Introduction

In late November 2015, a decision was made to modify the Project’s procurement, design, development, and implementation approach after discussions with state and federal control agencies, the California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS), the California Government Operations Agency (CalGovOps), the CDT, the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), the federal General Services Administration’s (GSA) 18F team (18F), and Code for America. Rather than releasing a monolithic multi-year Request for Proposal (RFP) estimated to cost several hundred million dollars and take five to seven years to implement, the Project decided to instead use a modular procurement approach coupled with agile design and development methodologies to deliver business value earlier. This approach consists of iteratively implementing business functionality in the form of “digital services” as they are developed.

This new approach has received wide-spread support throughout the state and federal government, but adopting this approach requires the Project to make several changes, which in turn have a corresponding effect on the state staff performing the associated work. These changes include:
 

• Change in Procurement Approach: The Project has changed its procurement approach from awarding a single contract to a Systems Integrator (SI) to a modular approach allowing for a series of contracts to be awarded to multiple vendors for digital service modules.

• Change in Design/Development Approach: The Project has changed its design and development approach to use agile methodologies. This includes implementing a user-centric design process and continuously refining requirements through an iterative development process that promotes continual engagement with stakeholders.

• Change in Implementation Responsibility: The Project is changing the responsibility for implementation from requiring an SI to manage statewide implementation activities to procuring these services through a separate vendor with assistance from the state and development teams.

• Change from M&O to DevOps: The Project is changing its post-implementation model from a traditional Maintenance and Operations (M&O) model which requires an SI to be responsible for the daily operations of the CWS-NS and any system enhancements. The Project is now proposing a Development Operations (DevOps) model which will improve service delivery by recognizing the interdependence of software development and operations which in turn will produce digital services more rapidly, with frequent iterations of ongoing enhancements.

• Additional Project Resources: The Project is requesting additional state staff and county and project support consultants to support the proposed changes.

• Updates to Existing Project Resources: The Project is requesting several changes to existing resources including converting limited-term positions to permanent and repurposing or reclassifying other project resources.

These changes are based on discussions with CHHS, state and federal control agencies, Code for America, 18F and CalGovOps. The intent of these changes are to innovate the way the CWS-NS Project will procure, design, develop, and implement services to end users in a manner that supports quicker delivery of business value and with less risk to the state.

Purpose

This document describes the Procurement Management Plan (hereinafter referred to as the “plan”) for the Child Welfare Digital Service (CWDS) Child Welfare System - New System Project (hereinafter referred to as the “Project”). The purpose of this plan is to identify the tasks and activities to be performed to procure goods and services for the Project. This Plan documents the scope, content, methodology, sequence, and responsibilities for systematically and efficiently procuring goods and services to maximize best value to the state at the lowest risk while complying with state contracting laws and regulations.
 

Scope

The authority for the Project’s procurements resides with the Office of Systems Integration (OSI), Acquisition and Contracts Services Division (ACSD). The Project initiates a procurement based on the identification of a project need to procure goods or services. After the Project process has been completed, the documents are forwarded to ACSD to coordinate final approval, and execute the procurement.

The Project works with the ACSD to run both competitive and non-competitive procurements. The ACSD, in turn, works as a procurement official with both the California Department of Technology (CalTech), which has jurisdiction, over competitive Information Technology (IT) procurements, and the Department of General Services (DGS), which has jurisdiction over non-competitive procurements. Though the Project is moving to an agile approach, the State procurement process has not changed. The Project still needs to follow State contracting laws.
 

Document Maintenance

This plan will be reviewed updated as needed. Lessons learned as a result of continuing procurement management efforts will be captured at the end of each project phase and used to improve the Project and OSI best practices.

This plan contains a revision history log that follows the Table of Contents. When changes occur, the version number will be updated to the next increment and the date, author making the change, and change description will be recorded in the revision history log of the document.

This plan is considered a base lined document after it has gone through the peer review cycle and has been approved by the Project governance bodies. Subsequent changes to the plan, including periodic updates, require the use of the Project Configuration Management and Change Management Processes.

Roles and Responsibilities

This section describes the roles and responsibilities to manage procurements for the Project. There are various staff resources and stakeholders involved in the procurement of contracts for the Project. In some cases, one individual may perform multiple roles in the process.

Table 5-1 Roles and Responsibilities

Procurement Management Approach

The procurement management process depicted in Figure 1 provides a high-level view of the Project’s responsibility in the procurement process. The focus of this section is on competitive procurements.

           Figure 1 – CWS-NS Procurement Process

Contracts

The Procurement Process

As mentioned in Section 1.2, Scope, this plan focuses on the Project’s responsibilities to support the processes and documentation needed to execute procurements. The focus of this section is on competitive procurements. There is a notable variance to the process for non-competitive procurements, and that variance will be addressed.

The life of an acquisition program and the framework consists of phases which, as a whole, are commonly referred to as an Acquisitions Life Cycle. It begins with the Acquisition Planning phase which includes determining needs and developing requirements, and ends with the release of the procurement vehicle (RFP). This phase is followed by the Contracting Phase which starts with the release of the RFP and includes evaluation and selection of a vendor and ends with the execution of a contract. The final phase is the Product Acceptance phase and includes the contract management phase where contractual compliance is monitored to ensure requirements and acceptance criteria is met. This phase ends when all the terms of the contract have been fulfilled.

Acquisition Planning Phase

The planning Phase for the Acquisitions Life Cycle begins when all federal and state approvals to proceed with the project have been secured and the Project is ready to procure a new system or refresh an existing system. Consideration is given to overall scope, budget and schedule. During the Acquisition Planning Phase, the Project consults with the ACSD for preliminary guidance and direction on the planning of its needed goods and services. The phase ends with the release of the procurement vehicle.

The Project steps in the planning phase include:

• Planning

• Obtaining approval of the overall acquisition strategy through the federal and state approvals

• Developing requirements

• Develop the procurement documents

• Determining the evaluation and selection criteria that will be used to determine the contract awardee

   

Contracting Phase

The Project works with the Acquisition Specialist at the ACSD to ensure that all contracting processes are followed to ensure a competitive and legal acquisition. The Contracting Phase which is mostly done by ACSD begins upon release of the procurement vehicle and ends upon execution of the contract.

Product Acceptance Phase

The Product Acceptance phase marks the beginning of the contract management activities. The purpose of this phase is to monitor the vendor’s efforts to ensure compliance with contract requirements and product acceptance criteria. The details of contract management can be found in the CWS-NS Contract Management Plan which identifies the roles and responsibilities of project team members who will manage, track, amend and close the contract.

Executing a Contract

Requesting Approval

After a vendor or bidder has been selected, the ACSD prepares the contract package, and obtains necessary approvals.

Notifications

Once the Project receives notification that the contract has been executed, the service manager (SM), contract manager (CM), and functional manager (FM) may negotiate the actual start date with the contractor. No contractor may begin work without a fully-executed contract. If appropriate, the FM will also arrange for seating and equipment at the Project site.

Once the Project receives the contract, the CM will review the contract for accuracy (verify the dollar amount, deliverables, contract period, etc.). If there are any corrections needed, the CM will work with the ACSD to correct them (the errors are usually very minor).

The FA will update the Project accounting database with the encumbrance amounts. Finally, the CM will give a copy of the SOW to the project librarian (PL) to be archived. The hardcopy is stored in the library and an electronic copy is stored in the Project’s document management system. These are considered the final versions. A working copy of the SOW will be kept at the desk of the CM.

APPENDIX A – ACRONYMS