criteria. Each AFT performing Continuous Exploration via Elaboration within the ART for a Product selects a set of features/enabler features and produce PI Objectives that are a summary of the business and technical goals of the AFTs performing Continuous Exploration via Elaboration which are then aggregated into the current PI plans. During the execution of PI, an ART’s Product Management - Product Owner Sync is held weekly to review then approve any Features/Enabler Features which have met RfA for entry into the Program Backlog.

At the end of the PI planning event for the Solution Train and each ART, the associated AFTs performing Continuous Exploration via Elaboration provide a confidence vote in meeting their PI objectives.

C.1.4.5 ECM Continuous Integration Cadence Approved, prioritized Solutions capabilities/enabler capabilities and Products features/enabler features that have exited the Continuous Exploration process are pulled from the Solution/Program Backlogs respectively into the continuous integration in which each DVS executes a thirteen (13) week PI. During the thirteenth week of each PI, the ECM Program conducts a three (3) day PI planning event for the upcoming PI attended by the ECM Program and IT AFTs performing Continuous Integration. Each AFT performing Continuous Integration within the ARTs for a Product selects a set of users/enabler Features and produce PI Objectives that are a summary of the business and technical goals of the AFTs performing Continuous Integration which are then aggregated into the current PI plans. At the end of the PI planning event for each ART, each AFT performing Continuous Integration provides a confidence vote in meeting their PI objectives.

After the PI planning event per Product/ART, AFTs performing Continuous Integration shall execute six (2) two-week Iterations. Each two-week Iteration begins with each AFT performing Continuous Integration, conducting Iteration Planning. User stories that are prioritized by both the Product Owner and Product Manager are pulled from each Team’s backlog to the Team Backlog to develop. In the second week of each iteration, the teams performing Continuous Integration conducts a Backlog Refinement meeting to create, review any stories/enabler stories meeting the RfA for Product Owner approval for entry into the Teams Backlog. During Iteration execution, AFTs performing Continuous Integrations pulls stories/enablers to develop and test, which are then reviewed and accepted by the Product Owner. Technical debt, code refactoring, and spikes are also addressed during the Iteration. At the end of the Iteration, Teams and their Stakeholders reconvene for an Iteration Review where completed work (e.g., stories/enablers) that meet Definition of Done is demonstrated. AFTs performing Continuous Integration Retrospectives are conducted to reflect on the Iteration and identify improvements.

ART retrospectives (e.g., Inspect and Adapts) across all AFTs in each of the Product’s ARTs are held at the end of each PI along with System Demos where completed work (e.g., features/enabler features) is demonstrated. When a Solution Train for a Solution is executing that consists of multiple Products’ ARTs, a ST retrospective (e.g., Inspect and Adapt) across all ARTs is held the end of each PI along with a Solution Demo where completed work (e.g., capabilities/enabler capabilities) is demonstrated.

C.1.4.6 ECM Continuous Deployment Cadence ECM Program has implemented a 13-week continuous deployment cycle where fully tested and validated software is released to production every thirteen (13) weeks. After the fifth (5th) Iteration of each Solutions’/Products’ PIs, the completed/approved work is moved to the Innovation and Planning (IP) iteration where it is prepared for continuous deployment. Integration testing, User Acceptance testing, and performance and penetration testing are completed during the IP Iteration to validate end to end functionality. (Note: Solution/Product Release can occur more frequently for high priority defects during the PI versus during IP.)

An Executive Go/No Go Decision is provided by the ECM GB prior to each continuous deployment. The System Team then works with the enterprise change control board to provide Governance for all continuous deployments of code/COTS configurations to production.

For ECM Program Releases, every six (6) months, an IRR is conducted by the Governance Board to confirm compliance with the IRS OneSDLC. The tailored OneSDLC Agile Path artifacts for the Program Release are reviewed for completion and sign-off during the IRR.

C.1.4.7 ECM Roadmaps Effective road mapping efforts require an understanding of the appropriate time horizon. If the horizon is too short, the enterprise may jeopardize alignment and the ability to communicate new future Features and Capabilities. Too long, and the enterprise is basing assumptions and commitments on an uncertain future. The ECM Portfolio employs multiple planning horizons to provide a balance. Longer term planning horizons describe behavior that is less defined and less committed, while nearer term plans define better understood and more committed solution behavior.

