Crowd Sourcing

THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR PROPOSALS. The Department of Defense (DoD), Washington Headquarters Services (WHS), Acquisition Directorate (AD), issues this sources sought notice solely for market research purposes and is seeking capability statements from all interested parties including Small, Small Disadvantaged (SDB), 8(a), Woman-owned (WOSB), Veteran Owned (VOSB), Service Disabled Veteran Owned (SD-VOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) businesses, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)/Minority Institutions (MI) for the purposes of determining the appropriate level of competition and/or small business subcontracting goals for the application of a Crowdsourcing Methodology concerning future security environments and force planning analysis for the Department of Defense. 1. Background The DoD seeks an innovative methodology such as crowdsourcing to leverage the wisdom of an interdisciplinary team of experts that can provide insights into the Defense Department's consideration of plausible future security environments. This methodology will pool the wisdom of the researchers to generate the content in a forum that leverages an innovative platform. The goal of the crowdsourcing would be to explore alternative future security environments and to identify the key national security challenges and opportunities they present to the United States. The mission of the Department of Defense is to protect the American people and advance U.S. interests. Products developed under this effort may serve as a blueprint to others or may be utilized in another capacity to determine appropriate areas for study in other DoD efforts. To ensure that the crowdsourcing methodology for alternative futures and the global and regional environments meet the agency's needs and professional and federal government standards, the DoD seeks experienced professional consultants with proven current and past performance on the same or similar project(s) within the past eight (8) years. The vendor shall consider other federal agencies with established, active, and comparable methodologies offering similar crowdsourcing functions during the process of evaluating and meeting the needs of the government. 2. Objective The DoD defines its need and the study scope as interdisciplinary to encompass all functions appropriate to a comprehensive program. The goal is to provide analysis, forecasts, and scenarios in a written format, which the Department may use to establish a departmental policy. The Government intends to procure commercially available services. The contractor is expected to be able to employ crowdsourcing methodology (ies) to leverage a broad range of expertise to provide insights into DoD's consideration of the future security environment. The submitted capability statement shall reflect the respondent's ability to provide the following: - Describe the ability to conduct a range of research, formulate solutions to problems, and produce written reports on the research findings. - Describe the capability to conduct thorough interviews with expert parties contributing to a study of this magnitude and the capability to generate written summaries of all interviews as part of the deliverables. - Describe the level of demonstrated knowledge and application of crowdsourcing methodologies and access to a broader pool of subject matter expertise relevant to the research required. - Provide demonstrated past-performance expertise as the lead on a similar study/project of the same scale and complexity. - Key personnel must be skilled and experienced in the related disciplines for successful accomplishment of the work to be performed under this contract expertise of a similar scale and complexity. The respondent shall have successfully completed a similar project/study of a similar scale and complexity within the past 8 years, preferably a federal agency history assessment. - How long would it take to complete the generation of alternative futures and scenarios? How do you make a projection of when a set of tasks will be completed? - How flexible is your crowdsourcing methodology to additional guidance during the process that might, for example, identify areas of particular interest that would benefit from further assessment? - Describe the standard on the level of detail typically involved in scenario types for alternative futures? - Describe capability to obtain crowdsourcing resources in any given scenario and the standard expertise entailed? 3. Response Requirements: Responses to this notice must include: 1. Company name, address, and phone number. 2. Contractor and Government Entity (CAGE) code. 3. Dun and Bradstreet Number. 4. Company Socio-economic Status 5. Primary Point of Contact name, phone and email. 6. No more than 10 pages excluding cover page, single-spaced, no smaller than 12-point font, and a minimum of one-inch margins. 7. A summary description of relevant experience and ability to provide the minimum requirements as described in Section B above. This requirement has an emphasis on exploring alternative future security environments and to identify the key United States National Security challenges they present to assist the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense in policy development of security support activities that meet the aforementioned objectives. Respondents should provide complete responses to each capability area addressed above. 8. Procurement History in this area to include contract number, dollar amount, period of performance, level of security clearance. 9. If respondent has a government contract vehicle such as a Federal Supply Schedule or other government-wide use contract that would address the scope of this requirement, please indicate contract number in your response. 10. Potential contractors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) to be eligible for award. Potential contractors must also have current Online Representations and Certification Application on file with SAM. (See website https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM). 4. Deadline: The Government requests interested parties to submit by Tuesday, April 22, 9:00am Eastern Time a letter of interest and a statement of current capability to perform the above services via email with the subject line reflecting the notice's Number, Title, and Business Entity Name. The e-mail addresses to submit responses are listed below. NAICS Code: 541990 - All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services. Point of Contact(s): Primary: Ericka Landry Contract Specialist 703-545-9002 Ericka.landry.civ@mail.mil Secondary: Janique A. Hudson janique.a.hudson.civ@mail.mil All questions regarding this notice shall be directed to the point of contact listed above. 5. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This Sources Sought Notice is for market research purposes only and does not constitute a Request for Proposal/Quotation; and, is not considered to be a commitment by the Government to award a contract nor will the Government pay for any information received; no basis for claim against the Government shall arise as a result from a response to this Sources Sought Notice or Government use of any information provided. Failure to submit information in sufficient detail may result in considering a firm as not a viable source and may influence competition and set-aside decisions. Regardless of the information obtained from this Sources Sought Notice, the Government reserves the right to consider any arrangement as deemed appropriate for this requirement. 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. Proprietary, classified, confidential, nor sensitive information should be included in your response to this Notice. However, all information received in response to this RFI marked "Proprietary" will be protected and handled accordingly. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. WHS will not pay for information received in response to this RFI. The Government reserves the right to use any information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate, including using technical information provided by respondents in any resultant solicitation. At this time, no solicitation exists; therefore, DO NOT REQUEST A COPY OF THE SOLICITATION and DO NOT SUBMIT OFFERS. After a review of the responses received, a solicitation may be published on Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website. It is the potential Offeror's responsibility to monitor FedBizOpps for release of any future solicitation that may result from this notice. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to any resultant solicitation. IF A SOLICITATION IS ISSUED IT WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT A LATER DATE, and all interested parties must respond to the solicitation announcement independently from this notice. Additional information, as it becomes available, will be posted as amendments to this announcement. All amendments will be available for viewing at the FBO website. It is the responsibility of the interested party to review the FBO website for updates and amendments.