MODIFICATION
D -- ServiceNow Customer Devices Asset Management and Billing - Amendment 1
- Notice Date
- 4/17/2018
- Notice Type
- Modification/Amendment
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B130, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899-1410, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20899-1410
- Solicitation Number
- 1333ND18QNB180007
- Archive Date
- 5/15/2018
- Point of Contact
- Abdul-Kudus Yahaya, Phone: 3019758497, Robert, Phone: 3019758335
- E-Mail Address
-
abdul-kudus.yahaya@nist.gov, robert.cowins@nist.gov
(abdul-kudus.yahaya@nist.gov, robert.cowins@nist.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- Revised Statement of Work Amendment 0001 The purpose of this amendment is to make changes to the solicitation and respond to interested vendors' questions as follows: The page limit under QUOTATION PREPARATION/SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS is change from 8 to 15; and the due date is change from April 30, 2018 to May 3, 2018. Question 1: NIST states "The Offeror shall provide at least three examples of past performance conducted within the last three years of contracts of relevant work of a similar type and scope as the current requirement with federal, state or local Governments and/or commercial customers." and the SOW states in the SOW CONTRACTOR SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE & PROPOSED PERSONNEL section, "The contractor shall have specialized experience: • Documented evidence of the offeror's successful performance within the last three (3) years, of the same or substantially similar services as those required in the Statement of Work. • At least 1 documented evidence of the offeror's successful performance within the last year, of the same or substantially similar services as those required in the Statement of Work for a US Government (federal) customer." Will past performances from federal, state or local Governments and/or commercial customers be rated equally (all other factors being equal including contracts of relevant work is similar type and scope as the current requirements specified in the SOW) provided at least one reference is from within the last year and is federal? In other words, does NIST prefer that all past performance references be Federal? Response: NIST is not requesting that all past performance references be Federal. Past performances whether from federal, state or local Governments and/or commercial customers will be rated equally. The following statement has been deleted from the Statement of Work (SOW): "At least 1 documented evidence of the offeror's successful performance within the last year, of the same or substantially similar services as those required in the Statement of Work for a US Government (federal) customer." Question 2 NIST states "The Offeror shall provide at least three examples of past performance conducted within the last three years of contracts of relevant work of a similar type and scope as the current requirement with federal, state of local Governments and/or commercial customer." Are the Past Performance references to be included as part of the eight (8) page Technical Volume? Response: Yes. The number of pages has been revised from 8 to 15. Question 3: NIST states "The Government reserves the right to consider past performance data obtained from sources other than those provided by the Offeror in its quotation." Can the Government please provide clarifying examples of past performance data obtained from sources other than those provided by the Offer? Furthermore, are these sources of past performance gained by efforts initiated by the Government or do they include unsolicited submission of past performance that are not gained by efforts initiated by the Government? Response: The Government may consider all available information in evaluating the Offeror's past performance to include but not limited to information provided by references, Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) etc. Question 4 NIST states "Key Personnel proposed for ServiceNow scoped application for Customer Devices asset management and billing support tasks shall meet the following minimum experience requirements..." and the SOW CONTRACTOR SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE & PROPOSED PERSONNEL section, Proposed Personnel section specifies "The labor categories designated for this task order are consistent with a ServiceNow Administrator/Developer that has Minimum experience levels". Should the offeror assume that each row of the table represents the requirements for a given labor category or that all proposed personnel must meet all the requirements specified in all rows of the table? Response: • All developers/programmers proposed should meet the listed experience requirements for ServiceNow certified developer, Web Technologies, and Agile software development. • At least 1 of the proposed key personnel should meet the listed experience for "Asset management functionalities within ServiceNow". • Any other and all proposed personnel should meet the last two rows of experience (Web Technologies and Agile software development). Question 5: NIST states that "the contractor shall collaborate with NIST stakeholders" and "NIST ServiceNow developers". (i) Would NIST provide additional information about the project governance activities and structure, project roles (e.g. Product Owner, Scrum Master, COR, Developer(s), other Stakeholders, Project Manager, IT Security, others), number of NIST resources allocated, and the extent to which these resources are to be allocated to the project? (ii) What is the sprint capacity and the sprint velocity NIST is expecting from its team and/or its contractor? Response: NIST uses the ServiceNow SDLC module to manage user stories, sprints, and to define what is included within a project's release, and overall has beginner level experience using this SDLC module to help facilitate Agile development with a small operations team, and approximately 4 small -to-medium level development projects at any given time. Generally, NIST development sprints are monthly, but some have been as short as two weeks pushing update sets or packages to test. Production releases occur on a monthly availability, but in some special cases an off-band release is scheduled to meet a project's need, or to avoid negatively impacting other projects. Stakeholders: • NIST has a dedicated COR/Government project manager for this project • Product owner is highly engaged with almost complete availability as needed, and is the Service Manager to our internal customers o Internal stakeholders are generally the service provider staff who report to the product owner • External stakeholders include administrative staff who receive the billing for the customer device services we provide. The involvement of these users will include parts related to providing an interface to review their usage, costs, and bills (including the ability to adjust bank accounts associated with services, bundles of devices, or individual devices). • Supporting the ServiceNow platform is 1 full time system administrator with availability shared between all other development efforts and routine daily operations. • NIST ServiceNow developers are a team of 1 supervisor and 4 development staff with availability to discuss and collaborate on solution design for this project. These resources will be active in working new development and maintaining existing apps and functionality on the ServiceNow platform. • IT security stakeholders will be part of initial solution design, and depending upon project schedule can be included in sprint reviews for functionality pieces requiring IT security approval. Generally, an initial solution design assist in establishing sprints, and based on the functionality in each sprint it identifies which stakeholders (i.e. IT Security) need to be involved for that production release. Question 6: NIST states "Ongoing Support, Upgrade Assistance, Application Updates (not to exceed 160 hours)". Given that NIST requires a Firm Fixed Price, but the hours appear to be variable, would NIST expect this to be priced as an hourly Firm Fixed Price rate or one lump sum? Response: See revised Statement of Work; NIST anticipates a Firm Fixed Price Purchase Order Question 7: Optional Services: Ongoing Support, Upgrade Assistance, Application Updates (not to exceed 160 hours)". Given that NIST requires a Firm Fixed Price, but the hours appear to be variable, would NIST expect this to be priced as an hourly Firm Fixed Price rate or one lump sum? Response: See revised Statement of Work Question 8: Will the work performed under the scope of this effort be incorporated with the development activities of other teams/contractors or will there be a dedicated ServiceNow instance that has been established exclusively for the performance of work to be conducted for the Customer Devices Asset Management and Billing scoped application? If so, can additional information about release management and frequency of upgrades and releases be shared? Response: There will not be dedicated instances for development, testing, or UAT. Initial Solution design and the resulting sprint and release schedules are estimated in collaboration with the NIST ServiceNow operations platform team. This helps identify potential conflicts with other ongoing development projects, and generally keeps the monthly production release a manageable effort. Production releases occur on a monthly availability, and in some cases an off-band release is schedule to meet a project's need, or to avoid negatively impacting other projects. It is anticipated that NIST will have 4 other active development projects, and system upgrade from Jakarta to Kingston is expected to complete before August, which is during the period of performance for this project. It is anticipated the development for this project will start on the Kingston development instance, and the initial production release will occur after the production instance has been upgraded. Question 9: Question: Will the schedule for the production release of functionality developed under this effort need to be incorporated with the release of functionality developed by other teams/contractors or will there be an independent release schedule limited to Customer Devices Asset Management and Billing scoped application functionality? If so, can additional information about release management and frequency of upgrades and releases be shared? Response: Each project's release will be held independently in their own set of update sets or scoped application packages to isolate and segregate what is deployed for each project. Depending upon the size and scope of different projects' deployments, a single monthly release night may include several projects' deployments that occur in a sequential scheduled fashion, or a special off-band release night can be scheduled to meet a project's need, or to avoid negatively impacting other projects. Question 10: Will NIST share all questions posed with all prospective offerors and in what time frame is this expected? Will NIST provide an adequate timeframe for responses after questions are posted? Response: All timely received questions will be shared with all prospective offerors, the proposal due date will be extended. Question 11: Is this a new requirement or is there an incumbent vendor? If available, can you please send along the incumbent contract number? Response: Yes. This is a new requirement. Question 12: Can companies from Outside USA can apply for this? (like, from India or Canada) Response: All interested parties may submit a quotation if they are qualified per the details in the solicitation. Question 13: Whether we need to come over there for meetings? Response: Once an award is made, NIST will provide background investigation forms and instructions for applicable personnel to complete. This process generally takes 2 weeks, and must complete prior to setting the actual performance start date. The Statement of Work requires that the initial task's initial 10 business days to be physically onsite at the NIST Gaithersburg campus. This helps with providing NIST Government laptops, receiving the federal contractor badge, and in meeting with stakeholders in a face-to-face setting. Question 14: Can offerors perform the tasks (related to RFP) outside USA? (like, from India or Canada) Response: No Question 15: Can offerors submit the quotations via email? Response: Yes. Only email responses will be accepted for the solicitation.
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