Figure 2. ECM Planning Horizons (March 2024) Each planning horizon is briefly described next:

· Daily plan: Each day the team holds a Daily Stand-up (DSU) event to synchronize team members, review progress, identify bottlenecks, and discuss what the team shall work on today to achieve the iteration goals.

· Iteration plan: Each iteration begins with an iteration plan, where all team members determine how much of the Team Backlog, they can commit to delivering during an upcoming iteration. The team summarizes the work as a set of committed Iteration Goals.

· Current PI plan: Represents the plan for the current PI created during the PI planning event.

· PI roadmap: The PI roadmap consists of a committed plan for the current PI and a small number of future PIs. It provides a forecast of the deliverables and milestones for the next two to three PIs. For the outlying PIs, these may be indicated as Features, Epics, and Milestones.

· Solution roadmap: The solution roadmap provides a longer-term—often multiyear—view, showing the key milestones and deliverables needed to achieve the solution vision over time. While most solutions require a 1-3+ years view, some larger solutions may extend this timeframe to many years.

· Portfolio roadmap: Like the solution roadmap, the portfolio roadmap provides a longer-term multiyear view. The difference in the portfolio roadmap is that it illustrates the plan to achieve the portfolio vision across the value streams in the portfolio. From a road mapping perspective, the PI roadmap, solution roadmap, and the portfolio roadmap are the most relevant.

ECM Program priorities are set through the SPR governance process conducted jointly by the IT PMO and the ECMO PMO. The ITPMO and ECMO coordinate integration points between various suppliers and contractors were there are dependences for ECM. The SPR governance process approves the direction for the Releases and oversight of multi-year efforts. The ECM Release and PI cadence is executed on annual timelines that cut across fiscal years, currently planned as follows:

· Release +1 starting in January and ending in July

· PI +1 covering 13 weeks (January – April)

· PI +2 covering 13 weeks (April – July)

· Release +2 starting in July and ending in January

· PI +3 covering 13 weeks (July – October)

· PI +4 covering 13 weeks (October – January) Generally, each 13-week PI is comprised of 10 weeks for configuration (five 2-week iterations), 2 weeks for 508, Performance, Regression testing; Production Deployments, Innovation, Training, Planning, and 1 week for planning the next PI. Federal and contractor resources must be onboarded and committed to teams prior to PI planning to support the velocity planned for each upcoming PI and Release.

The ECM Program does not have a specific timeline established by mandate or regulation to execute the IT investment. The ECM governance process may accelerate, or slow down delivery, based on the priorities and needs.

C.1.4.8 Agile Release Trains (ARTs) Once approved, Portfolio Epics for OVSs stay in the portfolio backlog until implementation capacity and budget becomes available for one or more ARTs. Upon implementation, the Epic Owner is responsible for working with resources in the Agile Federated Teams allocated to one or more ARTs to split the Epic into Features or Capabilities during backlog refinement. Epic Owners help prioritize these items in their respective backlogs and have some ongoing responsibilities for stewardship and follow-up.

The Business and IT shall jointly deliver Epics for OVSs to deliver Solutions/Products utilizing DVS including O&M as one or more ARTs of Agile Federated Teams. Once the DVSs are identified for a Solution/Product, the next step is to form ARTs to realize the value. Experience has shown that the most effective ARTs have the following attributes:

· Focused on a holistic solution or related set of products or services.

· Long-lived, stable teams that consistently deliver value.

ARTs include all the people (expertise) needed to design, implement, test, deploy, and release needed software. Each ART is a virtual organization that plans, commits, develops, and deploys work together executing a quarterly PI cadence and six-month release cadence. IRS can ramp up the number of ARTs to deliver ECM that scales at the IRS enterprise level.

A key feature of the ART process is that it is a collaborative effort of numerous Business and IT Delivery Partners representing all facets of the lines of business being modernized. All ARTs consist of representatives from both Government organizations and multiple Contractors. The ECM IT Program Management Office branches and IT delivery partners participate with the ECMO and IRS business organization stakeholders on program planning, integration, and performance management activities.

