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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ACQUISITION DIRECTORATE SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE 1.0 General Information Document Type: Sources Sought Notice Title: Assessment, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Securi... DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ACQUISITION DIRECTORATE SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE 1.0 General Information Document Type: Sources Sought Notice Title: Assessment, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (USDI&S), Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) Support Services Sources Sought Post Date: 05/28/2021 Sources Sought Response Date: 06/04/2021 NAICS Code: 541611 - Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services. Product Service Code: R499, Support-Professional: Other 2.0 Background The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (USD(I&S)) is the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense on intelligence, counterintelligence, security, sensitive activities, and other intelligence-related matters. The USD(I&S) exercises the Secretary of Defense’s authority, direction, and control over the Defense Agencies and DoD Field Activities that are Defense intelligence, counterintelligence, or security Components and exercises planning, policy, and strategic oversight over all DoD intelligence, counterintelligence, and security policy, plans, and programs. The USD(I&S) is supported by the Director for Defense Intelligence Collection & Special Programs (DDI (C&SP)), Director for Defense Intelligence Warfighter Support (DDI (WS)), Director for Defense Intelligence Counterintelligence, Law Enforcement & Security (DDI (CL&S)), and Director for Defense Intelligence & Security Programs & Resources (DDI (I&SPR)). In addition, certain offices are Direct Reports to the Under Secretary: Chief of Staff; Human Capital Management Office; Congressional Activities; and Special Access Program Control Office (SAPCO). The Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) is within the DDI WS. Introduction The Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) aka Project Maven was established in April 2017 by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and formalized under a Directive-Type Memorandum (DTM) dated 23 March 2018. Elements of Project Maven include new frameworks and tools for the creation of algorithms; tailored algorithms to perform discrete tasks, particularly in the fields of computer vision; innovative artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) computational environments; new labeling techniques to generate massive scale annotated data for supervised deep learning techniques; new methods of edge computation to bring deep learning algorithms to constrained computational environments; methods to evaluate and determine the effectiveness of algorithmic approaches; interfaces for the display, search, and interaction with algorithmically derived metadata and tabular structured algorithmic output; new techniques, hardware, software, and tools for the training, testing, and validating of algorithms; and storage and indexing capabilities for local algorithmically-produced data. Cumulatively, technologies supporting the Project comprise the AI Pipeline. 3.1 Objectives: The AWCFT is seeking highly qualified and expert consulting services to support the planning, transition and integration of Project Maven from its current alignment in USDI&S to its new alignment within the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) for long term operation and sustainment. This is the first time the Department of Defense (DoD) is transitioning a major AI program to a mission owner, elevating the risk of the transition given the lack of prior experience or lessons learned within the Department. A key objective of this engagement is to ensure a roadmap and conditions-based milestones are in place to support a smooth and successful transition for Project Maven across agencies. 3.2 Scope: Advisory support is needed to apply private sector approaches and commercial best practices to ensure successful transition and integration. The vendor will partner with program leadership to establish an integration timeline, pressure test transition work plans, and define critical milestones in the transition process. 4.0 Sources Sought To facilitate market research, the Government is looking to identify qualified sources under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 541611 - Administrative Management and General Management Responses are requested from “all” sources including other than Small Businesses. Small Businesses, 8(a) small businesses, HUBZone small businesses, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, Women-Owned Small Businesses and Economically Disadvantaged Women- owned Small Businesses are encouraged to respond. This Sources Sought (SS) Notice is for information and planning purposes only and shall NOT be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the Government. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in the response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any concern responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the concern’s qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received, or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation MAY be published in beta.sam.gov. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. The Government will NOT accept requests for meetings or briefings. No phone solicitations or email with regards to the status of the Request for Proposal (RFP) will be accepted prior to its release. Information and materials submitted in response to this notice WILL NOT be returned. As a result of this notice, the Government MAY issue a Request for Proposal (RFP). There is no solicitation available at this time. However, should such a requirement materialize, no basis for claims against the Government will arise as a result of a response to this Sources Sought Notice, nor the Government’s use of such information as either part of our evaluation process, nor in developing specifications for any subsequent requirement. