GAO TIS Updated PWS (dated 03.14.2024).docx

TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION SERVICES (TIS)

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS)

U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Information Systems & Technology Services (ISTS)

Draft Date: March 14, 2024

Table of Contents

Tables

Figures

General Information and Requirements This document serves as the Performance Work Statement (PWS) for the Technology Information Services (TIS) Contract, referenced later as either “the Contract” or “the TIS Contract.” The Contactor shall provide the Information Systems and Technology Services (ISTS) Office, within the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a full line of Information Technology (IT) services to manage the baseline requirements defined in this PWS. The contractor shall provide IT services that conform to specified standards for reliability, readiness, sustainability, supportability, availability, stability, security, flexibility, responsiveness, and cost effectiveness. Contract service providers shall be accountable solely to the Prime Contractor who, in turn, is responsible to the Government.

The contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, transportation, tools, materials, supervision, and other items necessary to perform the IT services as defined in this PWS except for those items specified as government furnished property, equipment, and services. The contractor shall perform to the standards in this contract.

Background GAO, often called the “congressional watchdog,” is an independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress. GAO examines how taxpayer dollars are spent and provides Congress and federal agencies with objective, non-partisan, fact-based information to help the government save money and work more efficiently. The agency’s mission is to support Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities, and to help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal government. We provide Congress with timely information that is objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, nonideological, and balanced. The agency operates its work under strict professional standards with a highly trained professional workforce of approximately 4,600 who are direct customers of this contract. The agency operates its work under strict professional standards with a highly trained professional workforce can fluctuate between 4,500-4,800 due to the number of interns, professional development program (PDP) participates and contractors.

GAO’s workforce is organized into functional mission teams and mission enablement support offices. To meet GAO’s mission, staff rely heavily on information technology (IT) services and tools. Within the Office of the Chief Administrative Office (CAO), the Information Systems and Technology Services (ISTS) Office supports the information and knowledge management functions of the agency. As a service provider, ISTS focuses on supporting GAO’s mission and working with business partners to provide access to the IT services and tools needed by the business to perform work efficiently and effectively, from any place at any time, and within affordable cost levels.

GAO’s 2024-2026 IT Strategy is closely aligned with Goal 4 of the GAO Strategic Plan: “Maximize the Value of GAO by Enabling Quality, Timely Service to the Congress and by Being a Leading Practices Federal Agency.” Our IT Strategy sets the goals and objectives depicted in Figure 2 ISTS Goals & Objectives (See page 44):

The contract supports the delivery of current and future IT services and solutions as described in this PWS. It is important to understand that ISTS is in the process of transitioning from a primarily waterfall organization to one that is agile, leveraging the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). During the transition period and base year of contract performance the contractor shall support both waterfall and SAFe methodologies and shall provide a strategy and plan to supported ISTS until it completes its transition to SAFe environment.

The current environment is described at a high level in Section 9 of the PWS (Current Infrastructure) provides more detailed information on the current infrastructure.

Features of the future state environment at a high level are listed below. Part 10 of the PWS provides an overview of our modernization roadmap.

· Cybersecurity is critical to all that we do. ISTS uses an integrated framework to achieve a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework including a Security Operations Center (SOC) for cyber hygiene and monitoring, and Identity and Credentialing management role-based access and compliance for managing overall framework requirements to achieve Zero-Trust.

· Our Cloud adoption should be closer to 70% at the time of award. Our goal matures from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) during this contract.

· Our customer will be teleworking or remote at least 50% or more each day. Our end-users’ services, network and systems need to be flexible to accommodate hybrid work. Our adoption of a Windows environment via Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) laptops on Microsoft 365 (M365), collaboration tools, and omni-channel support are geared to provide a consistently stable experience from any place at any time.

· Application development will shift from the currently siloed custom application to use a combination of SAFe and Low-Code/No Code platforms (e.g., ServiceNow, SharePoint, Microsoft Power Platforms) to continue moving away from Government off the Shelf (GOTS) software, and custom applications from GAO.