C.2 BPA OBJECTIVES

Through this BPA, the Government is seeking to achieve the following objectives:

Acquire experienced industry program management support services that will provide a comprehensive disciplined approach to managing individual case management functionalities into a single IRS ECM system.

Program management services for day-to-day agile support that implements the SAFe® processes, methods, standards, and techniques to execute the ECM program.

Accelerate IRS ECM IT modernization utilizing SAFe® practices to deliver ECM that scales at the IRS enterprise level.

Mature SAFe® management practices building on traditional PMO responsibilities and driving strategic enterprise, portfolio, program, project alignment that include effective decision making and risk mitigation mechanisms.

C.3 BPA OPERATING CONSTRAINTS

The Contractor shall be familiar with and utilize the IRS-furnished ECM solution, agile processes, and tools in performance of each Order awarded under the BPA. The Contractor shall perform the ECM ITPM SS efforts following the operating constraints that include, but are not limited to the following:

a) Possess the knowledge and qualifications to conduct programmatic oversight of the following:

· Pegasystems product

· MarkLogic product

· AWS Cloud infrastructure and environments

· IBM’s Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) tool suite

b) Possess the knowledge and qualifications to provide program management support to manage the SAFe® large solution practices.

c) Possess the IT systems engineering expertise to manage the migration of a complex ecosystem of legacy systems to the modernized ECM product and to integrate legacy applications with the enterprise ECM product.

d) Possess knowledge of IRS programs, data, and stakeholders, and bring IT program management experts with experience working in partnership with IRS stakeholders and the ECM customer base.

e) Perform ECM IT PM SS efforts collaboratively with Government/Contractor resources, and work in a badge-less culture where government and contractor resources support different roles and different organizations.

f) Participate in IT strategy, planning, and enterprise program management of the ECM platform with the understanding that the following efforts are outside the scope of the ECM ITPM SS BPA work statement:

· Decommissioning and removing legacy systems from the IRS environment.

· Applications development, technical and integration services, operations, and maintenance of the ECM Platform.

· Business partner organization’s business process change initiatives.

g) Coordinate near-seamless transitions between contractor and/or government staff within and across teams involved in the ECM Program throughout the BPA performance period.

h) Coordinate with the COR to facilitate staff onboarding and offboarding, annual IT security training, and processing of contractor personnel background investigations.

i) Access all government-furnished data and tools through IRS laptops with authorized user accounts and communication platforms using virtual private network access.

j) Use the tools designated by IRS or approved for use in the IRS-furnished IT environments.

k) Use ECM collaboration environments to store all reference materials and other documents to ensure materials are accessible to the appropriate Government personnel at all times.

l) Use monitoring and analytic dashboards that are accessible to the appropriate Government personnel at all times.

m) Deliver work products with unlimited data rights to the IRS to include all deliverables, products, licenses, designs, data, documentation, tests, user research notes, source code, configuration settings and files, and materials developed under awarded BPA Orders.

n) Provide cleared Contractor personnel that may be required to meet with IRS and access IRS facilities that include the following locations: New Carrollton Federal Building, Lanham, MD 20706; IRS Headquarters, Washington, DC 20224; IRS Martinsburg, West Virginia (ECC-MTB); or IRS Memphis, Tennessee (ECC-MEM), IRS Dallas, IRS Federal Building, 4050 Alpha Rd, Farmers Branch, TX 75244.

o) Employ IRS processes and adhere to guidelines for data privacy and security risk management following IRS security and data protection protocols identified in BPA Orders.

p) Be familiar with and comply with applicable federal IT and information management laws, regulations, policies, and standards at the government-wide, Treasury, and IRS levels. Current standards and guidelines that must be considered in the performance of each Order awarded under this BPA include, but are not limited to IRS Enterprise Life Cycle, Section 508 accessibility standards, information security, personnel security, data standards, enterprise architecture standards.

