TICCS_Market_Survey_Phase_1 Attachment A PWS DRAFT.pdf

CUI//SP-PROCURE

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS)

Transformation, Innovation, Communication and Culture Solutions (TICCS)

1 BACKGROUND

The sections below provide background information on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) vision for its Information Technology (IT) program and organization of the agency’s IT Product Catalog.

1.1 USPTO

The USPTO, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia – with regional offices in Detroit, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; and San Jose, California – is an independent operating agency within the Department of Commerce, subject to the policy direction of the Secretary of Commerce. The USPTO is the principal agency in the executive branch of the federal government responsible for the administration of intellectual property (IP) laws, including those relevant to the examination, processing and granting of patents and the registering of trademarks, and the promotion of IP systems as a means of protecting economic prosperity.

The USPTO is fully funded by user fees and operates as a performance-based organization with two mission-driven business operations – Patents and Trademarks – whereby the USPTO administers the patent and trademark laws [15 U.S.C. §113 and 35 U.S.C. §41 and 376], which provide protection to inventors and businesses for their inventions and corporate and product identifications. The USPTO also encourages innovation and scientific and technical advancement of American industry through the preservation, classification, and dissemination of patent and trademark information. In addition, the USPTO provides technical advice and information to executive branch agencies on IP matters and the trade related aspects of IP rights, and assists governments of other countries in establishing regulatory and enforcement mechanisms that meet their international obligations to protect IP.

The USPTO accomplishes its statutory requirements and mission through the production-oriented and corporate support work of almost 13,000 federal employees, with about 75 percent of those employees accomplishing their work in accordance with specific workload production standards. As a production-oriented Agency, the USPTO relies upon its IT as a mission-critical enabler for every aspect of its operation. The quality, efficiency, and productivity of patent and trademark operations correlate to the performance of their IT systems. While a core team of USPTO employees accomplish their work primarily at headquarters or within one of the four regional offices, over 11,000 employees work remotely 4 plus days a week, and are dispersed throughout the United States. USPTO’s IT systems are a vital element that contributes to the success of this distributed workforce business model.

1.2 Vision for the USPTO IT Program

The USPTO IT Program is centralized and administered by the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). The USPTO requires strong industry partnerships to enable an IT transformation journey with customer business value at the heart of its decisions and actions. There is a difficult balance along this transformation journey because while modernizing its IT systems, the USPTO must ensure mission operations continue by maintaining and operating over 270 legacy systems with almost 99.7% systems uptime. In addition, while the OCIO requires transition to a modern cloud environment, it must continue to employ around 1,900 physical servers and 9,600 virtual servers to support its IT program.

1.2.1 OCIO’s Pillars of Change. For years, the USPTO delivered IT using a formal project-program-portfolio model resulting in over 100 projects each year and weak partnerships

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990 between OCIO and its customers. IT delivery results were often mixed, leaving both parties dissatisfied. Recognizing the need to better serve its customers, the OCIO has invested over three years in an extensive self-assessment and change initiative to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of IT delivery with three pillars: stabilization, modernization, and new ways of working.

1.2.1.1 Stabilization. The USPTO has an extensive collection of legacy solutions (aka systems) in both mission and mission-support areas. Outdated infrastructure, databases, and applications are sometimes intricately connected (within and between solutions) making it difficult to upgrade or replace a single solution element. Some solutions required intricate and detailed efforts (e.g., code refactoring) to achieve stabilization. Others are achieving stabilization through modernization; for example, legacy systems will be retired in favor of modern solutions. The risk assessment is ongoing as the current technology stack continues to age and the risk profile shifts. The OCIO will continue to stabilize, maintain, and operate legacy systems, only performing legacy enhancements when necessary to facilitate the USPTO mission.

1.2.1.2 Modernization. Ultimately, USPTO aims to modernize its IT solutions to realize the benefits of new design approaches, features, and functionalities like modular builds, loose coupling, micro-services, containers, cybersecurity resilience, access controls, resiliency, observability, and disaster recovery. Modern solutions must be future-ready, adaptable, resilient, and responsive to changing business needs. USPTO is shifting away from on premise infrastructure to cloud architecture, which currently includes hybrid cloud services (e.g., a mix of on premise, private and/or public cloud services).

Modernization will enable a long-term, sustainable IT backbone that results in improved performance, cost management, and IT value delivery. As a part of its modernization journey, the USPTO has defined a target state architecture with guiding principles that span across domains, consolidates across the patent and trademark business, platform, and data and analytics services where it makes sense to do so with goals for enabling cost-savings and consistency through efficiency and reusability. The target state architecture also envisions omni-channel to create tailored experiences and implements DevSecOps—development (Dev), security (Sec) and support/operations (Ops)—which has allow for more frequent and faster deployments.