Objectives for Contract GAO seeks a strong industry partnership via this acquisition to deliver superior customer service and IT services and solutions to GAO seamlessly upon contract award and as we modernize our IT environment. Primary objectives for this acquisition include:

· Managing work leveraging the SAFe (Note: The contractor’s solution must include analysis during the transition period with a plan, iterations and milestones for the base period and option years to provide services that support and transition GAO from both waterfall and SAFe methodologies to a full SAFe environment).

Figure 1: SAFe Methodology

· Deliver superior and continuously improving customer experience on par with those staff experience in their private lives with commercial applications.

· Utilize Agile Release Trains (ART) to collaborate with ISTS in instituting and managing change within GAO.

· Continuously innovate to improve services and maximize value; continuously streamline ISTS process, procedures, and infrastructure.

· Provide an excellent customer experience, including during modernization and upgrades.

· Increase speed-to-deliver ISTS capabilities and services to our customers.

· Flexibility to evolve services as GAO mission needs change.

· Ensure GAO maintains an IT environment that is available (24x7x365), functional (fully meeting the needs of our entire organization), reliable and secure.

· Improve performance, strengthen information security, increase IT agility, while maintaining compliance and decreasing risk.

· Leverage data (i.e., on performance, trends, and incidents) to proactively address emerging issues and continuously enhance the customer experience.

· Create a more predictable and consistent contract spend over time with less cost increase over the different periods of performance and, no cost over runs on various contract CLINs.

Assumptions Within this PWS, specifics of GAO's environment including tools and systems, will be included to help vendors respond to the Request for Proposal (RFP) and PWS. These tools and systems are provided for informational purposes only. The scope is to support all of GAO's IT environment, including new tools, systems, hardware, software, infrastructure, and solutions that GAO has today and will adopt in the future. System and software names have been provided for context and understanding the current environment. The contractor must analyze the current environment and provide the strategy, planning, projections, change management and milestones for transitioning to the future environments stated in this PWS.

Scope of Work The scope of this contract is vast, and the PWS has been separated into multiple Task Areas. The contractor and their Program Leadership shall ensure all tasks are managed and accomplished without jeopardizing the execution of any concurrent tasks. Each task area identified is essential to the mission and goals identified by GAO, and the contractor shall be solely responsible for each of the task areas and must plan, forecast, manage, and coordinate with the Government, third-party vendors, and across task areas in their execution. The Government also attaches significant importance on the reduction of fixed operational costs through consolidation, automation, managed services, and innovation. The expectation is that the contractor shall propose the establishment of a fully managed service for several task areas, via a managed service either using existing GAO technologies or providing replacement technologies that can be transitioned over the first full year of the contract. The contractor shall provide dates for full transition to managed services utilizing the proposed technologies.

The PWS task areas are:

· Program and Task Management

· Customer Experience

· Cloud and Digital Environments

· IT Infrastructure

· Software Factory

· Asset and Inventory Management

· Information Systems Security

· Publishing, Information and Web Support Services

· Infrastructure and Application Monitoring Platform

· Optional Tasks

Equipment The equipment, software, and material required to perform IT support services will be provided by GAO or provided by the contractor (as needed in conjunction with their managed service solution) All equipment software and materials provided by GAO are detailed in the Software and Hardware list attached to the solicitation. All services proposed by the contractor in the execution of the requirements of this PWS that require a change in tool or technology shall be included as part of the services being offered. (For example, bring your own tool - BYOT) Under emergency situations for break-fix requirements the contractor may be required to purchased equipment to ensure all systems remain operation. In this instance, notification will come from the COR and official request will be provided by the CO.

