J_A Visualization Bridge HHSN316201500063W VA118-17-F-2502 P00012.pdf

Control Number: VA-20-00093694

JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs

Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for issuance of a Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) modification to Task Order (TO) VA118-17-F-2502 awarded under the terms and conditions of the Chief Information Officer-Commodities and Solutions (CIO-CS) contract HHSN316201500063W with Marshall Communications Corp, 20099 Ashbrook PL, STE 130, Ashburn, Virginia to continue visualization solutions support for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Information Technology (OlT), Information Technology Account Management Office (AMO).

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: The proposed action is for continued visualization solutions support services required due to the changing environment caused by VA’s COVID-19 response. The required support services will provide additional updates to already developed visualization diagrams necessitated by VA’s continued response to the COVID-19 pandemic that will enable OIT/AMO to understand the facts of the current state of the VistA Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, the Vista and DoD Military Health System (MHS), and Genesis (Cerner) Target State. Specifically, the Contractor shall perform visualization analysis to understand the Financial Management Business Transformation (FMBT) program as-is/to-be states, Integrated Financial and Acquisition Management System (iFAMS) as-is/to-be states, Benefits Delivery Network (BDN) as-is/to-be states, and detail on the timing and integration of systems in the Cloud Migration Strategy as-is/to-be states. The Contractor shall elaborate on “Target State” visualization diagrams as needed to investigate areas of concern and opportunities for efficiencies. Continue to work with technical and business subject matter experts (SMEs) to refine the visualization diagrams and to focus efforts on addressing high priority efforts related to COVID-19, BDN modernization, Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC), Investment Review Board (IRB), OIT Governance challenges, areas of concern and opportunities. Add additional detail to the diagram on stakeholders, modules, interfaces, data sources, processes as well as business areas and technologies that are related to the proposed Target State to fully depict how it contributes to the OIT strategic plan. These analyses will result in revisions to existing visualization diagrams that provide detail on stakeholders, modules, interfaces, data sources, processes as well as business and technologies, to highlight gaps and areas of concern as well as opportunities for efficiencies. These updated diagrams will be used to facilitate ongoing analysis and discussions with VA/OIT’s business partners and stakeholders to mitigate risks and address areas of concern with action plans and strategies. They will also continue to help to ensure that VA IT Investments are directly linked to agency mission, strategy and goals. Due to COVID-19 response, ongoing

Visualization Solutions Bridge VA-20-00093694 dialog and updates to target states are needed, prior to the award of the competitive follow-on contract. The TO is set to expire on September 27, 2020.

This modification will extend the period of performance by 3 months through December 27, 2020. The total estimated value of the proposed action is $490,952.

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting this exception to fair opportunity is Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2), as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) entitled, "Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source is

Marshall Communications Corp, 20099 Ashbrook PL, STE 130, Ashburn, Virginia.

The original TO was awarded to Marshall Communications Corp as a result of a FFP competitive action under the CIO-CS contract vehicle. The TO is set to expire on September 27, 2020. VA is in the process of drafting requirements for a long term competitive contract for the AMO visualization solutions support services which is anticipated to be awarded in December 2020. Due to unanticipated changes in major systems and ancillary systems dependent on them due to VA’s continued COVID-19 response, ongoing dialog and updates to target states are needed, prior to the award of the competitive follow-on contract. In preparation for this competitive contract, AMO conducted market research starting in June 2020. After the initial market research, AMO began drafting acquisition requirements documents in June 2020 to include the following; performance work statement, independent government cost estimate and the source selection evaluation plan.

Additionally, a Request for Information (RFI) was issued on the Contract Opportunities Page which yielded 37 responses, of which 16 were deemed capable.

In early July 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began severely impacting the United States, which then caused the AMO team take on additional projects and responsibilities to ensure accurate, timely, and consistent pandemic support.

Specifically, OIT stood up a completely new structure of COVID-19 scrum workstreams that required an AMO representative per workstream, which accounts for approximately 30% of the AMO team. These new workstreams meet daily and now dictate COVID-19 response operations and are integral to how AMO communicates. Prior to COVID-19, AMO was not supporting multiple daily COVID- 19 meetings. Furthermore, OIT is supporting weekly, versus quarterly, All Hands Town Halls to provide up-to-date COVID-19 information to the workforce. The AMO staff is responsible for scheduling the weekly calls with all appropriate support staff and multiple executive participants, which include approximately 6 to 15 executive participants and guest speakers from other VA organizations. AMO supports dress rehearsals before each live event, sending weekly OIT-wide announcements and/or CIO messages regarding the presentations, and collecting and coordinating responses to OIT employee questions. The above stated additional COVID-19 workload caused AMO to put a hold on finalizing the competitive acquisition requirement documents. Additionally, AMO is currently reassessing and revising the

PWS requirements for the new competitive contract in light of the support required by ongoing pandemic response, which is atypical of normal operations.