1.2.1.3 New Ways of Working. The USPTO has recommitted to Agile and DevSecOps principles and practices for Product based IT delivery. The USPTO’s focus is on empowered resources who can research, assess, and make decisions on how to advance their features in their product from concept to delivery. USPTO executives engage to set a high-level strategy and communicate priorities; however, a majority of the decision-making occurs at the team level. Teams, led by federal product owners based in the business area where value is ultimately delivered, are encouraged to fail small, learn, and quickly pivot. The new ways of working aim to drive value, collective purpose, efficiency, and faster time-to-delivery.

1.2.2 USPTO Requires Strong Industry Partnerships. Key to the implementation of the technology goals of the Stabilization, Modernization, and new ways of working are the implementation of organizational change strategies that drive learning, agility, and change at all levels across the USPTO. The USPTO OCIO requires a partner that can identify

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990 innovative improvement concepts, methodologies, and industry best practices to drive change at the individual, team, product, product line, and enterprise leadership levels to continue the improvement and maturation of our ways of working. The USPTO needs industry partners that leverage and improve upon USPTO’s digital transformation and agile mindset and can: (1) Quickly identify opportunities for improvement (2) develop iterative plans for change; (3) Utilize Agile and DevSecOps processes, procedures, and enabling technologies in the right way to empower daily work; 4) define and meet goals and success measures (OKRs, KPI’s, tactical metrics) for each 5) A strong industry partner must have insights into more than one possible solution to a problem and how to objectively weigh pros and cons for the government’s interests and priorities with the never wavering goal of meeting business goals and delivering measurable value to USPTO’s customer base, be it internal or external.

1.2.3 Methodologies that Lead to Success. Some aspects of USPTO’s enhanced Agile, DevSecOps, and Product practices include key roles fully dedicated, such as business-based product owners, Scrum Masters, transformation change coaches, and standard agile ceremonies such as, daily stand-up, backlog grooming, minimum viable products (MVPs), and deliberate retrospectives that capture clear lessons learned. Looking to the future, the USPTO aims for greater adoption of DevSecOps, automation, and product management principles and practices. Additionally, USPTO has committed to the development and execution of change management plans that include the clear definition of goals, strategies, tactics (communication, training, coaching, etc.) success measures, all with a focus of change sustainment and organizational ownership of the change as it moves to a USPTO ‘ways of working’.

1.3 USPTO IT Product Approach

The USPTO IT Product Catalog, introduced in FY 2019, is an element of the New Ways of Working. In moving away from a project-based IT delivery structure to a product-based IT Delivery structure, the USPTO needs to:

• Allow both the OCIO and its business customers to focus on the full spectrum of IT delivery across the USPTO

• Link IT delivery to overall USPTO strategies and Product Objectives

• Better align resource availability including capacity and funding resources, staff, and contractors

• Enable decision making at the working level

• Communicate the strategic vision and value proposition of a product

• Articulate the plan for delivering the strategic vision

• Communicate specific resource capacity requirements for delivery

• Highlight risks and interdependencies to enable cross-product planning

• Document technical boundaries of the product for clear accountability

• Support change management initiatives and communication related to product maturity, automation, measurement and agile processes

• Support Enterprise ways of working processes and learning

The USPTO’s IT Product Catalog currently has 29 products aligned to one (1) of four (4) product lines:

Patent Product Line, Trademark Product Line, Enterprise Business Product Line, and Enterprise Infrastructure Product Line. Each product is comprised of both legacy systems that the USPTO is

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990 stabilizing, maintaining, and operating and modern solutions that are being planned, in progress, or in production. The USPTO has prepared initial product roadmaps with prioritized epics for each of the 29 products within the four product lines. Descriptions of each product line follow.

1.3.1 Patent Product Line. Internal and external stakeholders access the product line to manage the Patent application process through the entire Patent lifecycle, including filing, examination, appeals, search, international data exchange, fees, maintenance, and reporting.

Some current product components are in containment, being stabilized, or scheduled for retirement once modernized systems are in production.

1.3.2 Trademark Product Line. Internal and external stakeholders access the product line to manage the Trademark application process through the entire Trademark lifecycle, including, filing, examination, appeals, search, international data exchange, fees, maintenance, and reporting. Some current product components are in containment or being stabilized and scheduled for retirement once modernized solutions are in production.

1.3.3 Enterprise Business Product Line. Internal and external stakeholders access the product line to manage fee collection and refunds, communications and information dissemination, financial management, procurement, budgeting, human resources, time and attendance, property and facility management, legal tools, and management of data, analytics, and associated reporting functions. Many of the IT solutions for this product line are configured and customized COTS and GOTS.

1.3.4 Enterprise Infrastructure Product Line. The Enterprise Infrastructure Product Line encompasses products and product components that focus on delivering value via platform and/or infrastructure shared services. The product line includes major infrastructure solutions that underlie the business-oriented product lines (Patent, Trademark, and Enterprise Business.

Products in this line cover end-user equipment (e.g., laptops, monitors, etc.), network, platform, security services, cloud infrastructure, IT innovations, and Federal IT regulations (including policy, process, and procedure). Efforts to support this product line are more closely aligned to infrastructure operations, maintenance, and recovery.

2 OBJECTIVE

The objective of the TICCS contract is to procure services and expertise and engage companies or entities that can drive transformative change at all levels related to improvement of our digital transformation and ways of working across the areas of people, processes, and technology. USPTO requires partners that provide strategic direction and innovative solutions to solve the problems of the future. This may take the form of coaching (at all levels), immersive learning (Dojo), study halls, change management, communication and industry experts in digital transformation, measurement, and business agility as defined in Section 3 – Scope, that drive effectiveness and deliver on a key USPTO metric of “delivering business value to our customers, frequently, predictably, and with high quality”. The USPTO’s highest priority in moving to its new ways of working is to satisfy the customer today, and clearly communicating, planning, and implementing future strategies to deliver business value in the future while adhering to Federal regulations.

USPTO understands that this journey takes time and is implementing and planning for significant changes in the organization to enable and facilitate goal attainment. USPTO’s vision of a high performing organization is multifaceted focusing on the following areas:

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Organizational Focus Area Organizational Goal

Purpose and Intent

• Executive Leadership has a deep understanding of Agile, DevSecOps, and is continuously improving and communicating the product model and transformation goals for the organization

IT Planning and Acquisition

• End-to-End Product governance is optimized

• Business Partners are fully integrated in Product Working model

Organizing Talent and Optimizing Roles

• Long lasting teams are established and optimized for value delivery

• Recruiting strategies focused on obtaining practitioners for roles to support the organizational goals and new ways of working Enabling New Ways of Working

• Smooth cadence of value delivery is established throughout the USPTO by all product teams with a focus on both speed and high quality

• The customer is an integral part of the product team and understands Agile processes and measures to integrate feedback into product backlog is established and operational

• Cross-team collaboration is well established

• Teams take ownership of their product area across development, security, and operations and are self-organized and drive innovative solutions

• Entire team commits to ambitious but sustainably achievable and predictable targets Measuring Results • End-to-End performance management is established and optimized for continuous improvement

• Organizational Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are well understood and tactics enabled for teams to meet or exceed targets

• Organizational Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are identified and have clear tie to USPTO strategic plan and mission attainment Setting the Technology Foundation

• DevSecOps fully implemented and optimized

• Large part of architecture modularized (Application Programming

Interfaces [API’s] established)

• Provisioning enabled according to best practices

• State of the art tooling landscape includes fully automated testing

• Understanding and compliance with enterprise target architecture

Change Management

• Culture is based on Product, DevSecOps, and Agile principles, including a ‘Learn Fast’ environment

• Fully transparent sharing of information

• Highly collaborative attitude across organizations and functions

• Leaders developed over ‘managers’ and servant leadership style throughout the organization

• Strong affinity to teams

Resiliency • Products have effective and tested disaster recovery plans

• Teams implement chaos engineering and practice observability

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Organizational Focus Area Organizational Goal

Security • Security is baked in at every step in the product lifecycle

• Risks are understood and mitigation plans are in place

• Automated Governance

Cloud • Products have a strong business case for moving to the cloud

• Cloud smart best practices are enabled in both architecture and code

• Cloud benefits are leveraged in operations

• Product understand and comply with enterprise target architecture

The USPTO is committed to the following approaches to facilitate the delivery of the goals:

• Product. To support development activities and meet target goals, USPTO is embracing Product-based IT delivery. USPTO is embedding all key roles onto long term product teams to improve communication and collaboration to deliver working software more frequently. Dedicated product teams embed all needed skills on the team to enable ownership and often in the form of cross-skilled individuals that have expertise in multiple areas and the ability to collaborate across disciplines and with experts in other areas. This product team construct, in addition to vertically groomed backlogs and smaller user stories, clear understanding of product goals, and support by a dedicated product owner, improves the team’s ability to increase flow of high quality, high value software to the production environment.

• Agile. USPTO embraces Agile methodologies as a fundamental aspect of a Product based organization. Agile methodologies are leveraged to incrementally deliver highest value features and functionality to the customer. Agile processes involve small incremental changes with continuous involvement from stakeholders to ensure alignment with customer requirements.

Agile emphasizes a culture of fast and frequent feedback loops to ensure continuous learning with the product team and throughout the organization.

• DevSecOps. USPTO understands that to accelerate delivery of business value and foster innovation, a move to DevSecOps is needed. DevSecOps is an organizational software engineering culture and practice that aims at unifying software development (Dev), security (Sec) and support/operations (Ops). The main differentiation of DevSecOps as opposed to DevOps is that the former introduces security at all phases of the software lifecycle: scope, estimate, plan, design, develop, test, integrate, release, deliver/deploy, maintain, operate, and monitor.

DevSecOps principles highlight the need to detail business process and security requirements upfront and at every release in the form of epics and user stories, to successfully achieve continuous integration and continuous delivery and progress to continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD pipeline) in the future, as well as provide continuous monitoring and instrumentation/measurement of working software to the customer. A successful DevSecOps strategy encompasses working with all stakeholders involved in planning, designing, developing, testing, securing, integrating, deploying, continually monitoring, and improving the product.

In a DevSecOps environment, product teams must adhere to all required escalation and release promotion processes. This move allows for continuous integration with proper governance and approvals, sufficient testing to meet USPTO’s quality standards, and a strict process for promotion of new features and defect fixes into production. In addition, USPTO is driving a comprehensive architectural move to micro-services that shrinks the size of deployments, de-conflict code, and makes the process more manageable for the team. Security is embedded in all development work and IT security is everyone’s responsibility.

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

3 SCOPE

3.1 As USPTO moves from projects to products, the TICCS contract encompasses maturing Product Teams, as well as the OCIO and other business units in USPTO that have technology responsibilities in the organization in key transformation areas in support of planning, development, modernization, enhancement, operations, and maintenance of USPTO products.

USPTO aims to deepen USPTO product and product management expertise via coaching, learning, enterprise architecture guidance, strategic visioning, communications, change management and measurement, policy and process improvement, in order to design and scale a world class digital organization. The USPTO will issue task orders describing the scope of the work required for multiple major transformation maturity focus areas, as detailed below:

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

3.2

1. TICCS Program and Initiative

Management

2. Coaching:

a. Agile coaching

b. DevSecOps Coaching

c. Product Coaching

d. Enterprise architecture

Coaching

e. Technology Coaching

f. Executive coaching

3. Measurement

a. Organizational Key Results

(OKR)

b. Key Performance Indicators

c. Delivery Metrics

d. Agile Team Metrics

e. Organizational Change

Adoption Measures

f. Flow metrics

4. Strategic Planning

a. Product Road mapping

b. Information Technology

Strategies

c. Data Management and

Governance

d. Quarterly Review Governance

e. Product Capacity Planning

5. Organizational Change Management

a. Organizational Structure Planning & Implementation

b. Communications and Awareness

c. Employee Engagement Change Management

d. Organizational Communications

e. Customer Experience and

Journey Mapping

f. Process and Policy

Improvement

6. Enterprise Architecture

a. Tool and Technology, Identification, Inventory and Administration

b. Target architecture communication and change facilitation

7. Continuous Learning

a. Training

b. Immersive learning

c. Lunch and Learns

d. Office Hours

e. Study Halls

8. Automation

a. Process automation

b. Automated governance

3.3 It is important to note that in addition to collaborative team dynamics, vendor teams and team members must work with other teams, vendors, business units within and across USPTO and product lines to successfully deliver integrated solutions that achieve USPTO’s goals.

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

4 TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS/TASKS/OUTCOMES

The Contractor must deliver Subject Matter Experts as defined in task orders to perform the technical requirements described below. Overall, the USPTO requires vendors who are able to deliver innovative thought leadership from concept, planning, communication and training all the way through to implementation to maximize agency business value, on a consistent basis with clear outcomes and measurable results. The technical/functional areas are not all-encompassing as the sample tasks and outcomes performance questions may shift as USPTO partners learn by doing. OKR’s, KPI’s and metrics vary by task order, the information below provides examples of the type of key performance questions the USPTO will assign performance metrics to in individual task orders.

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions

1. TICCS Program and

Initiative Management Program and Initiative management includes all of the activities that enable and support transformation services delivery, including the following and related tasks: communication, documentation and reporting, coordination, resource identification and alignment, stakeholder engagement, problem identification and resolution, and compliance with all federal standards, laws and regulations. Program management also encompasses the purchase of software and hardware to meet the government’s needs; all purchases become the property of the USPTO. In addition, the contractor must have their organization’s continuity of operations (COOP) plan in place prior to delivering support to USPTO.

The outcome required is synergy and continuous improvement in value delivery that results in higher quality, faster time to deployment, and increased customer satisfaction in solutions provided.

a. Is the Contractor rapidly on-boarding and retaining the right resources with the needed skills and experience?

b. Is the Contractor successful in ensuring that persistent teams are enabled?

c. Does the organization show improvement in product management, agile, and DevSecOps maturity?

d. Is the Contractor retaining key personnel? If not, do key personnel changes follow the guidelines for notification and replacement?

e. Is the contractor transitioning and handing off work from one team member to another in a manner that does not impact team performance?

f. Is the contractor coordinating work across multiple workstreams in a way that builds synergy and drives consistent communications for common goals?

g. Does the contractor leverage retrospectives to drive institutional learning and improvement?

2. Coaching:

a. Agile coaching

b. DevSecOps Coaching

c. Product Coaching

d. Executive coaching

e. Enterprise architecture

Coaching

The objective of coaching is to establish subject matter expertise in Agile, DevOps, Organizational and Process Analysis and product management best practices and provide resources that

• Develop Agile teams that independently develop, test, deploy, monitor, and operate

a. Is the contractor supporting the USPTO objectives by aligning with industry best practices to develop and mature ways of working at the USPTO?

b. Is the contractor applying the USPTO NWoW guidance and industry recognized best practices

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions

f. Technology Coaching high quality software with a customer first focus

• Deepen USPTO Agile expertise via coaching and immersive learning in order to design and scale a world class Agile organization

• Enable a highly collaborative and effective workforce with a culture of experimentation that drives continuous improvement

• Institutionalize identified Agile, DevSecOps, and product best practices in a lean portfolio management atmosphere

• Keep Agile teams focused on executing Agile work

• Drive changes in product delivery processes, and identify and support technology that enable change

• Identify and support organizational change tactics that allow for rapid and effective change across the organization.

• Facilitate Enterprise Architecture requirements, including guardrails understanding and compliance.

• Enhance adoption of USPTO target architecture via improved communication, targeted technical coaching, and strategies to address compliance challenges across the enterprise.

• Create and maintain architecture references, patterns and templates for consistent implementation across product teams.

• Define and setup experimental activities, including technology proof of concepts in completion of the work required under this

IDIQ?

c. Is the contractor facilitating the delivery of software products through Agile, Product, and DevSecOps methodologies and a spirit of innovation?

d. Is the contractor maintaining a consistent adoption of Agile, Product, and DevSecOps processes across the enterprise?

e. Is the contractor Provide Agile, Product, and DevSecOps coaching to all levels of the USPTO organization, to include product delivery teams, executive staff, managers, and team leads?

f. Is the contractor versed in USPTO target architecture and enabling teams to adopt?

g. Is the contractor versed in cybersecurity and in all aspects of target architecture and related initiatives?

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions (PoC) and technology pilots, in collaboration with product teams.

3. Measurement

a. Organizational Key Results (OKR)

b. Key Performance Indicators

c. Delivery Metrics

d. Agile Team Metrics

e. Organizational Change

Adoption Measures

f. Flow Metrics

Support USPTO in the development of Key performance indicators (KPIs, OKRs, SLAs, Flow etc. ) to evaluate progress against goals for value delivery, and change adoption at the strategic, organizational, product, team and individual level?

a. Has the contractor put a measurement system in for the ‘Measurement’ effort, and clearly defined success and incremental as well as strategic goals and measures?

b. Can the contractor support teams to identify measures that provide understandable and timely feedback to teams that can be leveraged for performance improvement?

c. Does the contractor provide expertise in areas that need to be measured to ensure that measures are meaningful in the context of the work performed?

d. Does the contractor leverage automation in the gathering, tracking and reporting of measures?

e. Can the contractor measure change adoption through various methods, such as engagement surveys? Is there a positive trending and NPS?

f. Does the contractor have knowledge of flow metrics implementation at scale? Can the contractor incrementally implement value streams and flow metrics?

g. Strategic Planning

a. Product Road mapping

b. Information

Technology Strategies

c. Data Management and

Governance

d. Quarterly Review

Governance

Provide expert analysis to identify opportunities for innovation and develop plans, roadmaps, and strategies to enable change related to organizations, people, processes or technology that allow USPTO to deliver products and services better, cheaper, and faster.

• Provide USPTO the knowledge, experience, and skills needed to assist in the analysis of

a. Can the contractor facilitate the creation of a five-year strategic product roadmap with sufficient detail to be implemented successfully and measured?

b. Does the contractor provide innovative strategies for consideration by the USPTO in the development of an IT Strategic Plan?

c. Is the contractor including existing Government and industry best practices and standards in

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions

e. Product and Capacity

Planning existing processes and technology, identifying opportunities to improve and innovate, and support the development of goals, roadmaps, strategies, measures and tactics to achieve identified improvements.

• Support USPTO with organizational strategic and business planning strategies and roadmaps, along with, documentation and communications materials to implement the identified strategic direction at division, business unit, and enterprise levels.