Compliance GAO will provide contractors with Orders and Directives (Policies) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) across tasks and subtasks. All work performed in line with this PWS must be in accordance with GAO Orders and Directives, governance, processes, and procedures. The SOPs provide additional context and detail to the work to be performed under this contract. Processes and work products are identified in the SOPs. During contract performance the contractor will take ownership of IT SOPs and shall ensure they are created, updated, and maintained.

Key Statistics and Metrics The following statistics and metrics represent the current state and are subject to change. This information is provided as a point in time.

· Publish an average of 23 products per week (max/week ~40) and 10-15 decisions per week.

· Approximately 4,600 users leveraging (non-server) computers (95%+ laptops) and approximately 500 servers.

· The ~4,600 users include contractors and Federal employees (which fluctuates with interns and Professional Development Program staff).

· 110 implemented change requests per month (e.g., network configuration, patches, application deployments).

· Customer support handles on average 530 failure requests per month and 500 service requests.

· Approximately 85 business applications are major applications developed primarily in Java.

· Approximately 25 business applications are developed under the Business Intelligence and Rapid Application Development (BI/RAD) platform.

· The remaining business applications are a mixture of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), ColdFusion, COTS, GOTS, and Shared Service Provider solutions.

· Releases per year by size/type include: Minor: 5-10 minor applications, 5-10 form based applications, and 20-30 new analytics/reports per year; Major: 1-2 major custom-built applications, 3-5 enhancements to custom built enterprise applications; Case Management: 1-2 case management solutions, 1-2 enhancements to case management solutions.

· GAO is increasingly utilizing SharePoint and ServiceNow platforms for Low Code No Code (LCNC) technology solutions, as well as exploring other platforms and product lines.

· 25M+ security events per week (e.g., firewall, IPS, Websense).

· Help desk receives an average of 6,000 calls per month and 3,000 email requests per month.

· GAO possesses over 28,000 IT hardware and software assets that include laptop, desktop, server, printers, and peripherals. On an annual basis, there are approximately 18,000 changes made to records in the asset management system to track asset receipt, distribution, movement, and disposal.

Period of Performance The ISTS contract provides for a one-year base contract effort with four (4) 12-month option periods. The period of performance includes 90-day transition periods at the beginning and end of the period of performance. The Period of Performance reads as follows. See the table below:

The task order will be issued on a hybrid basis with Fixed Price and Time and Material/Labor Hour tasks. Options will be priced on a fixed-price and T&M/LH basis and evaluated for award purposes as part of the offeror’s proposal in accordance with FAR 52.217-5.

General Information Quality Assurance The government shall evaluate the contractor’s performance under this contract in accordance with the contractor’s Quality Assurance/Quality Control Plan (QAP/QCP) and the Government’s Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP). The contractor shall develop and submit their plan as part of the proposal submission. The Contracting Officer (CO) and Contracting Officer Representative (COR) will provide feedback before or at the Kick-off Meeting, and the contractor shall update the plan within 10 calendar days of the Kick-Off Meeting. The final QAP/QCP shall be submitted 10 business days prior to full performance (completion of transition period).

Upon approval, the contractor shall implement the QAP/QCP to ensure quality under the contract, and to ensure that potential problems with equipment and systems are identified, documented, and resolved prior to failure. The QAP/QCP will focus on the contractor’s actions to ensure they perform in accordance with performance standards, certifications, service level agreements and metrics (SLA/SLM), and experience level agreements and metrics (XLAs/XLMs), and other key elements within contract performance. The QASP will focus on what the Government must do to ensure that the contractor has performed in accordance with the performance standards. It defines how the performance standards shall be applied, the frequency of surveillance, and the minimum acceptable defect rate(s).