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation. 5.0 Program Details The Washington Headquarters Services / Acquisition Directorate (WHS/AD) is issuing this notice to obtain information to assist the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (USDI&S), in providing support for the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) Support Services. The purpose of this Sources Sought Notice is to identify a pool of qualified offerors to provide the requested services for the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) Support Services. The following service requirement critical task areas describe the broad range of functions and tasks in support of this effort: 6.0 Service Requirement Critical Task Areas/Elements The contractor shall accomplish the below tasks: Specific Tasks: 1. Basic Services. The contractor shall provide expert consulting services to apply private sector approaches and commercial best practices to identify a transition and integration plan. The vendor will collaborate with program leadership to establish an integration timeline, pressure-test transition work plans, and define critical milestones in the transition process. Example business questions the vendor will address may include: How does the industry approach complex digital program integrations and business transfers? How do we integrate a startup-like program into a large, complex organization without degrading customer delivery or losing the elements that made it successful? Where are the key decision points and risks in the integration / migration timeline and approach? What gaps exist in the current AWCFT transition plan? What are the activities, timeline, and milestones that will ensure a successful transition? How do AI programs best integrate into programs without substantial education, training, or experience in running large-scale AI advances while maintaining requisite security, managing costs, and ensuring stability of customer relationships? The vendor shall approach the transition planning Base Period (8 weeks) as it would a commercial post-merger integration or business unit transfer. The team will begin by reviewing transition-related work completed to date (e.g., draft transition plan) and available documentation on transition process and requirements. This preliminary review will build an initial understanding of transition scope, timelines, and constraints. The vendor team will gather and summarize commercial best practices and lessons learned related to activities including post-merger integration, technology transfer, and business unit transfer. This will provide a baseline reference point for what good transitions look like and key milestones and activities that should be included in the Project Maven transition. A cross-functional, cross-agency coordination team shall be established and working sessions will be conducted to share commercial best practices and lessons learned, align on overarching goals and measures of success for the transition, and discuss documentation requirements, personnel or technical constraints, and key deadlines. In addition, the vendor will work with the coordination team to establish a governance process that will function throughout the transition to review progress, make key tradeoff or go/no-go decisions, and help address roadblocks that arise. The vendor shall use the aforementioned goals, along with commercial best practices to pressure test AWCFT’s existing transition plan and milestone schedule. The vendor shall identify potential gaps or areas of risk in the existing transition plan. The transition plan will be refined and expanded as needed, including but not limited to transition timelines, transition risks and mitigations, critical transition milestones, key leadership decision points, and a detailed integration approach. The scope of the transition plan will be refined in coordination with program leadership. Based on commercial best practices, the plan is expected to include personnel transfers (if applicable), recruiting/hiring, knowledge transfer, infrastructure build/transfer, data transfer, software transfer, process replication (e.g., model retraining, requirements, customer engagement), output test and validation (analogous to first article inspection in commercial business unit transfer), customer communication, continuous delivery of services with requisite cybersecurity management, and final cleanup. In addition, the vendor team will define a post-transition operating model that ensures continued high-quality customer support and maintains the culture, agility, and other elements that made Project Maven successful. 2. Task Heading. Tasks provided during basic period of performance: Provide a written report with a summary of the coordination required and the team structure and a go-forward governance process. The vendor will collaborate with program leadership to establish an integration timeline, pressure test transition work plans, and define critical milestones in the transition process. Business questions the vendor will address may include, but not limited to: How does industry approach complex digital program integrations and business transfers? How do you integrate a startup-like program into a large, complex organization without degrading customer delivery or losing the elements that made it successful? Where are the key decision points and risks in the integration / migration timeline and approach? What gaps exist in the current AWCFT transition plan? What are the activities, timeline, and milestones that will ensure a