Due to the current state of affairs caused by COVID-19, additional impacts have been realized to programs across VA. These additional impacts need to be accounted for in previously produced visualization diagrams. The changes in major systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and VA response to the pandemic, need to be captured to allow for current states to be reflected. This will allow initiatives to undergo the same rigorous scrutiny applied to all IT Investments: a process managed by AMO. AMO services are required to be sustained at the current level of accuracy and consistency to mitigate significant risks to the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it relates to crisis response operations, and to ensure continued support after the pandemic. Only Marshall Communications Corporate possesses the in-depth knowledge of key VA and OIT stakeholders as they relate to the current and real-time strategic alignment, integrations, gaps, goals and processes to assist AMO in maintaining the current level of support. The knowledge possessed by Marshall Communications Corporate is critical to the continuity and consistency of services required to rapidly revise and update existing visualization diagrams that depict an understanding of the enterprise needs during a rapidly developing and unpredictable global crisis response operation.

VA anticipates that any source other than Marshall Communications Corporate would require approximately 4 months to seamlessly transition and to perform the required analysis, visualization and interpretation services at the same level as Marshall Communications Corporate. Specifically, onboarding, on the job training, overcoming a steep learning curve and buildout of a process development for updates on hundreds of applications and systems related to a vast number of Business Partners system requirements that interact on a single visualization solution would be required. The effort to review and comprehend each of these applications and systems would need to be replicated across each of the visualization diagrams that need to be updated. This would require any new vendor considerable time to review vast amounts of documentation necessary understand and verify the existing state of the diagrams, establish relationships with hundreds of government employees necessary to communicate the current and real-time strategic alignment across the applications and systems and then work to articulate the integrations, gaps, goals and processes on the updated visualizations. This time and effort would prevent any Contractor, other than Marshall Communications Corporate, to provide immediate, synchronized professional strategic services to the largest Federal IT workforce in the US, which is currently engaged in the largest IT modernization effort, and most comprehensive crisis response operation in its history. As an additional concern, the VA Central Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Office has been negatively impacted by COVID-19. The reduced operating capacity of an essential function for onboarding Contractors has negatively impacted the ability of new contract team members to gain access to the VA network causing the potential for a work stoppage. This additional concern further complicates the anticipated approximate 4-month transition and training period, where effective and consistent strategic analysis and visualization support would be severely compromised; thus, resulting in mission failure.

For nearly four years, Marshall Communications Corporate has been embedded in the AMO and DevSecOps, the OIT organizations that understand and interpret business requirements and help VA Administrations and staff offices construct Business Plans and roadmaps for data-driven investment decisions comprising more than $3B in development and delivery services. These systems and services support critical functions that directly support VA employees. An essential component of creating high-quality analysis and visualization diagrams on a rapid schedule is having staff who know and understand OIT sources of technical information and organizational processes. A new Contractor would be unfamiliar with current organization, business functions, systems status, and genesis of the latest analysis and visualization diagrams and would not be able to get up-to-speed in a timely fashion without jeopardizing the mission. For example, OIT stood up a completely new structure of COVID-19 scrum workstreams that have not been used before.

These new workstreams now dictate COVID-19 response operations and are integral to how AMO communicates and performs. Introducing a new Contractor amid a pandemic will have a significant negative impact on OIT Government staff responding to urgent needs to educate and inform VA staff and VA leadership on technical issues that directly impact their ability to deliver healthcare and benefits to Veterans.

Furthermore, OIT’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for providing mission critical support to over 330,000 VA employees and over 9 million Veterans who currently receive care and benefits through VA. OIT AMO works directly in support of the CIO and each of the key leaders. The current crisis environment requires an elevated need for synchronized and well-aligned efforts across all OIT organizations and partners; clear articulation of business needs and understanding of supporting infrastructure is critical to supporting a fast-moving operational environment. Achieving this synchronization requires a great deal of coordination and collaboration, which is facilitated by existing relationships and familiarity with staff throughout VA and OIT organizations that a new Contractor would not possess at time of award. The programs and organizations addressed by this contract are of high visibility during the pandemic response and would be negatively impacted by introducing a new Contractor.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the Section 8 of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government’s requirements in the timeframe required. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. In accordance with FAR 5.301 and 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contract Opportunities/beta.SAM.gov site and the justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: There will be no barriers to future competition.

The follow-on effort is being pursued on a competitive basis and is anticipated to be awarded in December 2020.

8. Market Research: The Government’s SMEs conducted market research in order to ascertain the ability of other sources meeting VA’s need by releasing an RFI on beta.SAM.gov on July 31, 2020. The RFI and Draft PWS included a detailed description of the requirement. On August 12, 2020 the RFI closed and the Government received 37 responses. Although 16 of the responses were deemed capable by the Government’s SME’s, including the incumbent Contractor, Marshall Communications Corporate, only Marshall Communications Corporate is capable of meeting the Government’s need to maintain visualization solutions support in the timeframe required.

9. Other Facts: None

10. Technical and Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Robert W. Schmidt Jr. Date: ________________________________

Program Manager Signature: ____________________________

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on comparing the Offeror’s proposed rates to the rates currently on its CIO-CS GWAC contract.

Brett Schwerin Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________

12. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Brett Schwerin Date: ________________________________

Procuring Contracting Officer Signature: ____________________________