Deliverables ISTS is striving to streamline, automate and reduce the physical delivery of deliverables and other key documentation outlined in this PWS. The contractor shall utilize dashboards and other proposed strategies and technologies to achieve this goal. All deliverables shall be provided through an integrated dashboard, where practical, leveraging GAO’s existing data sources and products, enterprise content management solution, or other official document management software. The contractor shall have real-time data within the dashboard that must include the quantitative data and calculations required under the PWS. The dashboard must provide sufficient data, demonstrate work against SLAs, XLAs, metrics, deliverables, and activities. The dashboard must be housed within the GAO environment and all data within it belongs to the government. The dashboard needs to have trending data, and the contractor is expected to use this information to identify areas for automation and/or process improvement to enhance operations. The contractor shall provide the COR a weekly Performance Summary evaluating their performance in terms of the Performance Standards. Multiple dashboards shall be used to provide drill down data to technical monitors, however a single pane of glass solution must be provided for GAO and ISTS leadership. GAO will not accept stand-alone reports or using non-standard tools.

Recognized Holidays GAO utilizes a published holiday schedule that specifies holidays that fall within the classification of after-hours. Holidays are in accordance with Federal law. (5 U.S.C. 6103) The standard Federal holidays at time of award are:

· New Year’s Day

· Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday

· President’s Day

· Memorial Day

· Juneteenth

· Independence Day

· Labor Day

· Columbus Day

· Veteran’s Day

· Thanksgiving Day

· Christmas Day

GAO Hours of Operation The contractor shall provide the following types of response support:

· GAO’s primary business hours are 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (EST). All time is based on GAO headquarters, which is based in Washington, DC. These hours allow for coast-to-coast support until 5:00PM, Pacific Standard Time (PST)

· After-hours support is designated as Weekdays 8:01 p.m. to 5:59 a.m. ET, Weekends, and Federal holidays.

· Cloud and Digital Environment services, Service Desk, Infrastructure and Security Operations Centers are required 24x7x365. Incident response for 24x7x365 services shall be addressed on-site or remotely unless remediation of the incident requires an on-site presence.

After-hours service response times are reduced from standard business hour service response times and are defined in respective SLAs and XLAs. The contractor shall follow GAO’s holiday schedule. The contractor shall, at all times, maintain an adequate workforce for the uninterrupted performance of all tasks defined within this PWS. When considering execution of services, the stability and continuity of services and personnel (where applicable) are essential.

Place of Performance The contractor shall provide IT support services during GAO’s primary business hours and where specified after-hours. This support shall be provided at the GAO Headquarters facility at 441 G Street NW in Washington, D.C. and GAO field offices, as required. For all tasks where managed services are considered, the contractor must be able to provide support at a contractor designated facility. The contractor shall have the ability to support the on-site needs of the client with certain tasks (i.e., Customer Support Services, Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) support, etc.). The contractor shall respond within a timeframe that would meet the service level and experience level agreements (SLA/XLA). Please note, the location of performance is subject to change during the term of this agreement (e.g., a requirement for GAO teleworking, Alternate Computing Facility (ACF)).

Examples of after-hours support include, but are not limited to, direct customer support, off-hour system management and maintenance, file backup and restore operations, deployment of selected applications, and annual and quarterly property inventories.

The contractor shall travel to GAO’s field offices approximately 2-4 times a year (for scenarios like installations, classified processing, incident remediation,) and disaster recovery site on an as-needed basis. (Disaster recovery site is approximately 35 miles from GAO Headquarters) Travel for disaster recovery during non-emergency situations will be minimal based on the current support model that includes Government oversight and daily operations and maintenance of the facility. Currently, ninety-five percent of the contractor support for disaster recovery related operations and maintenance are conducted using remote management tools and processes.