C.4 BPA SCOPE AND DESCRIPTION OF TASKS

The scope of work for this acquisition includes all efforts to continue to grow an enterprise system to subsume the functionality of numerous individual organizations’ legacy case management systems to achieve the efficiencies and cost-effectiveness inherent in a standard system universally available to all authorized IRS employees. The work will include (1) collaborating with legacy system owners to determine requirements, (2) analyzing legacy systems' content and functionalities, (3) collaborating with developers to transition required functionalities into the ECM platform, (4) validation testing of ECM to ensure owner and enterprise IT requirements are satisfied, and (5) program management coordination and collaboration to enable the individual systems for retirement as the ECM fully matures. The ECM system will be a Service-Oriented Architecture that will produce common services and consume them from the IRS Enterprise.

This BPA will focus on program management support for Program Management Office, Strategy & Planning, Enterprise Services, Enterprise Operations, Cybersecurity, User and Network Services support and IRAP.[footnoteRef:1] The Contractor shall provide program management support services in support of Delivery Partners in additional task orders by request and approval of the COR and CO. Development, technical integration, operations, and maintenance will be accomplished under contracts administered by the IRS AD organization. The work performed under this BPA represents only the ECM ITPMO SS portion of the work activities that do not include other Business and IT development participants. The Contractor will coordinate with other organizations such as IT AD to identify the key/critical integration points and cooperate to ensure the success of all parties. An important consideration regarding these efforts is the ability of the Contractor to work collaboratively in a quick-response team setting with other contractors and Government stakeholders. [1: IRS IT organizational information for the IT Enterprise Case Management Program Management Office (ECM PMO) and offices for Cybersecurity, Applications Development, Enterprise Services, User and Network Services, Enterprise Operations, and Strategy & Planning is available at https://www.irs.gov/irm/part1/irm_01-001-012. ]

Contractor deliverables and performance standards will be identified and defined in each Task Order. Representative tasks to be performed by the Contractor for awarded Orders are included in the task areas below:

Task Area 1 Program Management Office Support Task Area 2 Deployment & Transformation Readiness Program Management Support Task Area 3 Release Integration and Product Delivery Program Management Support Task Area 4 Engineering and Architecture Release Program Management Support Task Area 5 Enterprise Services Testing (EST) Release Program Management Support Task Area 6 Enterprise Operations Release Program Management Support Task Area 7 Cybersecurity Release Program Support Task Area 8 User and Network Services Release Program Support Task Area 9 Information Resources Accessibility Program Release Program Support Task Area 1 Program Management Office Support The Contractor shall provide program management expertise in direct support of the ECM IT PMO, as well as support to other PMO Branches, including Deployment and Transformation Readiness (D&TR), Program Management (PM), and Release Integration and Product Delivery (RIPD).

As tasked in individual Orders, the Contractor shall perform activities that support the PM Branch that supports program control and investment management processes, manages IT program planning and IT program execution, and tracks and reports overall Program progress and success against committed goals. Specific activities may involve:

Governance Program Planning Executive Meetings and Reporting Performance Management Configuration Management (CM) Risk and Issue Management Strategic Planning (Program Planning and Schedule Management) Quality Management Stakeholder Engagement Contractor Status Reporting Knowledge Transfer/Contract Transitions C.4.1.1 Desired Outcomes Consistent program management that implements standard documentation and reporting methods and provides a single logical view of all IT efforts needed to effectively deliver IT services to customers.

The Contractor is part of the Program Management Team as the ECM IT PMO effectively and efficiently develops, monitors, updates, and manages the Program Framework and Performance objectives and tasks, as it moves toward successfully achieving its goals to enhance accountability, participation, and transparency.

Successful transition of the ECM solution through the lifecycle, using SAFe® .

The Contractor successfully plans for and completes knowledge transfer and transition in/transition out activities.

Task Area 2 Deployment & Transformation Readiness (D&TR) Program Management Support The Contractor shall support the D&TR Branch that manages program-level technical decisions and strategies to ensure compliance with enterprise-set standards, provides program-level guidance to support adoption of new technology and processes, and identifies, resolves, and tracks organizational readiness gaps resulting from the implementation of the ECM solution. Specific activities may involve:

Technology / Technical Integration Organizational Readiness Planning Strategic Readiness Planning Architecture/Future State Design Technical Vision Council Support C.4.2.1 Desired Outcome An improved understanding of the change dynamics involved with the ECM implementation and impact to stakeholders, allowing the ECM solution to transition to the end-user with no significant rework of process or technical redesign. The ECM program is delivered following a best practice Program Integration Plan that spans the entire program lifecycle and focuses on the critical integration points between IRS stakeholders, providing a single logical view of all components and connections needed to effectively provide a robust ECM.

