OPPORTUNITY QUALIFICATION SUMMARY

BACKGROUND:

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secure, Performant, Reliable, and User-Centered Experiences (SPRUCE) is a frictionless vehicle through which VA can acquire top-quality professionals and industry partners to deliver exceptional user experiences. The SPRUCE Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract connects VA employees with best-inclass industry partners to deliver high-quality digital products in accordance with Office of Information Technology (OIT) Working Principles.

SPRUCE supports VA’s digital modernization initiatives by ensuring VA has streamlined access to the modern commercial services required to deliver excellent products to VA’s internal and external users. Successfully delivering such products often requires VA to obtain commercial delivery services supported by teams with capabilities in: Software development and operation; Technical advising and architecture planning; Service design and user research studies; Data science and data analytics; Product support operations

OBJECTIVES:

The objective of this effort is to provide VA with a method to obtain such delivery services. Specifically, SPRUCE will meet the following goals:

1. Give VA streamlined access to exceptional companies that specialize in the development of digital services using modern technologies.
2. Create a contract mechanism that promotes rapid delivery, applying private sector best practices, and measurable outcomes.
3. Scale the success accomplished in the current Customer Experience, DevOps and Agile Releases (CEDAR) IDIQ while expanding access to exceptional vendors with more diverse skillsets and enabling larger contracts as appropriate.
4. Ensure VA can rapidly adopt commercial technology and design-industry best practices such as those described in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Digital Services Playbook.

SCOPE OF WORK:

The SPRUCE IDIQ contract vehicle will provide VA with commercial, streamlined delivery services and teams. The contractor(s) shall provide VA with expert teams that shall consistently deliver viable digital solutions in support of VA’s strategic mission and objectives. The specific nature of the capabilities required for each team will be articulated at the Task Order level. However, it is expected that a typical delivery team requested under the SPRUCE IDIQ will require multi-disciplinary teams with members having expertise in: product and delivery management; software and site-reliability engineering; user-centered design and research; content, accessibility, information architecture, and testing; data science and analytics; and customer support, training, and helpdesk operations.

BASIS FOR AWARD:

The source selection process for SPRUCE will be based neither on a Lowest Price Technically Acceptable nor Tradeoff basis. For this effort, the best value basis for awards will be determined by the Highest Technically Rated Offerors with a Fair and Reasonable Price with appropriate consideration given to the four following evaluation Factors: Technical Factor 1— Case Study #1, Technical Factor 2—Case Study #2, Technical Factor 3—Code Challenge and Written Technical Approach, and Price.

The Government intends to award eight (8) contracts resulting from the SPRUCE solicitation; however, the Government retains the right to increase or decrease the number of awards should it be determined in its best interest. In the event of a tie at the eighth (8th) position, all Offerors tied at the eight (8th) position will receive an award. No further ranking beyond the awardees will be made.

INCUMBENT CONTRACT:

CEDAR IDIQ

• ODDBALL, INC., 36C10B21D0004
• COFORMA, LLC, 36C10B21D0005
• AGILE SIX APPLICATIONS, INC., 36C10B21D0006
• MAGNUM OPUS, LLC, 36C10B21D0007