• Support the USPTO in the development of lean business cases, annual IT Planning capacity planning, quarterly reviews, and cross product collaboration by developing and delivering communication events that train, coach, support and demonstrate best practices

Data Management and Governance?

d. Can the contractor provide support and improvement areas for how products and planning group provide information to executives on quarter over quarter delivery in addition to quarterly plans one to 2 quarters out?

Does the contractor help facilitate products, planning groups, and teams with quarterly planning ceremonies?

e. Can the contractor facilitate product leadership conversations to help with understanding of capacity is needed to accomplish the prioritized roadmap while driving towards autonomous, dedicated teams?

h. Organizational Change Management

a. Organizational Structure Planning & Implementation

b. Communications and Awareness

c. Employee Engagement

d. Change Management

e. Organizational

Communications

f. Customer Experience and Journey Mapping

g. Process and Policy

Improvement

• Support communications and change management efforts associated with OCIO initiatives designed to drive learning, agility, technology adoption and change at all levels across the USPTO

• Support organizational change with comprehensive planning, communications, training and outreach.

• Support the USPTO in the development of innovative and strategic solutions to current and future change efforts.

• Develop strategic roadmaps for change efforts.

• Provide organizational team sites/websites for information sharing.

a. Does the contractor develop organizational structure plans that enhance the organizations ability to drive value delivery?

b. Are communication plans and artifacts leveraged to ensure awareness and organizational readiness for change?

c. Can employees readily find information related to change efforts and understand their roles?

d. Do feedback loops provide input to change efforts?

e. Are customer journey maps easy to understand and reflect areas for optimization?

f. Are policies or other guidance written and shared in an easy to access, easy to read, easy to follow format?

g. Do communication materials have engagement measures to understand awareness and use?

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions

h. Do change efforts generate engagement from staff?

i. Enterprise Architecture

a. Transformation Tool identification and Administration

b. Target architecture documentation, communication and change facilitation

• Provide Industry recognized best practices for agile tool support aligned with USPTO

NWOW

• Provide Agile Tool Operations & Maintenance administrative and technical support

• Provide Agile Tool data structure, configuration changes, and system integration support

• Provide Agile Tool training support

• Provide Agile Tool SLA administration and support

• Provide subject matter expertise for Enterprise

Agile Planning Tools

• Provide enterprise level communications for

Agile Tool

• Provide prompt, polite and accurate responses to queries from Agile Tool users.

• Monitor USPTO support requests and pro-actively respond. Gather common queries into an FAQ.

• Provide target architecture framework and product alignment for Federal requirements and reporting.

• Provide technology and product evaluation, inventory and lifecycle.

• Provide support for enterprise architecture repository and tools.

a. Can the contractor provide tool administration for a wide variety of tools? Can the Tools team maintain less than a day for implementation of change requests?

b. Can the contractor provide maintenance of tools including patching and upgrades during non-working hours?

j. Continuous Learning

a. Training

b. Immersive learning

c. Lunch and Learns

d. Office Hours

Continuous Learning at the USPTO is a commitment that the USPTO has made to itself to keep improvement and innovation front and center for the benefit of all stakeholders.

a. Is the contractor Developing, Delivering, and maintaining NWoW content to include materials, scheduling and coordination with OCIO training division? Is the contractor

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions

e. Study Halls • Support facilitation and delivery of quarterly

NWOW training based on input from OCIO Training and employee demand.

• Support the identification, development, and delivery of new training based on transformations objectives and roadmap, including enterprise architecture and technology adoption.

• Support the operations, build, and delivery of the USPTO Dojo (immersive learning center).

This includes the ability to delivery on the shelf dojo offerings in addition to building new offerings based either on customer demand or transformation objectives.

• Support marketing and communications around continuous learning activities to drive engagement across the product organization

• Support TDD Office hours, to include delivery of materials, operations, and collaboration with partners.

• Support and deliver executive briefings to drive engagement, buy-in, understanding and support.

measuring the effectiveness of the training events and incorporating lessons learned into new events to improve training content, processes, delivery, etc?

b. Is the contractor including both classroom and immersive learning processes as needed to best instill knowledge and best practices for the trainees?

c. Positive Net Promoter Score (NPS) for dojo offerings.

d. Is the contractor presenting relevant and leading-edge material at the office hours or lunch and learns? Are the attendance numbers and engagement during the session increasing?

e. Are study halls well attended with appropriate expertise and shared learning to add value?

8. Automation

a. Process automation

b. Automated governance

c. Technology adoption

Provide expertise in the design and delivery of automated governance to include audit, security, and change management.

Deep knowledge in process mapping, identified areas of process improvement and applicable technologies to improve process flow.