Task Area 3 Release Integration and Product Delivery (RIPD) Program Management Support The Contractor shall support the RIPD Branch Program Management planning of ECM Releases, aligns ECM Program and releases to wider Enterprise Objectives and coordinates with the IT AD integrator in the release planning and execution space. Specific ECM Program Management activities may involve:

Program Integration Planning Support Agile Management OneSDLC Management Stakeholder Engagement, Communications, and Integration Requirements Identification and Requirements Management Unified Work Request (UWR) Management Cybersecurity Documentation Support SharePoint Support PI Planning C.4.3.1 Desired Outcomes Successful transition of the ECM solution through the lifecycle.

Successful delivery of the ECM program in alignment with the guidance and practices of the OneSDLC methodology and the SAFe® agile management practices Task Area 4 Engineering and Architecture Release Program Management Support The Contractor shall provide program management support to the IRS Enterprise Architecture and Systems Engineering delivery partner. Specific ECM Program Management activities may involve:

Architecture/Cloud Engineering Architecture/Data Strategy Architecture/Future State Design Architecture/Infrastructure Engineering Services Architecture/Infrastructure Provisioning Services Architecture/Integration Analysis Architecture/Architecture Design Architecture/Solution Engineering Support Architecture/Test Engineering Support C.4.4.1 Desired Outcomes Program Management oversight resulting in rapid, reliable, and low-risk delivery of high-value, high-quality program capabilities in collaboration with integrated business IT AD, and IT stakeholder initiatives.

Program Management oversight to confirm that the ECM architecture adheres to the IRS enterprise architecture target state and accurately reflects the planned goals and approach using architectural tools in use at the IRS.

Task Area 5 Enterprise Services Testing (EST) Release Program Management Support The Contractor shall provide program management support to the IRS Enterprise Testing Support delivery partner. Specific ECM Program Management activities may involve:

Agile Testing Management Testing Quality Management Performance Testing and Testing Support C.4.5.1 Desired Outcome:

Validated and verified test processes that help ensure that the ECM solution is meeting the quality expectations of the IRS.

Validated and verified quality measures that indicate whether the ECM solution is performing to the defined specifications.

Task Area 6 Enterprise Operations (EOps) Release Management Program Support The Contractor shall provide program management support to the IRS Enterprise Operations and DevOps delivery partners. Specific ECM Program Management activities may involve:

Agile and DevOps Management Architecture/Cloud Engineering Demand Management C.4.6.1 Desired Outcome:

The infrastructure needed for ECM initiatives is efficiently planned, stood up, and managed.

Task Area 7 Cybersecurity Release Program Management Support The Contractor shall provide program management support the IRS Cybersecurity delivery partner. Specific ECM Program Management activities may involve:

Cybersecurity Analysis Cybersecurity Risk Management Cybersecurity Documentation C.4.7.1 Desired Outcome:

Cybersecurity efforts result in program components leading to a secure Enterprise Case Management System.

All documentation activities for ECM system are completed in accordance with approved processes.

Task Area 8 User and Network Services (UNS) Release Program Management Support The Contractor shall provide program management support to the IRS User and Network Services (UNS) delivery partner. Specific ECM Program Management activities may involve:

Network Engineering ECM Deployment Support C.4.8.1 Desired Outcome:

Network Engineering efforts result in a collaborative deployment strategy to operational proficiency for the program. All UNS components are requirements for each of the program’s cloud components to operate and ensure network services with overall availability for the Enterprise Case Management System.

Maintain and share ECM system documentation.

Maintain the architecture on the IRS As Built Architecture website and ensure it is a living document for the full lifecycle of the program.

