First Foster Consulting, LLC is currently seeking the following position for a client:
Program Task Lead 1 - Tasks 1 & 2: Business Relationship Management and Systems Development Lifecycle (Agile)Systems Development Lifecycle Support.
Clearance: Minimum of a Secret security clearance is required but preferred is Top Secret.
Place of Performance: Work under this contract shall be performed primarily at Department of State Annex (SA-17), 600 19th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20431 and the corporate spaces of the awardee. All contractor facilities and personnel in support of this PWS are expected to be within a 30-mile radius of SA-17.

4.0 STATEMENT OF WORK

4.1 Background

The U.S. Department of State (DoS), Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is responsible for the welfare and protection of U.S. citizens abroad and for the issuance of Passports that enable Americans to travel internationally while at the same time vetting and issuing visas to non-citizens. CA plays a vital role in U.S. Border Security through the issuance (or denial) of travel documents. CA deals with events and issues that have a personal impact, including birth, death, adoption, child custody, citizenship, and relocation to another country. CA also assists citizens who fall victim to crime, accident, or illness in other countries, or just want to vote absentee. CA’s consular activities have broad foreign policy and domestic political implications and involve legal, humanitarian, and management concerns. As the public face of the Department of State for millions of US citizens and foreign nationals around the world, CA plays a vital role in the Department's mission.

CA’s Office of Consular Systems Technology (CA/CST) delivers and maintains the operation of secure, reliable, and accessible Information Technology (IT) solutions for CA to achieve its mission, providing 24x7x365 support to over 300 sites across the world. CA/CST’s portfolio includes over 90 technology systems and applications under operational support with over 125 concurrent active projects aimed at stabilizing, modernizing, or enhancing those systems.

5.3 Business Relationship Management

The Contractor shall provide support to Government Program Managers in conducting business relations between CA/CST and other offices, directorates, bureaus, and Federal Government agencies.

The Contractor shall:

• Support CA/CST in collaborating with business units to determine project prioritization based on factors including strategic alignment, resource constraints, and mission urgency.

• Assist in the effective administration of CA/CST’s established project intake process and maintain backlog of requests and their status. Coordinate with appropriate CST Technical Divisions to perform Cost/ Trade/Off analysis and Level of Effort regarding requested work by providing guidance/templates and presenting results to CST management.

• Coordinate with the various CST Divisions to obtain project updates with the goal of communicating those updates to the CST leadership and relevant Business Units.

• Coordinate with various CST Divisions to execute key IT Governance meetings including but not limited to Senior Steering Group (SSG), Investment Review Board (IRB), Quarterly Engagement Meetings (QEMs) with CA Business Units and related meetings, Quarterly leadership prioritization meetings, and other CST/Business Unit related meetings as needed. Analyze, develop, organize, and maintain a format to report on IT Governance meetings, discussions, decisions, action items, and execution.

• Provide administrative and analytical support across the ITGSS team to include scheduling meetings, attending meetings, presentation preparation, speaker presentation reviews, tracking action items, and overseeing workgroup activities.

5.4 Systems Development Lifecycle Support

CA/CST has transitioned to the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) as its Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology. The Contractor shall provide subject matter expertise in support of SAFe and the Systems Development Life Cycle while promoting adherence to Department of State Project Program/Management requirements.

The Contractor shall:

Continue to support and mature all aspects of CST’s implementation of the Scaled Agile Framework.

Representative activities include:

a. Implement CST’s SAFe governance model and in collaboration with government and, make amendments as necessary.

b. Provide agile coaches/SMEs to support CST’s SAFe Agile Release Trains (ART) and Program Increments.

c. Promote CST’s continued agile maturation through implementation of appropriate SAFe configurations and processes.

d. Develop reporting/Dashboarding capabilities to provide leadership with metrics and information on the status of CST’s Program Increments and projects.

e. Proactively provide data-driven analysis to aid management decision making as directed by the GTM.

f. Coordinate with CST Divisions to provide leadership briefings on the status of projects and other topics of interest.

g. Develop and provide SAFe training to CST stakeholders.

h. Provide framework for teams to monitor CA/CST Agile project activities for risks and provide and provide mitigation actions.

i. Monitor CA/CST Agile project activities for improvement opportunities and provide expert insight into improving their effectiveness.

j. Establish standards, tools, reporting, and procedures for project management and Systems Development Life Cycle activities. In addition, establish and maintain standard management and reporting templates needed by all projects and tasks.