A. This is a Sources Sought Synopsis for information only. It is neither a solicitation announcement nor a request for proposals or quotes and does not obligate the Government to award a contract. Solicitations in response to this RFI will not receive a response. The purpose of this notice is for market research in order to support follow-on acquisition decisions and to identify potentially qualified Small Business concerns, who are interested in and capable of performing the work as stated in this notice of Phase I Enhancements and full Phase II implementation of the Federal Student Aid's Human Capital Planning & Staffing Solution (HCPSS). The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes applicable to this notice has been determined to be 541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services), 541512 (Computer Systems Design Services) and 541519 (Other Computer Related Services). Responses must be in writing and shall address the instruction as outlined in Paragraph D below. B. The United States Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) is conducting market research for potential Small Businesses in preparation for a future procurement that is intended to improve the human capital hiring processes and best practices. FSA has decided to undertake a multi-phase approach to accomplish this requirement. The first phase, which has been successfully completed, focused on hiring activities including the planning and maintenance of position descriptions, vacancy questions, and interview questions to support hiring managers. In addition to planning and maintenance, the first phase also included a subset of key operational sub-processes to execute the hiring process. The sub-processes utilized ensured that FSA was able to address compliance activity areas such as improved cycle times and quality, areas of potential improvement that were recently identified by Federal Government audit findings. Phase II will expand the scope of the efforts performed under Phase I to provide support to staff including planning activities as required. During Phase II, Human Resource Management is to be expanded to support human capital planning, which includes resource planning, assessing resource needs and onboarding processes based on FSA strategic priorities. C. All responding contractors shall possess vast experience with implementing and integrating Serena Service Manager (SSM 2.0) and Serena Business Manager (SBM 10.1.10) modules with systems and applications similar to FSA's Enterprise Business Collaboration (EBC) and Partner Enterprise Business Collaboration (PEBC) environments, which are integrated within the MS SharePoint 2010 Platform. All respondents shall include their capability statements. The contractor resource capabilities must include staff with the skills to perform the tasks listed below in a SharePoint environment using the above referenced Serena Tools: 1. Develop test cases for each sprint to ensure solution meets business objectives through listening to and reviewing documented customer requirements. 2. Develop system test plans and cases to test the end-to-end solution, including retest of Phase 1 functionality when impacted by enhancements. 3. Perform testing at the end of each sprint and document results. 4. Re-test corrected code, as necessary, based on identified defects. 5. Develop user-oriented, process-oriented test cases for User Acceptance Testing. 6. Support FSA during User Acceptance Testing, including working with business unit testers and documenting results of testing. 7. Maintain system test defect log for the life of the project, through deployment into production, including the results of sprint tests and re-tests, end-to-end testing of solution, user acceptance testing, performance testing, 508 testing, and smoke tests. 8. Clearly communicate test results with FSA Business Transformation, Technology Office and Business Unit project team and development vendor. 9. Collaborate with FSA, its partners and other vendors to develop best system administrative practice(s) and reliable technical solutions between Enterprise Business Collaboration (EBC) and Partner Enterprise Business Collaboration (PEBC) environments referred to as SharePoint internal and external facing environments. 10. Ability to use the IBM Rational toolset, specifically Rational Quality Manager (RQM) and Rational Team Concert (RTC), to develop test cases and maintain test results through the life of the project. D. All responses are to include the following inputs (no more than 5 pages): 1. Name of Company 2. GSA Schedule Number, if applicable 3. Small Business Size/Type. 4. NAICS Code 5. Describe your firm's relevant experience and resource capabilities in conducting Serena workflow implementations utilizing the tools identified in Section C in a Federal Environment. 6. Provide experience with Serena implementation and integration with MS Sharepoint 2010 in a Federal Environment with reference to the above requirements 7. Describe experience with FSA Applications (if applicable). E. Please do not provide generic capability statements as these documents shall add no value to this sources sought request as the Government is looking for specific experience with the above referenced suite of tools. F. All responses shall be submitted via email to alex.mavroukakis@ed.gov and elvis.taylor@ed.gov by Noon, EST on 27 June 2014.
