Request_For_Information_(RFI)_HS0021-15-R-0010.pdf

RFI HS0021‐15‐R‐0010 1

THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be acceptance by the Government to form a binding contract. The RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes; it does not constitute a Request For Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP. Furthermore, those who respond to this RFI should not anticipate feedback with regards to its submission; other than acknowledgement of receipt – IF a request for an acknowledgement is requested by the submitter. This RFI does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service.

Defense Security Service (DSS) is not at this time seeking proposals. Responders are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay any cost incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the responding party’s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP or RFQ. If a solicitation is released, it will be via the Government Wide Point of Entry (GPE) at http://www.fedbizopps.gov. It is the responsibility of the potential offerors to monitor the website for any information that may pertain to this RFI. All submissions become the property of the Federal Government and will not be returned.

PURPOSE OF THIS RFI

This is a request for information used to identify potential sources that are interested in and capable of providing Program Management Support Services to the DSS.

QUESTIONS

Questions regarding this announcement shall be submitted in writing by e-mail Ashley.Maddox@dss.mil and a copy to Stephen.Heath@dss.mil. Verbal questions will NOT be accepted (No phone calls please). DSS will respond to questions at its discretion. Any responses issued by DSS to questions will be sent via email to the above addresses and shall NOT contain proprietary information. The Government does not guarantee that questions received after January 23, 2015 will be acknowledged or answered.

SUBMISSION DIRECTIONS

Responses to the RFI should be in the form of a pdf file no longer than 10 pages with type face no smaller than 12 point and include the name of the firm which the respondent represents. The e-mail subject must contain this RFI number in the subject line. Each respondent shall identify its business size for the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 541611 which has a small business size standard of $15,000,000.00 dollars. RFI submissions shall be submitted in writing by e-mail to Ashley.Maddox@dss.mil and a copy to Stephen.Heath@dss.mil. All responses should be unclassified and reviewed to ensure consideration of operational sensitivities. Proprietary information will be accepted and handled appropriately. Responders should indicate which portions of their response are proprietary and should mark them accordingly.

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

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Objective: The objective of the Government’s requirement is to provide a broad range of inter-related management and support requirements in support of the program management, resource allocation, and business operations for the Directorates within DSS. This contract supports all of DSS operations, streamlining the program control functions across our portfolio of efforts. Roles supported include portfolio/program/project management, technical managers, transition managers, and Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs), responsible for DSS emergent technology efforts, projects, and interest areas. It is intended to provide similar support for all DSS Agency operational elements (Business Enterprises (BE), Counterintelligence (CI), Industrial Security Field Operations (ISFO), Center for Development of Security Excellence (CDSE), and Industrial Policy and Programs (IP)) working with projects of mutual interest.

Aside from accomplishing these tasks separately, as they are described below, the Contractor is expected to take an integrated, process-oriented approach that will result in standardized, repeatable process improvements that maximize the use of knowledge management to effectively utilize resources. By providing a matrix of support across the program and projects in the offices in DSS, the Contractor will be better able to standardize and tighten existing processes, to identify process improvement areas, provide economies of scale, and to suggest strategic approaches across the full range of program management activities.

Scope: The scope of this effort includes, providing support services for both Mission Planning & Execution and Business Functional Support.

Mission Planning & Execution support services include planning and execution support for the following task areas:

1. Strategic planning and coordination support;

2. Program/portfolio/project management support;

3. Analyses and quality assurance (QA) support;

4. Acquisition and Contract Management support.

Business Functional Support functions include the following key activities:

1. Focused process reviews (diagnose),

2. Strategic process improvement planning (establish plan),

3. Tracking/monitoring and feedback for program/project management functions

(act/track/plan),

4. Process management for establishing baselines and monitoring, updating, and continuous refinement of processes, practices, templates, etc. (Learn/leverage/refine).

Key Tasks to be performed:

Portfolio/Program/Project Management (PM):

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1. The Contractor shall provide program management support that includes portfolio/program/project analysis of functional, management, and technical requirements for the applicable projects within the various DSS Offices.

2. The contractor shall also assist the Government in tracking actions related to OSD guidance, engineering review boards, sustainment conferences, etc., as necessary.

3. The Contractor shall provide portfolio/program/project assessment reports as requested or shall collect program management documentation from various action offices in the Agency to summarize progress and issues of portfolios/programs/projects during their lifecycles and shall assist in aggregating management data for both continuing reports and in response to ad hoc requests for information.

