JA IIR - FINAL - Redacted.pdf

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JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics

Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed sole source action is for a firm-fixed-price (FFP) contract for contractor support for many of the Veteran-Facing Services (VFS) on VA.gov, which will require the contractor to own, maintain, and improve these existing products that currently do not have a dedicated product owner or a dedicated VFS team under an existing contract. This need is in response to increased traffic on VA.gov resulting from the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. The proposed contractor is Oddball, Inc. (Oddball), 1775 Tysons Blvd., Mclean, VA 22102.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action provides support focused primarily on making small and medium sized improvements to VFS products, fixing bugs, and making updates based on changes to platform tooling and the VA design system. Example products include the VA.gov performance dashboard and Veteran Status tools. This team will be expected to continue to support experiences on both the VA.gov web platform and the VA Health and Benefits mobile application. Product, design, and engineering direction will be influenced by the shifting focus of VA products from a primarily web-based responsive experience to a native mobile experience. Ultimately, the vision for this work is to ensure every product on VA.gov, and the VA mobile application, has clear ownership and is regularly reviewed for success against established product outcomes. This proposed FFP contract is for a 12-month base period, plus an optional task for Transition Support for up to four 2-week sprints. The total estimated value of the proposed action inclusive of the optional task is

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition for this acquisition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(5), “Authorized or Required by Statute”, as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-5. For this action, 38 U.S.C. 8127(c), known as the Veterans First Contracting Program provides the authority to directly contract with a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) or a Veteran-Owned Small Business.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this acquisition is Oddball. Oddball is a Small Business Administration Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) certified SDVOSB and is technically qualified to support the requirements described in the PWS. Oddball won a competitive task order on August 25, 2023 to perform this work and has performed successfully to date. The existing task order expires on September 14, 2024, however, the need for continued support and iterations on previously unsupported VFSs on VA.gov and the

VA.gov Iterate, Innovate, and Run (IIR) Control Number:

mobile application is an ongoing need beyond the current task order. Any break in service between the current task order and award of a new contract would result in the several current Veteran facing features on VA.gov and the mobile application to remain unsupported, leading to technical issues with both platforms going un-remediated, and removing the capacity for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer to implement changes that apply globally to all VFS products to these unsupported features/products. This team specifically runs the Veteran Status Card (web and mobile), MyVA Onboarding, the Performance Dashboard, and supports APIs for the Facility Locator and VA Notify. Without these team these products would be unsupported, lose parity between web and mobile, and the MyVA Onboarding would not be shipped on time for the November 2024 launch. This degrades the user experience of Veterans accessing benefits and health features through these VFS but also the security of both platforms since some changes are to improve their security posture.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted in July 2024, as discussed in Section 8 below. Upon the determination that a sole source award to Oddball was in the best interest of the Government, the Contracting Officer confirmed that Oddball meets all of the requirements detailed in Veterans Affairs Acquisition Regulation (VAAR) 819.7008. Consistent with the guidelines of the Veterans First Contracting Program, the proposed action described herein will be synopsized and this justification will be posted on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR Part 5.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The current task order was competed and awarded on the Customer Experience, DevOps, Agile Releases (CEDAR) Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The contract ceiling of CEDAR is accounted for, and therefore the continued requirements cannot be obtained via the CEDAR IDIQ. A new IDIQ, the Secure, Performant, Reliable, and User-Centered Experiences (SPRUCE) contract is planned to replace CEDAR, and is currently in the evaluation phase. Continued support for currently unsupported features/products on VA.gov and the mobile app is ongoing and needed to bridge the gap between the CEDAR and SPRUCE contracts. It is expected that future needs for this work will be competed on the new IDIQ contract as task orders in fiscal year 2025 and beyond.

CEDAR (and SPRUCE, once awarded), are the preferred vehicles to acquire the type of software development services under this action as they are 100% set-asides for SDVOSBs and the awardees have proven software development capabilities.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted in July 2024. The Contracting Officer considered whether there were other capable contractors in the marketplace.

Given that the CEDAR contract is nearing its ceiling and is no longer a viable vehicle for this work, and the follow-on IDIQ contract, SPRUCE, is not yet awarded, it is not in the Government’s best interest to compete for a short-term bridge effort as it may result in a transition to a different contractor, and then a transition to a third contractor once SPRUCE is awarded. The potential for three different contractors to have to transition this work in roughly 12 months would likely result in disruptions to