There are currently 11 field offices located across the country, although that number may change during the life of the contract. Additionally, there is one audit site in the Washington Metropolitan area, and an ACF. Field offices are currently in the following locations:

· Atlanta Office, 2635 Century Parkway, Suite 700, Atlanta, GA 30345

· Huntsville Office, 7027 Old Madison Pike, Suite 106, Huntsville, AL 35806

· Boston Office, 10 Causeway Street, Room 575, Boston, MA 02222

· Chicago Office, Federal Building, 536 South Clark Street, Room 970, Chicago, IL 60605

· Dayton Office, 2196 D Street, Bldg. 39, Area B, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-0626

· Dallas Office, 1999 Bryan Street, Suite 2200, Dallas, TX 75201-6848

· Denver Office, 1244 Speer Boulevard, Suite 800, Denver, CO 80204-3581

· Los Angeles Office, Los Angeles World Trade Center, 350 South Figueroa Street, Suite 101 Los Angeles, CA 90071

· Norfolk Office, 5029 Corporate Woods Drive, Suite 300, Virginia Beach, VA 23462

· Oakland Office, 1301 Clay Street, Suite 1000S, Oakland, CA 94612

· Seattle Office, 701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2700, Seattle, WA 98104 The contractor will be authorized and reimbursed for travel expenses consistent with FAR 31.205-46 and the limitation of funds specified in this agreement. All travel requires Government approval/authorization and notification to the COR.

Type of Contract This requirement will be issued as a hybrid of both Fixed-Price and Time & Material/Labor Hour (T&M/LH) tasks, with pricing identified at the Task/Contract Line-Item Number (CLIN) level. Options will be priced on both Fixed Price and T&M/LH and evaluated for award purposes as part of the offeror’s proposal. Incentives for additional award years will be part of this agreement centered around the vendor’s ability to execute the requirements associated with PWS Sections 5.A-5.C, SLAs and XLAs outlined in this PWS.

Personnel Security Requirements Contractor shall provide personnel performing work under this requirement that have, at minimum, a favorable Tier 2 (formerly Moderate Risk Background Investigation (MBI)) Public Trust Background Investigation before accessing GAO networks and obtaining GAO badges. The contractor shall ensure its personnel maintain the level of security required for the life of the contract. Personnel supporting SIPRNET and Cybersecurity functions shall have an active Tier 3 / SECRET Clearance on day one of contract performance and shall maintain the level of security required for the life of the contract.

Crediting NACI / Public Trust Security Clearance Costs The contractor shall reimburse the government for accrued costs for the purpose of obtaining a favorable Tier 2 before personnel can access GAO networks or obtain GAO badges under this contract effort. The contractor shall reimburse the government through crediting the cost of each Tier 2 to the Service CLINs (i.e., 1, 101, 201, 301, or 401) entitled “FFP Task 5.1 – Program and Project Management.” The current amount per individual is in line with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Standards. The contractor shall submit an invoice or voucher to reflect the actual / credited amounts within 30 days of being notified by the Contracting Officer (CO) and/or Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

Physical Security In accordance with GAO security orders and directives, the contractor shall be responsible for safeguarding all government equipment, information and property provided for contractor use. At the close of each work period, government facilities, equipment, and materials shall be secured. All data is required to be maintained on GAO-issued Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) or approved devices.

Kick-off Meeting/Periodic Progress Meetings The contractor shall attend any Kick-off Meetings convened by the contracting activity or contract administration office. The Contracting Officer (CO), Contracting Officers Representative (COR), and other Government personnel, as appropriate, may meet periodically with the contractor to review the contractor’s performance. At these meetings the contracting officer will inform the contractor of how the government views the contractor’s performance and the contractor will apprise the Government of problems, if any, being experienced. Appropriate action shall be taken to resolve outstanding issues.

Contracting Officer Representative (COR) The Contracting Officer Representative (COR) will be identified by a letter. The COR monitors all technical aspects of the contract and assists in contract administration. The COR is authorized to perform the following functions: assure that the contractor performs the technical requirements of the contract, perform inspections necessary in connection with contract performance, maintain written and oral communications with the contractor concerning technical aspects of the contract, issue written interpretations of technical requirements (including Government drawings, designs, specifications), monitor contractor’s performance and notify both the Contracting Officer and contractor of any deficiencies, coordinate availability of government furnished property, and provide site entry of contractor personnel.