4. The contractor shall perform a variety of PM support functions, including estimation and tracking of project and system costs, development and maintenance of work breakdown structures (WBS) and schedules.

5. The Contractor will develop and maintain an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS). The Contract shall support the DSS BE Office in developing and maintaining a RACI matrix.

The Contractor shall participate in developing and disseminating the communications plans for designated programs.

6. The Contractor shall collect information, develop and analyze individual project schedules so that there is a finalized project schedule which conveys resource commitments, critical paths, costs and durations of projects being executed throughout the organization.

7. The Contractor shall provide program management and planning documentation to summarize progress and issues of the financial portfolio (across all programs/projects under the various DSS offices), specific programs and individual projects as they progress and the aggregate set of projects within assigned task areas.

8. The Contractor shall develop, monitor, and report on applicable performance-based metrics to include internal management controls.

9. The Contractor will be responsible for configuration management (with respect to tracking and maintaining the product configuration items associated with each program/project), workflow management, and productivity assessments. In so doing, the Contractor will interact with and collect data from other Government internal and external sources, as well as from other contractors.

10. The Contractor shall participate in program reviews and IPTs. The Contractor shall also assist with the development and monitoring of program and project schedules, planned and ad hoc reviews, and providing information needed for program/project descriptions, briefs, and brochures.

11. The Contractor shall participate in developing and disseminating the communications and training plans for the designated programs.

12. The Contractor shall update, maintain, and coordinate efforts in support of the following but not limited to: Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) Compliance, Business Capability Lifecycle

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to include the Investment Review Board (IRB), The Defense Acquisition System, DoD Risk Management Framework, Business Process Reengineering, DoD Business Case Analysis, transition strategies, DSS policies and procedures, and other program strategy documents.

13. The Contractor shall assist the program office and project teams with the development of various specific and individual program related documentation to include Decision Briefings/White Papers.

14. The contractor shall assist and provide the documentation, and updating of standardized processes, plans, training guides, deployment processes, operational instructions, process maps, standard operating instructions, user guides, templates, technical reports, and relevant performance agreements (e.g., operational level agreements and /or service level agreements) related to the various functions, and knowledge areas.

15. The Contractor shall actively participate in the design and documentation of the Knowledge Management repositories and networking tools.

16. The contractor shall assess current portfolio/program/project processes and analyze them for effectiveness, highlighting potential bottlenecks, roadblocks, and major problem areas. The analysis shall include recommendations to overcome or mitigate these concerns and streamline the processes. Key process descriptions will cover the process purpose, controls, inputs, outputs, entrance/exit criteria, basic steps, verification/validation processes, roles, mechanisms, and associated metrics.

17. The contractor shall provide technical expertise for the review and possible re-engineering of technical and business processes such as acquisition, financial reporting, solutions fielding, strategic and operational planning, transition engineering, training, operations, and customer support. Processes shall be in accordance with appropriate user (e.g., DoD, DSS, Industry).

18. The contractor shall provide process reviews, analysis, and recommendations, and other program or process improvements suggestions in technical reports as needed.

Strategic Process Improvement and Business Requirements Responsibilities:

1. The contractor shall develop an Improvement Action and Implementation Plan to take corrective measures. The plan will identify specific timelines, and key thresholds to monitor. The plan will have checkpoints for reassessment or re-direction as necessary. The plan will have a complexity component that identifies if all actions can be corrected within the various DSS offices, or if external organizations will be needed for coordination. The complexity component relates to the number of organizational elements beyond the individual offices that must comply with the plan.

2. The contractor shall develop Business Process Reengineering (BPR) plans and conduct BPR activities and shall examine organizational goals, objectives, structures/hierarchies, culture, systems, and roles.

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3. The contractor shall develop after action reports to document results (SWOT -strength, weakness, opportunity threat impacts) of the process improvement efforts.

The contractor shall conduct Functional Process Improvement (FPI) activities; e.g., review current processes, data and systems, and identify non-value added activities, identify value-added activities for integration; develop Functional Economic Analysis (FEA) to document potential savings; and develop and maintain performance measures.

4. The contractor shall provide BPR Plans, FPI and FEA recommendations, and other program or process improvements suggestions in technical reports as needed.