successful transition? What risks exist that can be assessed and/or managed, such as whether synergies exist or are overestimated, what due diligence practices are weak, what integration shortfalls exist, what attention to culture or change factors have been improperly assessed, whether sufficient communication exists between Project Maven and the relevant agency, and whether synergies may not be captured and for what reason(s). The vendor will work with the coordination team to establish a governance process that will function throughout the transition to review progress, make key tradeoff or go/no-go decisions, and help address roadblocks that arise. Provide a written report with a summary of commercial best practices related to activities including post-merger integration, technology transfer, and business unit transfer. The vendor shall consider as it would a commercial post-merger integration or business unit transfer. The team will begin by reviewing transition-related work completed to date (e.g., draft transition plan) and available documentation on transition process and requirements. This preliminary review will build an initial understanding of transition scope, timelines, and constraints. The vendor team will gather and summarize commercial best practices and lessons learned related to activities including post-merger integration, technology transfer, and business unit transfer. This will provide a baseline reference point for what good transitions look like and key milestones and activities that should be included in the Project Maven transition. Provide a written report with a summary of transition goals, documentation requirements, constraints, and deadlines. The scope of the transition plan will be refined in coordination with program leadership. Based on commercial best practices, the plan is expected to include personnel transfers (if applicable), recruiting/hiring, knowledge transfer, infrastructure build/transfer, data transfer, software transfer, process replication (e.g., model retraining, requirements, customer engagement), output test and validation (analogous to first article inspection in commercial business unit transfer), customer communication, and final cleanup. In addition, the vendor team will define a post-transition operating model that ensures continued high-quality customer support and maintains the culture, agility, and other elements that made Project Maven successful. Provide a written report on the transition plan and milestone schedule gap analysis. The vendor shall identify potential gaps or areas of risk in the existing transition plan, as well as strategies for continuous innovation of underlying programs, operational efficiency, and maintaining customer satisfaction and risks of failing on these issues during the schedule. The transition plan will also identify where Project Maven or the receiving agency are lean versus oversimplified, whether the receiving agency needs to expand into new domains, and an analysis of how to maintain competitive advantages. The transition plan will be refined and expanded as needed, including but not limited to transition timelines, transition risks and mitigations, critical transition milestones, key leadership decision points, and a detailed integration approach. Provide a written report on the post-transition operating model. The vendor team will define a post-transition operating model that ensures continued high-quality customer support, maintains or accelerates the pace to build next-generation requirements for customers, assesses whether there is an opportunity to monitor, manage, or drive the transition with data analytics, furthers the enterprise infrastructure and architecture after the transition, and maintains the culture, agility, and other elements that made Project Maven successful. Provide a written report on the draft transition plan and milestone schedule. The vendor team will define a post-transition plan and milestone schedule that ensures continued high-quality customer support, assesses or answers – where material – issues or questions identified above, and maintains the culture, agility, and other elements that made Project Maven successful. The team will meet with select USD (I&S) and partner agency executives to discuss the draft plan and schedule and deliver impact assessments. Provide a written report on the finalized transition plan and milestones schedule. The vendor shall provide a final transition plan and milestone schedule after carefully evaluating and considering all information and insight gained during the previous tasks in the PWS and expert knowledge of commercial best practices. The team will meet with select USD (I&S) and partner agency executives to discuss the plan and schedule. 3. Tasks provided during each of the option periods of performance: a. Depending on progress, risks identified or realized, and other factors from the period of performance, the team will identify a need for advanced work plans and define key questions, tasks, and deliverables, including data collection and analysis, meeting requirements, and relevant output. b. Final option period report summarizing activities, analysis conducted, conclusions and insights, and areas that require further research and analysis. The team will meet with select USD (I&S) and partner agency executives to discuss the draft plan and schedule and deliver impact assessments. All vendor employees working on this requirement shall sign a Non-Disclosure Statement. All submissions *must include verifiable* information about a firm’s ability to comply with the security requirements for this effort: Security Clearance. Contractor and subcontractor personnel may be required to have at a minimum an active Top Secret (TS) clearance with SCI eligibility when the proposal is submitted and throughout contract performance. In addition, the prime contractor must have at a minimum