A letter of designation is issued to the COR, a copy of which is sent to the contractor, stating the responsibilities and limitations of the COR, especially with regard to changes in cost or price, estimates or changes in delivery dates. The COR is not authorized to change any of the terms and conditions of the resulting order.

The contractor’s performance and the quality of service/supplies provided hereunder shall be subject to inspection and acceptance by the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR). In the event of rejection of any report or deliverable, the contractor shall be notified in writing and shall have five (5) business days from date of issuance of notification to correct the deficiencies, and at no additional charge.

Named Roles and Key Personnel All key personnel are responsible for the management and oversight of essential functions for the effective execution of this contract. Therefore, key personnel are expected to begin support of the contract upon award, be available during core business hours and reachable for emergencies during after-hours.

The Program Manager, Deputy Program Manager and SAFe Scrum Master are designated as key personnel. The contractor shall propose other named roles and which of the other named roles that should be designated as key personnel required to make this contract successful. All personnel that are designated as key must be United States citizens and have minimum standards that are detailed below.

In addition, the contractor shall provide a contract manager (CM) who shall be responsible for the contractual performance of the work. The name of the contract manager and an alternate shall be designated in writing to the contracting officer. The contract manager or alternate shall have full authority to act for the contractor on all contract matters relating to daily operation of this contract. The contract manager or an alternate shall be available between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday thru Friday except Federal holidays or when the government is closed for other reasons.

Program Manager The contractor shall provide a Program Manager (PM) to serve as the Government’s primary point-of-contact and to provide overall leadership and guidance for all contractor personnel assigned to the contract and task orders. The PM is ultimately responsible for the quality and efficiency of the contract to include both technical issues and business processes. The PM shall be an employee of the prime contractor, and is responsible for task assignments, on-going supervision of technical efforts and overall performance management for this requirement. This individual should have the ability to authorize/commit the contractor’s organization and make decisions for the contractor’s organization in response to Government issues, concerns, or problems. This person shall be readily available to respond to Government questions, concerns, and comments, as well as be proactive in alerting the Government to potential contractual or programmatic issues.

The PM should have experience in the management of environments similar (in both size and scope) to this contract award. Additionally, the PM must:

· Possess at least 10 years of experience in the management and control of complex information systems architectures involving multiple disparate databases, network, and communications subsystems.

· Possess a minimum of 5 years of supervisory experience over complex information technology operating environments of at least 50 people of multi-disciplinary job categories and skills.

· Demonstrate experience in the management and support of a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program.

· Demonstrate experience managing both on premise, off premise service-oriented and cloud requirements involving SLAs, XLAs and metrics on a contract of similar size and scope.

· Have experience collaborating with other ISTS technology contractors and service providers, negotiating contracts, monitoring service performance, and ensuring cost-effective solutions that align with the organization's needs.

5+ years managing a program of this size/scale; SAFe Certified Program Consultant (SPC)

Deputy Program Manager The contractor shall provide a Deputy Program Manager (DPM) to serve as the Government’s secondary point-of-contact and to provide direct support to the PM in the overall leadership and guidance for all contractor personnel assigned to the contract. The DPM helps manage the responsibility of quality and efficiency of the contract to include both technical issues and business processes. The DPM assists in task assignments, on-going supervision of technical efforts and overall performance management of this requirement. This individual should have the ability to authorize/commit the contractor’s organization and make decisions for the contractor’s organization in response to Government issues, concerns, or problems. This person shall be readily available to respond to Government questions, concerns, and comments, as well as be proactive in alerting the Government to potential contractual or programmatic issues.

The DPM should have experience in the management of environments similar (in both size and scope) to this contract award. Additionally, the DPM must:

· Possess at least 5 years of experience in the management and control of complex information systems architectures involving multiple disparate databases, network, and communications subsystems.

