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CDT Helps Vendors Prep for Agile Pool Refresh

California's Pre-Qualified Vendor Pool for Agile Development is getting a refresh over the next few months. A CDT webinar on Tuesday was designed to help vendors prepare.

California's Pre-Qualified Vendor Pool for Agile Development is getting a refresh over the next few months. On Tuesday, the California Department of Technology held a webinar to answer questions about the refresh effort, as well as to share lessons learned from previous screenings.

The pool was created in July 2016 and will add 11 vendors to the 24 already participating, for a total of 35 after this refresh. Knowing vendor capabilities and user-centered design experience ahead of solicitation helps reduce solicitation time and costs, according to Deborah Chu, the CDT's moderator.

Vendors who want to be included in the pool will need to fulfill administrative and deliverable requirements provided by the RFI, which will be released sometime after Jan. 2, CDT executive sponsor Adrian Farley said during the webinar.

All requirements will be based on the U.S. Digital Service model. If a vendor is not a California Multiple-Award Schedule (CMAS) vendor, they can apply using the GSA Federal Supply Schedule 70, but a CMAS agreement is not required to participate in the screening process. A CMAS agreement will be required to respond to RFOs, within 60 calendar days of acceptance into the pool.

The deliverables response will be based on a "sample task that is representative of the type of services state agencies will seek through the PQVP RFO process" the webinar presentation cards read.

A new labor category has been added to the pool of vendors. The addition of a full stack developer brings the total to 14 categories but vendors, are not required to fulfill all labor categories. They must be able to fulfill at least one classification on their CMAS agreement.

Mapping GSA classifications and pricing to PQVP labor categories will be required in the RFI response, as will a written description of how the GSA job classification meets the PQVP labor category.

Once vendors have been narrowed down by RFI responses, they will respond to the state's RFO with technical and cost responses. Vendors will need to provide references for key staff involved in projects, but will not need to submit common administrative requirements or repeat a submission of deliverables and information handled in the screening process.

Existing members will be grandfathered in, according to Farley, but adding categories must be done during a refresh process.

The refresh process should be complete within the first quarter of 2018, and another cycle is expected to start in the fourth quarter. 

Lessons learned included:

  • Develop accessible user interfaces
  • Demonstrate understanding of agile development
  • Provide a description of DevOps
  • Provide a solution based on the database
  • Include only open-source software
The webinar can be seen here.

 

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Kayla Nick-Kearney was a staff writer for Techwire from March 2017 through January 2019.