JOFOC Redacted.pdf

JOFOC – Knowledge Portal IDIQ Ordering Period Extension Page 1 of 8

Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) Human Resources Solutions (HRS), Center for

Leadership Development (CLD) and the USALearning® (USAL) Program

1. Contracting activity:

The procurement action is generated by:

U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Office of Procurement Operations 1900 E Street, NW, Room 1342 Washington, DC 20415

This JOFOC is accomplished in accordance with FAR Subpart 6.3.

2. Nature and Description of the action being approved:

The mission of USAL is to provide a full spectrum of academic, technical, organizational development, and online training services to Federal agencies, Department of Defense (DoD), and State and local Governments. These services are currently provided by the contractor, PowerTrain, Inc., through the Knowledge Portal Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) 24361820D0001 which was awarded on 14 August 2020 under the Unusual and Compelling Urgency authority.

OPM had a need to award the current one-year IDIQ sole source to PowerTrain, Inc., due to procurement delays associated with the interagency agreement with General Service Administration’s (GSA) Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM). On 17 June 2019 the two agencies signed a funding agreement to cover FEDSIM support services on 23 August 2019. The period of performance initiated on 25 September 2019 through 24 September 2020 whereas FEDSIM agreed to provide support in developing an acquisition strategy and assistance to execute the procurement, award, and transfer of a new competitively awarded contract back to OPM OPO for management and administration support of the HRS/CLD/USAL program. After experiencing delays, OPM cancelled the interagency agreement on 24 June 2020 with FEDSIM.

Since the execution of the current contract OPM has been actively progressing on the competitive procurements. However, for the reasons listed in Section 5 below, OPM now has a need to extend the current IDIQ ordering period. The current ordering period expires on 27 August 2021 and the purpose of this action is to modify the contract to extend the ordering period to provide sufficient time to execute the competitive procurements. The ordering period will be extended 12-months (one-6 month and two 3-month optional ordering periods), 28 August 2021 – 27 August 2022. The contract ceiling remains unchanged, JOFOC – Knowledge Portal IDIQ Ordering Period Extension Page 2 of 8

3. Description of the supplies and services required to meet the agency’s need:

The Contractor shall continue to provide services within the scope of the established IDIQ. It provides the HRS/CLD/USAL Program the required flexibility to support pilots, demonstrations, and rapid developments in support of Presidential and OPM Director Initiatives. Currently HRS/CLD/USAL supports Learning Management Systems (LMS) in over 60 agencies which is the key element in their learning and performance ecosystem infrastructures. These LMS systems provide online and resident courses with over 20,000,000 course completions per year that include mandatory skills, and leadership, information technology (IT) and cybersecurity, ethics, and other government requirements for Federal, State, and local workforces across the country, as well as Department of Defense activities both continental United States, CONUS, and outside of the Continental United States, OCONUS.

4. Statutory Authority permitting Other than Full and Open Competition:

41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1), FAR 6.302-1 - Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

5. Demonstration that the contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited:

PowerTrain, Inc. currently has the appropriate staffing and institutional knowledge to support this requirement as well as the capability to provide the seamless, broad base of technical support requirements needed by OPM’s USAL program under the current IDIQ. Failure to provide consistent technical support programs would degrade the level of Learning Development support services provided to all Federal agencies throughout the Federal workforce and would negatively impact USAL’s responsibility to provide support as a shared service center. This IDIQ has been designated as “Best-in-Class” by Office of Management and Budget and the Human Capital Management Council under the shared service provider umbrella of services.

OPM is currently developing its requirements for a new competitive procurement to replace the existing IDIQ; however, the new requirement has run into delays. PowerTrain, Inc. is the only Contractor who can provide services due to the USAL new requirement delays encountered during the process and the need for continuity of services to continue to serve USAL customer agencies.

USAL Competitive Procurement Delays:

Immediately after OPM took the procurement back from FEDSIM and put the sole source contract in place to prevent mission critical breaks in support the agency has been hard at work developing the requirements for the competitive recompete to replace the existing IDIQ.

However, the new requirement has run into unforeseen delays.

Below is a listing of actions/events which caused delays, provides mitigations, and/or steps taken in the execution of the competitive requirement:

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1) The Coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic was made widely known in March 2020 and is still going on. It could not be expected over one-year later the pandemic and threat is still valid. COVID-19 brought many uncertainties and required OPM to adapt several processes, which changed the way business is conducted. The push was to get the entire workforce capable of working remotely. Normal meetings that would be in-person were switched to a virtual platform. For example, Industry Day and C-SAW for the new competitive effort were held virtually due to COVID-19. The three steps and meetings provided below were directly impacted by COVID-19:

a. RFI was posted on 28 August 2020 receiving 25 responses for Industry Capability Statements, questions and responses were posted, and suggestions provided for the requirement. The exorbitant amount of questions, 74 from 11 different companies, received with capability statements in response to the RFI took more time than anticipated with gathering and researching responses. Personnel had to meet, research, share, and consolidate information virtually where information was not readily available due to remote work.

b. Civilian-Service Acquisition Workshop (C-SAW) is built around a specific acquisition and its integrated project team (IPT) which walks through the performance based acquisition process from beginning to end. It is to guide the IPT through steps and initialize documentation utilizing a facilitator. The Contracting Officer determined the use of a formal process, C-SAW, would be beneficial to the acquisition team. This process would have been accomplished in-person due to the scope, complexity, and dollar amount; however, the travel restrictions for COVID-19 required adjustment to a virtual process. The C-SAW began on 13 October 2020 with a total of 10 workshops and included meetings held outside C-SAW to explore specific topics in detail to be brought back for the group. It concluded on 21 December 2020.

c. Industry Day was held on 14 October 2020 with approximately 138 people in attendance representing 86 companies. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, Industry Day was held virtually instead of in-person and provided the forum to respond to extensive RFI questions. Additional questions were submitted and responded to during Industry Day. The questions and responses were posted along with a time period provided for companies to submit further questions and suggestions for the requirement.