Task Area 9 Information Resources Accessibility Program (IRAP) Release Program Management Support The Contractor shall provide program management support the IRS IRAP delivery partner. Specific ECM IRAP Program Management activities may involve:

508 Testing and Compliance

· Conduct and document results of Section 508 tests of ICT for compliance with the accessibility standards under Section 508 and industry best practices.

· Specific tools that facilitate Section 508 testing; 508 Compliance test scripts and reporting of test results; 508 Compliance testing of web software applications

· Interpretation of the Government Section 508 Accessibility requirements, WCAG 2.0 requirements and develop test procedures and accessibility testing concepts.

· Independently trouble shoot software 508 Compliance issues.

· Training in SAFe® Agile Framework 508 Test Services Management C.4.9.1 Desired Outcome:

Information and services within the ECM solution as it relates to Section 508 compliance and assistive technology is provided for IRS employees.

Accessible IT in support of the ECM Program is enabled through integrated solutions, services, and standards.

Satisfactory completion of tasks for the 508 Testing Support through phases of OneSDLC.

C.5 BPA SKILL REQUIREMENTS

BPA Orders will specify the general functions and roles of the contractor to support ECM program management activities.

Key Personnel will be identified in the individual Orders. Any replacements to Key Personnel must be equal or better and be approved by the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) and acknowledged in writing by the Contracting Officer at the Order level.

The Contractor shall provide its BPA Labor Categories to assign individuals that possess the ECM Program’s desired certifications and skillsets. The Contractor shall ensure that all personnel have the expertise, knowledge, training and possess credentials and experience appropriate to their labor categories to meet the BPA requirements prior to being assigned to the awarded Orders. Labor categories for the BPA may cover the relevant certifications and expertise, as appropriate to each category and level:

Relevant Certifications SAFe® certifications including Certified SAFe® Architect, Certified SAFe® Release Train Engineer, Certified SAFe® Agile Software Engineer, Certified SAFe® Lean Portfolio Manager, Certified SAFe® Government Practitioner, Certified SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) AWS Certified Solutions Architect Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) CompTIA certifications including Security+, CySA+, CASP+, PenTest+, Cloud+ ITIL foundations Project Management Institute (PMI) certifications including Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP), Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP), PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP), PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP), PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA), Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM) Certification, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)® Certification, Disciplined Agile Value Stream Consultant (DAVSC) Certification

Relevant Skillsets for IRS IT Environment Tools

· IBM ELM Tool Suite (IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next Generation, IBM Engineering Workflow Management (EWM), and IBM Engineering Test Management (ETM), IBM Architectural Management (AM) Rhapsody Model Manager)

· Rational Functional Test

· Rational Security AppScan

· Rational ELM expertise

· OneSDLC

· Zoom Text (508), JAWS (508), Dragon Naturally Speaking (508), Web Accessibility Tool Bar, Inspect

· Jenkins

· CentraSite

· SiteMinder (or successor)

· UIPath

· MQSeries

· Java, J2EE, JSON, JBoss, Tomcat, SOAP/Rest Web Services, SOAPUI, Objected Oriented Programming Concepts and Patterns, XML

· Spring Boot/microservices

· OpenShift

· Docker

· Kubernetes

· Linux

· TOAD

· Oracle Clients

· Insight Manager

· Storage Essentials/Systems

· PostgreSQL

· Pegasystems

· MarkLogic

· Informatica

· DB2

· AWS DMS (Data Migration Service), AWS SCT (Scheme Conversion Tool), AWS CLI (Command Line Interface)

· Informatica S3 Connector

· JustInMind

· Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) at A and AA levels

· Other systems if required.

The levels of relevant expertise for the BPA Labor Categories shall be based on the following ECM expectations:

Subject Matter Expert (SME) levels possess at least 10 years of relevant experience.

Senior levels possess at least 7 years of relevant experience.

Journeyman levels possess at least 3 years of relevant experience.

Junior levels possess at least 1 year of relevant experience.

Table 1 provides the BPA Labor Categories required for performance in individual Orders. The Contractor shall use the BPA Labor Categories to map and offer discounted prices that are based on and consistent with its GSA MAS authorized price lists and established labor category definitions.

Table 1 BPA Labor Categories