Q&A_RFI_ID09180048.pdf

Questions and Answers – Request For Information # ID09180048

# Question Answer

1 Who is the incumbent contractor and is any small business involved?

The incumbent is Fors Marsh Group LLC located at 1010 N Glebe Rd #510, Arlington, VA 22203.

The incumbent was a small business when the contract was awarded.

2 What are the details of the current contract (contract #, value, vendor name, date of award, expiration date)?

Services are currently provided under orders issued against firm-fixed-price requirements contract no. H98210-15-D-0003, which was awarded to Fors Marsh Group LLC with an effective date of 15 July 2015, a period of performance from 15 July 2015 - 14 July 2018, and a total contract value of $22,452,338.00 including options.

3 Will the Government consider Corporate references as a subcontractor as well as a Prime?

At this time, the Government is only interested in prime contractor corporate experience.

4 How are data from paper surveys currently collected and input into statistical software? If through Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) does USG possess the OMR software and scanners required for digitization?

This PWS does not include the requirement of paper survey collection. SAS datasets will be provided for analysis.

5 Are SPSS, STATA, or other analytical platforms allowable for primary analysis of datasets, or are they only to be used to handle variance estimation?

No, these programs are not allowable for primary analysis of datasets at this time. This may change as processes change, but is not the current state.

6 Is the contractor expected to draft/author reports, briefings, and papers, beyond the statistical and research support required to produce these products?

Yes, contractor is expected to draft/author reports, papers, and briefings documenting survey findings as well as more in depth analysis using data from other sources.

7 What range of sample sizes and response rates do H&R/R&R surveys typically generate?

Survey sample sizes typically range from 50,000 to 100,000. On occasion, smaller (~30,000) or larger (~000,000) surveys are conducted.

Response rates range between 15% and 25%.

8 How will the CATI surveys be executed? Our in house tools do not support CATI administration, this capability is contracted out.

The government will provide contact information (phone numbers, names, etc.) to support CATI administration.

9 Does the government anticipate that the contractor will provide a call center or support for execution (beyond design, construction, and analyses)?

No, this contract will not include call center support.

10 Will focus groups be conducted at USG-owned facilities (e.g. military bases) or will the contractor have to procure facilities for focus groups?

Yes, focus groups will be conducted at USG-owned facilities.

11 Will focus groups be used in the design stage of a survey or research project?

Focus groups are typically conducted to further illuminate survey findings.

12 How frequently does USG anticipate ordering focus groups for this contract?

Focus groups will be conducted biennially at a minimum.

13 How many sessions typically comprise a focus group task order?

Approximately 20-25 sessions are conducted.

14 Will the contractor be responsible for recruiting participants for the focus groups?

Contractor will be responsible for coordinating with provided POCs to determine the focus group schedule. POCs will typically recruit personnel.

15 Will travel expenses associated with conference attendance and other meetings be approved by the government?

Yes, it is anticipated that travel shall receive Government Contracting Officer Representative approval prior to funding being expended.

16 Beyond what was mentioned in the PWS and RFI, are there any programs or processes in place to assist with automating survey operations? If so, what are they?

No, all programs are specified in the PWS.

17 Is the government open to new ideas, programs, or processes to assist in streamlining survey operations?

Yes, the government is open to new ideas, as long as these new tools provide the same capability and improve the overall process.

18 Will appropriate documentation (e.g.

source code) for the in-house tools be provided so that they can appropriately supported and maintained?

Yes, documentation will be provided.

19 Will the Program Manager serve in additional (i.e. analytical) roles or otherwise dual-hat on this contract?

This is considered a performance based service acquisition, so the Government is not planning on detailing who does what. However, the Program Manager has historically served more than one role.

20 Will any contractor personnel be required to either have or maintain a clearance beyond the FBI National Criminal History Check and the NACLAC?

No.

21 What volume of additional surveys (beyond those listed in the technical exhibit) does the government anticipate during 2019?

Technical exhibit provides the anticipated surveys in 2019.

22 Is the SAGR the only project requiring focus groups?

No, focus groups are conducted on active duty personnel approximately every three years.

These surveys are conducted either CONUS or

OCONUS.

23 How many of these projects typically utilize in-depth or cognitive interviews?

Those two techniques are typically not used.

24 How much time is appropriated to each of these projects from the initial planning to the final briefing stages?

Approximately one year is appropriated to each project.

25 The schedules for the surveys has been given. Is there any estimate that can be provided for the frequency and sample size of the information collected in these surveys?

Surveys typically range from 50,000 to 100,000.

On occasion, smaller (~30,000) or larger (~500,000) surveys are conducted. Most surveys are conducted every other year. Two surveys are conducted annually.

26 The scope of work details support of DOD analytics. Can the government further describe the overall objective, objective by survey, or the provide examples of the analytics tasks that the government would like us to support in order for us to assess the work involved and better analyze the skills sought.

The overall objective is to augment internal OPA analytic outcomes and enhance external OPA analytic impacts by conducting full-spectrum data science research from data to decision. Example of analytic tasks include:

1) Programming: Experts in R/Python, specifically in working with data and developing algorithms.

2) Data Wrangling: Being responsible for transforming / restructuring / merging any reasonable dataset within the DMDC holdings or relevant external data. An example of this is when we used the Defense Language File and restructured it to make it more usable for analysis.

3) Statistical and Mathematical Algorithm Deployment: Applying relevant algorithms or models to data. An example of the level of work we would like to see done is the current gradient boosting methods that are being used in Stat to produce propensity scores.

4) Some examples of active projects that DS could use support include:

-Predicting future sales for the Computer/Accessibility Accommodation Program given historical data, done in a full data science pipeline from ingestion of new data, to transforming the data so it can be modeled analytically and finally building the model and generating predictions.

27 What are examples of Quick Turn Ad Hoc Analysis requests (section 4.8 in PWS) that are expected under this contract?

Examples are a content analysis of the open-ended comments at the end of the survey;

follow-on analyses of the data by demographic groups of interest, logistic regression analysis, etc.

28 There are numerous analytics tools and data analysis tools mentioned for the scope of work deployed. We see SAS, SUDAAN, R, and IBM/SPSS. In general the tools are spelled out by system (e.g.

SURVANT), but are there any tool-specific issues to focus on that are specific to any of the 11 surveys described? We assume that all the surveys to provide support upon are equally impacted by system and analytics tools.

Your assessment is correct. All surveys are equally impacted by the analytical tools.

29 Under section 8.3.1 of PWS, can contractor be confident that any personnel that require security clearance can be cleared on a timely basis, without significant delay or backlog of government personnel to conduct such clearances?

Due to issues beyond OPA, there may be delays in getting clearances.

30 Has a level of effort (LOE) been estimated for this contract? If so, what is that LOE estimate?

The Government is considering using an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity type contract. The current estimated maximum level-of-effort to be ordered under this acquisition is approximately 580,443 labor hours over five years.

31 What Key Personnel or roles did the incumbent’s contract identify?

No key personnel were identified in the incumbent contract.

32 If an RFP is issued for this requirement, will this solicitation be a Small Business Set Aside if there are at least two firms who qualify, based on the responses to this RFI, to provide these services?

Yes, there is a potential for a small business set-aside. Competition strategy will be determined by the Government after all market research is complete.