Facilitation of technology adoption to accelerate team value delivery, including in areas such as

a. Can the contractor provide industry best practices in automated governance to provide a strategic roadmap and implementation plan?

b. Can the contractor work across organizational and product boundaries to drive collaboration and buy-in on strategic direction?

c. Can the contractor provide incremental steps on how to implement the strategic vision for automated governance and

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

Technical / Functional Area Sample Tasks and Outcomes Sample Key Performance Questions system monitoring, automated testing, all manners of build and delivery pipeline automation, etc.

technology use?

d. Does the contractor possess knowledge in process mapping and automation?

e. Does the contractor have knowledge of flow metrics implementation at scale? Can the contractor incrementally implement value streams and flow metrics?

f. Does the contractor contribute to USPTO target architecture and guardrails and is the contractor actively facilitating adoption and use across product team engagement?

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

5 SKILLS, METHODOLOGIES & KNOWLEDGE AREAS

Below is a representative list of required skills and abilities required for this PWS. The task orders will define the required skills and abilities needed to meet individual task order (TO) requirements. If additional skill are needed that are not listed below, they can be added in the task order.

The Contractor must have the capabilities to provide expertise in the following and related skills and abilities (specific skills and abilities will be defined at the task order level). Each team member must have competency in two or more of these skills, methodologies, and knowledge areas in a manner that achieves the performance metrics outlined in the task order:

Representative Skills, Methodologies & Knowledge Areas

• Coaching, including technical coaching

• Facilitation

• Training – build and delivery

• Change Management

• Large scale transformations

• Measurement best practices

• Automated governance

• Product Management

• Organizational

Communications

• Cloud migration

• Active Listening

• Process improvement

• Customer experience

• DevSecOps

• Enterprise Architecture in

Federal Space

• Agile methodologies

• Cloud paradigms (IaaS, PaaS, FaaS, CaaS) / Serverless design

• Software build and release management

• Value Stream Mapping

• Customer Journey Maps

• Agile Lifecycle

Management tool (Rally)

• Collaboration tools

• Immersive learning (dojo)

• Automated testing

• Service segmentation (data & business services) characterization, & definition

• Effective oral and written communication

• Translate technical language for non-technical audiences

• Frameworks

• System monitoring

• Continuous learning / improvement

• CI/CD

• Site reliability engineering concepts and practices

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

6 DELIVERABLES

# Deliverable Due Date Refere nce

1 Monthly Funding Status Report Before the first funding call in the month as scheduled by the TOM

Meeting Agendas, Minutes and Action Items As Directed by TOM and NLT one (1) business day after meeting

3 Written inputs to draft Agile/DevOps processes and procedures

As directed by TOM

4 Plans to address weaknesses identified by coach/mentor

As directed by TOM

Coaching plans and other practice materials, tools and templates to guide the teams toward consistent practices that align with approved USPTO Agile/DevOps procedures

As directed by TOM

6 Team Assessments and Coaching Plans and Coaching Summary Update

As directed by TOM

7 Written Team Assessments As directed by TOM 8 Develop and Deliver Training As directed by TOM 9 Ad-hoc Reports As directed by TOM

10 Training, presentation, content, etc in support of transformation objectives and TDD

As directed by TOM

7 PLACE/LOCATION OF PERFORMANCE/DELIVERY

The place of performance for work specified under this PWS is primarily at the contractor’s facility unless otherwise specified in the task order. The place of performance is defined at the task order level based on USPTO's needs. If onsite work is needed, it will be performed at USPTO's Alexandria Campus located at 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314. When requested by the COR, the Contractor staff must be available for onsite development meetings with USPTO staff, or via teleconference.

8 TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS

All travel requirements will be determined at the Task Order level and requires Product Owner and COR approval prior to the travel taking place. The Product Owner and COR are only authorized to approve travel if there are sufficient funds already on the Task Order.

9 SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

9.1 Knowledge Transfer

9.1.1 As the USPTO prepares to complete a task order with the assistance of a Contractor, it desires to preserve the knowledge that the Contractor has amassed. Throughout the duration of the contract, the Contractor must implement a continuing knowledge transfer program to the USPTO to ensure that the USPTO does not lose this valuable information and data. This may be in addition to the requirements for the documentation required under the SDLC.

9.1.2 The Government plans for Contractor transition-out at the task order level.

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

9.2 Administrative Requirements

9.2.1 The Contractor must attend a Kick-Off Meeting with the CO, COR, and Product

Owner no later than five (5) business days after contract and each TO(s) date of award. The contract level kick-off will be scheduled by the CO. The task level kick-off(s) will be scheduled by the COR with the Product Owner in attendance as well.