5. The Contractor shall assist in gathering and documenting business, stakeholder, solution and functional requirements through interviews, focus groups, workshops and other decision making techniques. Documents of collected requirements will be created and include requirements objectives, business rules, organization principles and impacts, service levels, assumptions and requirements traceability matrix.

6. The Contractor will assist in creating templates for various requirements types to be used in the requirements gathering and defining process.

7. The contractor shall provide requirements clarification to include technical writing expertise by translating business requirements into development/functional/ technical language.

Quality Assurance (QA) Support:

1. Planning, analyzing, and reporting programmatic impacts on the costs, return on investment, schedule dependencies, and recommending both functional and technical solutions;

2. Assisting in developing and maintaining Mission Analysis and Quality Assurance Standard Operating Procedures;

3. Documentation review, staffing, and control services to ensure all systems are properly documented in accordance with approved DoD and DSS standards and in accordance with guidance appropriate to the type of project;

4. Participating in information dissemination activities and general outreach activities relating to the program office mission and functions;

5. Establishment, monitoring, and reporting of program metrics to include 1) common Knowledge Management information and related metadata, and 2) Internal Management Controls;

6. Contractor shall assist in developing and maintaining a risk register and perform risk monitoring;

7. The contract shall assist in developing and disseminating Status Reports as it relates to the Quality Assurance;

8. Document mitigation plans;

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9. Preparation of program/project status reports, in response to either regularly required reports or short notice, ad hoc report requirements;

10. Participating in or coordinating IPT activities;

11. Review and analysis or program/project documentation, including document cross-walks between requirements (functional and technical), measures, or assessment criteria and functionality; and

12. The contractor shall evaluate programs and projects to ensure that key considerations have been adequately planned for and that relevance guidance has been complied with.

RESPONSES REQUESTED

DSS would like information and comments on the following:

1. Provide your company name, point of contact, business size (large or small), socio-economic status for all North American Industry Classification Standard (NAICS) codes you operate under.

2. The anticipated NAICS code to be used for the Government’s requirement is 541611;

please provide comment on the suitability of this code for the requirement described above.

3. Please email a capability statement based on the above objective and scope. Indicate if you previously supported all areas of the scope identified above and provide a detailed explanation of your efforts provided.

a. Please indicate if the services provided were for commercial firms, Federal Agencies, or Department of Defense Agencies.

b. Please provide contract numbers, and dollar amounts for contracts your firm has managed along with applicable years of experience similar to the objective and scope identified above.

c. Please provide names of related projects and their contract value over the last three years including subcontractors/teaming partners that your company partnered with (if applicable).

4. Do you typically provide these services on-site at the client’s site or off-site at your facility(s) or both? Please elaborate regarding how your support services are provided within each setting (on/off site).

5. Describe your recruiting process and ability to locate and hire skilled personnel. Provide your staff turnover rate for past three years. What best practices do you employ for staff retention and recruitment?

6. The Governments preferred contract type is Firm Fixed Price (FFP). Please provide suggestions on the contract type preferred by the contractor and explanation if it is different than the Government’s preferred contract type.

7. The Government requires a Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) facility clearance at time of proposal submission.

8. The Government is contemplating awarding a task order contract that will provide FFP task orders issued using unit prices and quantity discounts afforded to the Government through price lists that are made up of labor categories and labor rates contained in the basic task order contract. Please provide suggestions on the Government’s approach.

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9. Please provide a response on the type of labor categories that you would utilize to meet the above objective and scope. Please also identify those positions that you would believe should be considered key personnel.

10. If there are any other questions or comments, please submit them along with your response.

Additional Information:

Contracting Office Address: Defense Security Service (DSS), Office of Acquisitions 27130 Telegraph Road, Quantico, VA 22134. The Point of Contact for this RFI is Ashley Maddox who can be reached at Ashley.Maddox@dss.mil.

Place of Performance:

The Contractor’s facility will serve as the primary place of performance and should be within a 40 mile radius of the Russell-Knox Building located at 27130 Telegraph Road in Quantico, Virginia. The Contractor will be required to complete local travel to DSS Facilities within a 100 mile radius of the Russell-Knox Building.

Anticipated Period of Performance: A Task Order Contract or Contract is projected to be awarded no later than June 17, 2015 to June 16, 2020.

Those who respond to the RFI should not anticipate feedback with regards to their submission other than acknowledgement of receipt – IF a request for an acknowledgement is requested by the submitter. DSS reserves the right to review late submissions but makes no guarantee that they will be reviewed.