The California Department of Technology (CDT) is planning to expand and refresh a pool of agile developers that are prequalified to provide services to the state, officials said this week.
The California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS) originally selected 11 vendors — a mix of large, medium and small firms — in the original pool announced in July. The pool will be expanded to as many as 30 vendors, according to a brief from CDT.
"Given our focus on enabling successful IT project outcomes, the quality and quantity of the prequalified pool of vendors for agile development must keep pace with the business needs of our state agency partners. To this end, the Agile Development Prequalified vendor pool refresh will ensure our partners have a robust pool of vendors to choose from as they work to deliver efficient and effective digital services for all Californians,” state CIO Amy Tong wrote in an email statement to Techwire.
As part of refreshing the pool, the 11 original, incumbent vendors will not have to requalify. New vendors that would like to join will be asked to submit a functional software prototype, similar to how the General Services Agency's Blanket Purchasing Agreement (BPA) selected and formed an agile pool for the federal government in 2015. CHHS also asked vendors to submit working prototypes when California formed its pool earlier this year.
The Department of Technology said representatives from the federal government's "18F" digital services team will help judge prototype submissions for California's expanded pool.
After the vendor pool refresh is done, departments will be able to develop and release Request for Offers (RFOs) to the prequalified vendors, CDT explained.
The state may also take some existing vendors out of the pool, if necessary. Those reasons could include being awarded an RFO from the Agile Development Prequalified Pool, but having the contract terminated, or failing to submit an RFO response since the pool was established or refreshed.
The state's child welfare system modernization is the first project using the agile pool to procure services. But officials involved expect others to soon follow.
On Monday, Dec. 19 at 9 a.m., the Department of Technology is hosting a webinar to provide more information and answer questions about the agile pool refresh. Click here to go to the CDT website and register for the conference.
Read more about California's agile vendor pool in this Techwire story about what vendors learned when they submitted software prototypes: Learning Lessons from California's New Pool of Agile Developers.