2) The Chief Information Officer (CIO) has identified several critical areas of cybersecurity concern and as a result several of the acquisition strategy elements are under revision.

These concerns relate to the enhanced cyber-security environment precipitated by recent events resulting in a breach of multiple Federal agencies IT assets and infrastructures. As a result, the OPM CIO has requested additional time to formulate a cyber-security and identity management posture to inculcate that posture in the form of enhanced requirements in the new USAL requirement.

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3) Transition to a new administration has required a review of the acquisition plan to align with new priorities and Executive Orders. As a result, several of the acquisition strategy elements are under revision.

If an extension to the ordering period is not approved, it would disrupt the delivery of services to programs across the Federal landscape and be detrimental to DoD mission critical operations.

Specifically, the credentialing for Cybersecurity Specialists, Air Traffic Controllers, Fire and Emergency Response personnel. As a shared service center provider to Federal agencies, DoD, State, and Local municipalities USAL exists to centralize and deliver e-Learning products and services. The program supports over 60 Federal agencies, over 2.7 million Federal employee users and over 20 million course completions annually. Certifications and critical qualification verifications are at risk if these services are not maintained.

6. Efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable, including whether a notice will be publicized as required by FAR 5.2:

It is not practicable to request offers from potential sources being there is only a six to twelve-months transition period for a new Contractor. This would result in a new Contractor performing for a few months at most with no guarantee it would be awarded the new contract. This would result in additional cost, time, and administration to the Government. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the Government to extend the current contract ordering period and bridge the gap between the existing contract and the period of time needed to compete a new contract. OPM intends to issue a Request for Proposal(s) in FY 2021. Also, OPM intends to issue a whitepaper containing the Requirement Descriptions, Instructions to Offerors, and Evaluation Factors for industry feedback in April 2021.

A notice will be publicized as required by FAR 5.2.

7. Determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The modification will not increase the ceiling value of the contract issued to PowerTrain, Inc.; it will only extend the current ordering period to provide OPM the ability to get the new requirement in place. Any new Contractor would require a transition period to become familiar with OPM’s program, customers, and ongoing projects. This transition period would not be able to occur in the time remaining for the LMS.

8. Description of the market research conducted and the results or statement of the reason market research was not conducted:

Market research was conducted for new competitive USAL requirement via the RFI and Industry Day; however, due to the information provided in Section 5 of this document, there are unforeseen delays preventing OPM from awarding the requirement prior to the ordering period expiring on the current contract.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

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Transition for the current Contractor will take twelve months for integrator services and hosting support. With approximately 42 current Task Order awards and with another 6 estimated awards prior to the expiration of the IDIQ, transition servicers will be needed to move systems from one firm to another firm across organizations with a disparity of system requirements and security needs. The actual time required for transition is based on the size of the agency system (how many users, courses, etc.) For this reason, the actual transition requirements are unknown until the award of the follow-on IDIQ. It is also more feasible to transition each customer individually in order to spread the work load and ensure sufficient testing is done for every implementation so that no data is at risk.

10. A listing of sources, if any, that expressed interest in the acquisition:

In response to the RFI posted on 28 August 2020 and Industry Day held on 14 October 2020, 138 people in attendance representing 86 companies expressed interested in the new competitive USAL requirement.

Quantum Improvements Consulting Eduworks Corporation

Akytech Consulting LLC

CACI Business and Information Technology Solutions

ProActive Technologies, Inc. MBC

Veracity Technology Consultants, LLC Skillsoft

Coley & Associates, Inc. Southern New Hampshire University

Choisys Technologies Inc. Tech Talent South GDIT Attain, LLC Float, LLC Deloitte Consulting, LLC EnCompass College Thriver Inc A. Harold and Associates, LLC (AHA) Comtech LLC TechSolnZ LLC C2 Technologies Inc Serco Inc. TFE Inc PowerTrain, Inc. SIMIS Inc R3 Government Associates Greentree Group JANUS Research Group ICF

Blackboard Imagine Believe Realize

LLC

HighPoint Digital The Millennium Group International

JOFOC – Knowledge Portal IDIQ Ordering Period Extension Page 6 of 8

Veracity Consulting, Inc. Windwalker Group Bixal Maximus Federal

Carley Corporation Innova Systems International

Eagle Hill Consulting Rigil Corporation

AP Ventures (APV) Perigean Technologies, LLC

Medallia Pearson VUE FMP Consulting ATC

Bloomsburie ARS Aleut Technical Services LLC (AATS)

Vantage Point Aleut Management Services

Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc Altum Trading Company, LLC

Advanced Computer Learning Company, LLC

METCOR, Ltd. DBA Learning Systems International (LSI)

Conduent Federal Solutions Accenture Federal Services, LLC

Perspecta EY Northrop Grumman Corporation Pal Technologies, Inc

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Schamback and Williams Consulting

Envisage Technologies, LLC Microassist, Inc.

Team Carney, Inc. Turnkey Solutions, LLC Deltek HumRRO

Hendall, Inc Cogent Infotech Corporation

Accelerated Partners, LLC Meridian Knowledge Solutions

Management Concepts Engineering & Computer Simulations, Inc

Goldschmitt and Associates LLC

Personnel Decisions Research Institutes, LLC

(PDRI)

Independent Healthcare Consultant Gabriel Enterprises Consulting Group

Cybermedia Technologies Inc.

(CTEC) Sevatec Dexis Consulting Group Unknown Company Name