· Possess a minimum of 3 years of supervisory experience over complex information technology operating environments of at least 50 people of multi-disciplinary job categories and skills.

· Demonstrate experience in the management and support of an integrated management plan and schedule.

· Demonstrate experience in the management and support of a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program. Demonstrate experience managing both on premise, off premise service-oriented and cloud requirements involving SLAs and metrics on a contract of similar size and scope.

SAFe Scrum Master The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Scrum Master is responsible for the management and coordination of development activities, must demonstrate expertise/experience (a minimum of 5 years) and/or be SAFe Certified Scrum Master (CSM) (or equivalent) and have experience and/or knowledge related to:

· Playing a pivotal role in driving the Agile development process and acting as a servant leader and Scrum Master for multiple Agile teams.

· Facilitating Agile ceremonies, including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives, ensuring the timely delivery of high-quality software, facilitating Agile ceremonies, removing impediments, and fostering a collaborative and high-performing team environment.

· Ensuring collaboration between cross-functional teams to promote Agile principles and practices, emphasizing transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

· Providing coaching and training to team members on Agile and SAFe practices, ensuring a common understanding and adoption of Agile methodologies.

· Driving continuous improvement within the Agile teams by identifying areas for enhancement, implementing changes, and measuring the impact of improvements.

· Working closely with stakeholders to understand their needs, communicate project progress, and ensure alignment between business goals and Agile delivery.

3+ years of experience in a Scrum master role, experience with requirement or business analysis, SAFe Certified Scrum Master (CSM) (or equivalent) Strong skill in use of Jira and Confluence

Position descriptions and additional qualifications for several named roles are provided below:

Accessibility Lead The Accessibility Lead is responsible for the overall accessibility of the products and services provided in this contract and will work with the different delivery teams to ensure that all deliverables comply, to the extent possible, with the accessibility requirements in this contract. The Accessibility Lead must demonstrate a minimum of 5 years of experience in or knowledge related to:

· Establishing processes for the proper analysis, testing and remediation of electronic documents and web applications for compliance with accessibility requirements.

· Ensuring the preparation of accurate Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACR) or Voluntary Accessibility Product Templates (VPAT) that would demonstrate the degree of accessibility of applicable deliverables.

· Establishing processes for collecting feedback on Accessibility issues of the provided products and services and create standard operating procedures to generate actionable items for internal remediation or escalation to external vendors.

· Ensuring the accessibility and inclusiveness of the GAO customer experience to all GAO customers regardless of their disability or the assistive technology they use.

· Ensuring that Accessibility is considered throughout the agile development and delivery processes.

· One or more of the following certifications: Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC), Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA) or DHS Trusted Tester Program V5.

· Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or a related field.

· Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across teams.

· Proven experience in the management, support, and implementation of an Accessibility/508 program for a government agency or similar role.

Web Support Lead The Publications Web Support Lead is responsible for the management and coordination of Web Support activities. The Web Support Lead must demonstrate expert (a minimum of 5 years) experience and/or knowledge related to:

· Diagnosing user agent detection issues.

· Submitting patches that fix issues in open-source web frameworks.

· Creating tools to assist in understanding compatibility issues.

· Thinking critically about the best way to push the web forward.

· Becoming proficient with GAO’s current code base, multiple languages (JS, Python, C++), and development tools, as well as leading GAO in adopting new technologies.

· Proposing, designing, and implementing industry-leading solutions for implementing browser-based solutions across a broad array of devices.

· Participating in and contributing to the planning process for new features and projects.

· Working with expert user interface (UI) designers and product managers to understand and refine the scope of incoming projects, and to ensure deliverables meet an unreasonably high-quality bar.

· Assisting in Agile and SAFe management.

· Working with the engineering team to understand and respond to their needs.

· Defining test strategies, comprehensive understanding of system use cases.

· Developing test plans in line with SAFe methodologies.

· Implementing security changes in-line with approved baselines and NIST Special Publications and other benchmarks.

