Strategic Planning Operational Test and Evaluations and Architecture Evaluation RFI.pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

FOR

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS)

CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (cisa)

CYBERSECURITY DIVISION (CSD)

STRATEGIC PLANNING, OPERATIONAL TEST & EVALUATION AND

ARCHITECTURE EVALUATION

INTRODUCTION

CISA is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) as a means of conducting market research to identify potential qualified firms having an interest in, and the resources to support, the requirement for Strategic Planning, Operational Test & Evaluation and Architecture Evaluation.

This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as an obligation on the part of the Government. This is NOT a Request for Quotations or Proposals. No solicitation document exists, and the Government may or may not issue a formal solicitation resulting from the responses received to this RFI.

The Government will not pay for any response expenses. All costs incurred responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party's expense. Failure to respond to this RFI will not preclude participation in any future solicitation. Any information received will become the property of the Government and will not be returned to the submitter.

Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or sensitive information.

Government technical experts drawn from staff within CISA, and other federal agencies may review responses. The Government may use selected support contractor personnel to assist in the review of the RFI responses. These support contractors will be bound by appropriate non-disclosure agreements to protect proprietary information.

The purpose of this RFI is to assist the Government in conducting market research focused on identifying interested parties, as well as to gain feedback from industry partners who have the subject matter expertise to create and manage Training Pathways to support the Cyber Skilling Program.

The information provided as response to this RFI will be used for market research only.

The Government is not obligated to release a future solicitation based on this market research.

PROGRAM BACKGROUND

CISA’s mission is to lead the national effort to protect and enhance the resilience of the nation’s physical and cyber infrastructure. Within CISA, the Mission Engineering sub-division’s mission is to acquire, engineer, and provide life cycle support for the capabilities required to execute CSD's federal enterprise cybersecurity mission. To meet that mission, ME designs, develops, tests, deploys, integrates, sustains, and maintains the mission systems, administrative services, and shared infrastructure in support of CSD’s cybersecurity mission.

HOW TO RESPOND TO THIS RFI

Interested entities are required to identify their type of business, applicable NAICS Code, and size standards in accordance with the Small Business Administration.

Is your organization currently performing or have in the past performed same or similar services as those in this RFI? If so, indicate whether your organization offers any of the required capabilities described in this notice on one or more of your company's own Federal Government contracts (i.e., GSA Federal Supply Schedule contract or Government wide Acquisition Contracts) that ME could order from and, if so, which services are offered.

Industry input is also requested on the draft requirements. Questions and/or feedback must be submitted as a separate document.

Please respond to the following within your submission:

1. Describe your company’s capability and experience with Agile Scrum methodology and/or Scaled Agile Framework (or SAFe methodology) and managing IV&V work utilizing Agile or other industry best practices.

2. Describe your company’s capability and experience developing verification and validation methods for independent testing,

3. Describe your understanding of Public Safety Data Security needs, and how you would take measures to provide secure data transactions near real-time between users across multiple 4G/5G networks, cloud infrastructure, and between different Enterprise security domains.

4. Describe your experience working with data interoperability across multiple networks comprised of multiple vendors. Describe any technical and operational challenges you have encountered and overcome.

5. Describe your experience determining and testing Key Performance Parameters of mission-critical voice, data, and video services for public safety during times of heavy network congestion on 4G and 5G networks.

6. Describe your experience transforming or sharing disparate data sets between organizations using different software applications.

7. Describe your experience bringing research from a lower to higher Technology Research Level (TRL). What kind of evidence was provided to support increasing TRL for different outcomes? Provide two examples ( realor hypothetical) and how generated evidence supported an increased TRL.

8. Bringing research projects from ideas to production-scale projects can be a challenge. Describe processes you have or would put in place to ensure a sound technical transition of R&D work? Provide three examples representing differenty types of outcomes (knowledge products, softwre, material solutions) ahd how the processes would support their successful transition to the end user.

Discuss how the transitions differ for the different research outcomes, the challenges that different types of research outcomes impose, and what you've done to mitigate those risks in the past.

9. For longer term research that starts at a foundational level, provide two examples of how you have measured progress over time. Describe metrics you have collected to evaluate progress (or lack thereof).What sort of metrics would you collect? How would you evaluate progress (or lack thereof)?

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Interested entities should submit a capabilities statement package (up to 20 pages, 8.5 x 11-inch pages, font no smaller than 10 point) demonstrating the ability to provide the services listed in this RFI.

Entities should submit a Cover Page: The cover page does not count towards the page limit. The cover page should contain at a minimum the following information:

Company name Primary Point of Contact, including phone number and email address SAM.GOV Unique Entity ID (UEI)

Submit responses electronically in either Microsoft Word or Portable Document Format (PDF), no later than 12:00 p.m. ED, 21 January 2025 to hannah.moussa@mail.cisa.dhs.gov.

Note: CISA COCO plans to conduct an in-person Industry Day, open to both small and other than small businesses on a date to be determined. The primary objectives of the Industry Day are for industry to: (1) learn about the requirement, (2) share comments and questions, and (3) help determine the method of acquisition. The Government reserves the right to hold one-on-one meetings resulting from RFI responses received as part of its market research. Meetings may be held with companies who provide comprehensive and relevant responses this RFI.

All data received in response to this SSN that is marked or designated as corporate of proprietary will be fully protected from any release outside the Government.