9.2.2 Upon request and by the direction of the COR, the Contractor must provide meeting agendas and meeting preparation material no later than two (2) hours prior to a scheduled meeting, capture meeting minutes and action items during the meeting, and within one (1) business day distribute the draft minutes and action item list to the meeting attendees (or appropriate distribution list as agreed to and directed by the Product Owner) for Government approval. Meeting requirements will be specified in each task order.

9.2.3 The Contractor must be available to meet with the Product Owner and COR upon request to present deliverables, discuss progress, exchange information and resolve emergent technical problems and issues. For meetings, USPTO will provide at least two (2) hours advanced notice; however, this timeline may be shorter in the event of an emergency.

9.3 Qualifications of Contractor Personnel

9.3.1 The Contractor must propose the appropriate labor mix necessary to complete each task. The Contractor must provide trained, knowledgeable personnel according to the requirements of each task. The USPTO will not provide or pay for training, conferences, or seminars to be given to Contractor personnel for them to perform their tasks, with the exception of USPTO-specific and specialized training not obtainable outside the USPTO.

9.4 Non-Personal Services

9.4.1 The Contractor provides strictly non-personal services and works as an independent

Contractor. Contractor employees are not subject to direct supervision and control by the Government. The Contractor advises and assists the Government, but must not make final decisions or certifications on behalf of the Government, nor perform any inherently governmental functions. The Contractor and its employees must not represent the Government nor appear to represent the Government in performance of these contract services. Contractor personnel must clearly identify themselves as Contractor employees in all interactions during contract performance.

9.5 Computer Software and Data Rights

9.5.1 The Government has unlimited license rights to all software/documents/material first produced under this contract and delivered to the Government. The Government must have Unlimited Rights in all software, documents and materials, to include the source codes of any software, first produced under this contract and must be delivered to the Government with all rights and privileges of copyright in accordance with CAR 1352.227-70 to the Government. These documents and materials may not be used or sold by the Contractor without written permission from the Contracting Officer. This right does not abrogate any other Government rights.

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

9.5.2 USPTO Purpose Specifically Negotiated License Rights: FAR 52.227-14 Rights in Data Generally, does not adequately address the situation where mixed funding is used to first develop and produce new software and technical data under this contract. For this contract, if mixed funding occurs with United States Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) funding and private expense funding being used to first develop and produce the software under this contract, the USPTO shall have a nonexclusive, nontransferable, worldwide, irrevocable, paid-up “USPTO Purpose Specifically Negotiated License Rights” in the Non-Commercial Software and technical data first produced and developed under this contract. Produced and developed means that the (i) a computer program has been successfully operated in a computer and tested to the extent sufficient to demonstrate to a reasonable persons skilled in the art that the program can reasonably be expected to perform its intended purpose (ii) computer software, other than computer programs, has been tested or analyzed to the extent sufficient to demonstrate to reasonable persons skilled in the art that the software can reasonably be expected to perform its intended purpose or

(iii) Computer software documentation required to be delivered under a contract has been written in any medium, in sufficient detail to comply with requirements under this contract. Produced and developed with mixed funding means the initial development was accomplished partially with costs charged to indirect cost pools and/or costs not allocated to a USPTO contract, and partially with costs charged directly to a USPTO contract. “USPTO Purpose Specifically Negotiated License Rights” applies to the license right for the USPTO to be able to use the software and software documentation in any activity in which the USPTO is a party. “USPTO Purpose” includes competitive procurement, but does not include the rights to use, modify, reproduce, release, perform, display, or disclose computer software or computer software documentation for commercial purposes or authorize others to do so. “USPTO Purposes” means the rights for USPTO to use, modify, reproduce, release, perform, display, or disclose computer software or computer software documentation within and for a USPTO requirement without restriction; and release or disclose computer software or computer software documentation outside the USPTO and authorize persons to whom release or disclosure has been made to use, modify, reproduce, release, perform, display, or disclose the software or documentation for USPTO purposes only. This “USPTO Purpose Specifically Negotiated License Rights” does not expire nor does it convert into unlimited Government license rights. “Minor modification” means a modification that does not significantly alter the non-USPTO function or purpose of the software or is of the type customarily provided in the commercial marketplace. The USPTO shall not release or disclose “USPTO Purpose Specifically Negotiated License Rights” computer software unless a non-disclosure agreement is signed. When delivering this data and software to the Government the Contractor shall mark it with the legend “USPTO Purpose Specifically Negotiated License Rights.”

10 REQUIREMENTS FOR HANDLING SENSITIVE, CLASSIFIED AND/OR PROPRIETARY

INFORMATION

Controlled by: United States Patent and Trademark Office, OCAO, RICPO, 571-272-9990

10.1 The Contractor must provide a statement which describes in a concise manner all relevant facts concerning any past, present or currently planned interest (financial, contractual, organizational, or otherwise) relating to the work to be performed hereunder…