Infrastructure Lead The Infrastructure Lead is responsible for the management and oversight of all on-premise infrastructure activities. The Infrastructure Lead must demonstrate expert experience (a minimum of 5 years) and/or knowledge related to:

· Leading and supervising teams of various job categories (including network engineers and technicians) and skills in a converged network of similar size and scope as GAO.

· LAN/WAN architecture integration.

· Implementing and maintaining network monitoring tools to proactively identify and resolve network issues, ensuring high availability and optimal performance. Investigating and successfully implementing and integrating new technologies into a converged network.

· Recommending and implementing benchmarks best practices, firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, logging, and monitoring, keeping up to date on security threats and mitigation strategies.

· Managing personnel in the following areas: storage technologies, enterprise security, network management, desktop and server operating systems, directory services, unified communications, wireless technologies, application distribution technologies, and internet services.

· Overseeing the design, implementation, and maintenance of the organization's IT infrastructure (including servers, network systems, storage, and cloud services), ensuring optimal performance, security, and scalability.

· Forecasting resource requirements for infrastructure and application scaling, working closely with other IT teams to accommodate the organization's growth and evolving needs.

· Working closely with other IT teams, departments, and management to align network infrastructure with overall business goals and objectives.

· Staying informed about emerging networking technologies and recommend relevant solutions to enhance network performance and security.

· Maintaining accurate documentation of network configurations, policies, and procedures, facilitating troubleshooting and knowledge sharing.

SAFe Agile Agilist Certification. (Or equivalent)

Cloud Lead The Cloud Infrastructure lead oversees the design, implementation, and maintenance of the organization's cloud infrastructure, ensuring scalability, security, and optimal performance of cloud-based services. The Cloud Lead must demonstrate expert (a minimum of 5 years) experience and/or knowledge related to:

· Designing, engineering, quality assurance and testing and operating cloud environments.

· Experienced knowledge of standards, practices, and automation for Cloud.

· Troubleshooting and problem resolution for issues identified impacting operational systems and services.

· Managing the organization's databases, including design, installation, configuration, backup, recovery, and performance tuning, ensuring data integrity and availability.

· Evaluating cloud service providers and select the most appropriate services based on the organization's needs, considering factors such as cost, performance, and security.

· Ensuring information security by recommending and implementing benchmarks best practices, firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, logging, and monitoring, keeping up to date on security threats and mitigation strategies.

· Developing and maintaining backup and disaster recovery strategies for both cloud resources and databases, ensuring business continuity in case of data loss or system failures.

· Monitoring and analyzing system performance, identifying bottlenecks, and implementing optimizations to improve overall system efficiency.

· Implementing automation and orchestration tools to streamline cloud provisioning, database management tasks, and routine maintenance.

· Proactively identifying and resolve issues related to cloud services and databases, minimizing downtime and impact on business operations.

· Working with cross-functional teams, including developers, network administrators, and security professionals, to ensure seamless integration and operation of cloud-based services and databases.

· Maintaining accurate documentation of cloud configurations, database schemas, policies, and procedures, facilitating knowledge sharing and troubleshooting.

· Proven experience with cloud platforms (e.g., Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and database management systems (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB).

· Strong understanding of and experience applying networking, security, and data management best practices.

· Industry certifications such as AWS Certified SysOps Administrator, Microsoft Certified Azure Database Administrator, or equivalent.

Customer Experience Lead The Customer Experience Lead is responsible for being the Voice of the Customer and working to ensure the overall customer experience across the PWS scope is positive. The Customer Experience Lead must demonstrate expert (a minimum of 5 years) experience and/or knowledge related to:

· Monitoring and maintaining SLAs and XLAs for the contractor and ensure they are being met or exceeded.

· Monitoring and performing trend analysis on service tickets and notifications to identify customer pain points and methods for improving customer experience.

· Establishing, monitoring, and performing trend…