a Top Secret facility clearance at the time of proposal submission and throughout contract performance. Vendors that possess TS facility clearance are encouraged to respond to this notice. Task Areas. Capability statements should address the Task Areas and Key Capabilities identified band for each provide information to demonstrate how the offeror’s experience and recent past performance (last 3 years) is relevant to the technical areas listed, including the dollar value, period of performance, size and scope of the offeror’s prior contracts. Offeror’s can address one, all, or a combination of the task areas identified. Please identify which specific task areas are addressed in the capability statement. Special Qualifications: The vendor is required to have past performance credentials and experience in Artificial Intelligence implementation, sustainment, and enablement, post-merger integration, and business unit transfer. The vendor must possess the following: Have a set of tried-and-tested tools and approaches to support post-merger integration and business transfer/integration planning and execution. Be an industry-leader and demonstrate deep experience in artificial intelligence, organization strategy, design and implementation, and digital transformation in large organizations in the public and private sectors. Have direct experience designing, building, operating, and sustaining digital and AI programs for large, complex organizations. Relevant experience providing direct support to Project Maven. • The vendor should be ready to begin immediately and have leaders in place with a past performance of supporting DoD and private sector PMI and business unit integration. Place of Performance: The majority of the work associated with this effort is anticipated to be performed contractor’s site with coordination and status meetings at the Pentagon and the NCR. Capability Statements Offerors must demonstrate their ability to comply with the requirements in this Sources Sought in order to be considered capable of satisfying the Government’s requirement. Security Capability information must be displayed on page 1 of the response. All interested offerors having the experience, skills and capabilities necessary to perform the stated requirements are requested to provide capability statements not to exceed 5 pages in “Times New Roman” 12-pitch font on 8.5 x 11 paper that include the following information: Company name, address, point of contact name, telephone, and email address. CAGE Code and DUNS Number. Business size status (business size/socio-economic category must be submitted to be used). Offeror acknowledgement and capability to provide personnel that will need to successfully pass a National Agency Check. Identify contracts your company has been awarded under NAICS: 541990 - All Other Professional, Scientific and Technical Services. Additional information on NAICS codes can be found at www.sba.gov. Recommended/suggested NAICS codes for this effort. Recommended/suggested contract type. Number of contracts currently held with the Government to include any Federal Supply Schedules listed under GSA Advantage. Documentation that addresses each of the Service Requirement Critical Tasks/Elements detailed above. A description of Corporate Experience & Past Performance Information for similar contracts and/or projects accomplished within the last 3 years. The description must include where, when, and for whom each similar contract and/or project was performed and a brief description of each contract and/or project, including the size, scope, dollar value, and period of performance. This information must demonstrate how the offeror’s recent Corporate Experience and Past Performance (last 3 years) is relevant to the CMO Data Requirement. 8.0 Submission Instructions The response to this notice is limited to five (5) single sided pages including all attachments, charts, etc. (single spaced, 12 point font minimum excluding charts and graphics) and should also include current business size status, and any applicable Federal Supply Schedule(s). This indication should be clearly marked on the first page of the response, as well as the eligible business concern’s name, point of contact, address, and cage code. All responses to this Sources Sought Notice must be submitted electronically (via e-mail) to Eric U. Darby, Contracting Officer, at whs.ncr.ad.mbx.dsca-group@mail.mil. The subject of the email must be titled “Sources Sought: “Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT) Support Services” Facsimile responses will not be accepted. To facilitate a timely and comprehensive review of all submitted responses, offerors must respond using the format requested in this Notice. Any deviation from this format may lead to the rejection of the response. 9.0 Common Cut-off Time/Date Responses to the information above are due no later than 1:00PM on Friday, June 4, 2021. Responses received after this date and time may not be considered. ATTACHMENT 1 CONTRACTOR CAPABILITY INFORMATION Part I. Business Information Please provide the following business information for your company/institution and for any teaming or joint venture partners: Company/Institute Name: Address: Point of Contact: CAGE Code: Phone Number: E-Mail Address: Web Page URL: Size business pursuant to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Based on the above NAICS Code, state whether your company is: Small Business (Yes/No) Woman Owned Small Business (Yes/No) Small Disadvantaged Business (Yes/No) 8(a) Certified (Yes/No) HUBZone Certified (Yes/No) Veteran Owned Small Business (Yes/No) Service Disabled Veteran Small Business (Yes/No) Central Contractor Registration (CCR) (Yes/No) A statement as to whether your company is domestically or foreign owned (if foreign, please indicate the country ownership). List of any applicable Federal Supply Schedules and expiration dates: