18F's First Agile Award Is For FedRAMP Dashboard

A Reston-based tech company is the first to get a federal contract through a new system designed to accommodate agile services.

Earlier this week, 18F announced in an online post that TrueTandem had been awarded a roughly $150,000 contract to complete a beta launch of a dashboard for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as FedRAMP.

18F, the General Services Administration’s tech consultancy, has been developing a contracting vehicle known as the agile “blanket purchase agreement” that pre-vets companies capable of doing digital projects using a piecemeal, iterative method. The BPA is designed to help agencies complete task orders with “shorter time-frames, smaller dollar amounts, and user-centered design principles,” according to the group.

Activity through the agile BPA had been halted multiple times by protests from companies not included on that list, first released last year. Companies applying for spots on the list were required to submit rapidly-developed prototypes to 18F, which then evaluated them.

One company that didn’t make the cut argued the selection process focused too much on the lowest price, instead of quality of product.

According to 18F’s post, there were 14 bidders on the project, out of 17 vendors on the Agile BPA. The average bid was around $120,000.

The agile BPA emphasizes short development cycles that take less than a month to go from a solicitation to a contract, and less than three months for a minimum viable product.