Description
Request for Information Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy Action Planning System This is a request for information (RFI) being issued for market research purposes. The objectives of this RFI are (1) to identify potential commercial off the shelf (COTS) solutions; and (2) to obtain a rough order of magnitude for the cost and time estimated to implement such at the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy (VAAA), Frederick, MD. COTS solutions may need to be customized to better fit the needs of the VAAA. Background: The VAAA was created to address the growing acquisition workforce challenge facing the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Government overall. To more effectively support the VAAA mission, we want to foster learning and influence behavior both inside and beyond the classroom through a platform that provides project management (PM) students an opportunity to apply the skills they learn in the classroom to real world projects. As part of VAAA's vision of providing a highly performance-based training environment, the need for a state-of-the-art Action Planning (AP) system has been identified. The system currently in use has served its most basic purpose well; that is, it provides a means for PM students to create and manage action plans for their selected projects to fulfill their Federal Acquisition Certification in Program/Project Management (FAC-P/PM) certification requirements. Essentially, students are required to access the system and build their action plan, along with its associated tasks, risks and mitigation, benefits of completing the action, timelines, and percentages of completion for each task. However, a more robust tool is needed that will utilize industry's most current best practices, and exceed the capabilities of the tool currently in use. The users of this action planning system will include participants and teams in the VAAA PM School courses, their instructors, supervisors, and leadership. Please provide a summary of responses for each of the requirements listed below. Provide a description for the cost structure and ranges of costs, and include a breakdown of costs to include customization of the system, training (if any), train the trainer, etc. Also include your company's socio-economic category and any government-wide contract vehicles or VA contract vehicles you or a partner hold. Business Requirements: " Action planning functionality: The system must provide PM functionality that allows individuals to create and manage an AP. Individuals need to be able to access the system through the internet. Functionality may be further defined by specific roles, including the following: o Individual: Individuals will be able to enter their baseline action plan for a selected project, to include all associated tasks and their percentages of completion, barriers and mitigation, benefits gained by completing tasks, resources, success indicators/output, monitor action plan compliance, and request action plan closeouts. They will also be able to manage and implement updates to the plan as required. o Team: For the duration of their class and when working on real world projects, team members will have access to the action planning system, and be able to share their action planning ideas, and collaborate on team project action plans. o Supervisor: Supervisors will have access to employees' action plans as further described in the "Collaboration" bullet below. o Instructor: The instructor will also have access to participants' action plans, as further described in "Collaboration" bullet below. " Easy to navigate user interface: Individuals, their supervisors, instructors, and VAAA staff must be able to navigate the system with ease. The system should not require extensive training and should be as intuitive as possible. Additionally, the system should be easily configurable; that is, there should be flexibility in updating and revising the tool to meet changing requirements. " Role-based system: Individuals need to be able to access only their own action planning information and have the ability to populate this information themselves. It is anticipated that the following user roles will be required: project management (PM) course participants, their supervisors, instructors, coaches and mentors, and VAAA staff. Supervisors and VAAA staff will need to have more global access to the participants' information and action plans. " Collaboration: The system must be collaborative in both the learning environment and real-world operational environment. That is, individuals, their teams, supervisors, and instructors need to have the ability to collaborate during and after the learning experience, in order to reinforce and enhance knowledge gained. This same collaboration will be available in the working environment, but without the instructor (in this case, a coach or mentor may enter the collaborative environment). The system should allow those with different roles to have the ability to work on and access the same Action Plan, as in the case with the Team Action plan referenced above in the 'Action Planning Functionality' bullet. Ability for participants to participate in coaching/mentoring, in order to further enhance the more formal classroom learning experience. " Interoperability with other systems: The system must provide a manual exchange of data with other systems, or via Application Program Interoperability (API). " Customizable reporting: The system must provide a method for customizable reporting (e.g., monthly and quarterly action plan reporting of baseline information, interview and implementation plan information). The system must have reporting capabilities at various levels (individual, team, instructor, supervisor, VAAA staff). Administrators of the system need to have access to reports that are based on information collected by the system, to include (but not limited to) AP status, user access frequency, and both general and more advanced usage statistics. " Rule based and automated system: The system must provide a configurable set of notifications to confirm system transactions and provide alerts and reminders based on event triggers. These notifications should be system generated and have the ability to go to individuals or teams. Examples of notifications are as follows, but not limited to, emails include participant and supervisor pre-course work emails, individual and supervisor during course emails, reminder emails for online baseline action plan submissions, action plan status email to supervisor, participant survey email. The system must be able to operate within a workflow capability based on internal business rules/processes. System Requirements: " Externally hosted/web based: Users should be able to access the system from any machine with an internet connection. " 504 Compliant: The system should meet the requirements of the Section 504 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. " 508 Compliant: The system should meet the requirements of the Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.