VeraFix™ | Federal AE Requirements Intelligence

A Polaris Strategy & Capture Consulting Service

VeraFix™ is a Polaris-managed professional service for architecture and engineering firms pursuing and delivering Federal projects. It turns project facts, governing references, and experienced Federal AE insight into intelligence that helps teams understand what applies, why it matters, who must act, and what must be delivered.

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The Challenge

The Stated Criteria List Is Only the Starting Point

Federal AE solicitations and contracts may identify key criteria, then broadly require compliance with the UFCs and all other governing references. That shortened list does not necessarily identify the complete project requirements landscape.

Teams must still determine what additional references apply, where to find them, which editions govern, and what other requirements are invoked through the criteria chain.

Questions the Team Must Resolve

Which additional and project-triggered references apply?
How do hierarchy and precedence affect the project?
Which requirements are invoked through other documents?
Which roles and disciplines must act?

The VeraFix™ Idea

Before a Team Can Chart the Right Course, It Must Know Its Position

VeraFix™ combines the idea of veritas—truth—with the navigational fix: establishing a reliable position before setting a course.

Each Federal AE project presents a different combination of contracting agency, executing agent, end user, facility type, location, delivery method, and existing conditions.

VeraFix™ establishes that position from the project's governing requirements and maps what follows. It organizes the resulting intelligence around the people responsible for pursuit and delivery.

The objective is not more information. It is a clearer basis for choosing the team, planning the work, and acting with traceable knowledge of the governing sources.

The VeraFix™ Navigation Map

From a Criteria Maze to an Actionable Course

VeraFix™ expands the stated criteria into a project-specific requirements landscape, organizes documented hierarchy and precedence, and maps the result to the decisions, responsibilities, and deliverables of the team.

A navigation map showing many Federal criteria sources converging through VeraFix™ requirements analysis and practitioner intelligence, then dividing into pursuit intelligence and delivery intelligence outcomes. — VeraFix™ identifies documented applicability and precedence where the governing sources establish them, and surfaces conflicts, ambiguities, and unresolved questions for human resolution.

More Than a Requirements List

Three Intelligence Layers Inform the Project

Governing-Source Intelligence

What applies, where it comes from, how the documents connect, and which source controls where the governing material establishes that relationship.

Federal AE Practitioner Intelligence

Practical context from participating subject-matter experts with decades of Federal AE pursuit and delivery experience.

Your Firm's Lessons Learned

When authorized, approved firm knowledge, procedures, and lessons learned remain private and are incorporated only into that firm's deliverables.

Project-Specific Analysis

What Shapes the Requirements Position

The applicable requirements do not come from facility type alone. VeraFix™ evaluates the combination of project variables that defines the governing environment.

Contracting Agency

Executing Agent

End User

Facility Type

Project Location

New Construction or Renovation

Design-Bid-Build or Design-Build

Installation Criteria

Standard Designs and Centers of Standardization

Site, Climate, Hazard, and Existing-Condition Factors

Required Reviews, Approvals, Permits, and External Coordination

Four Deliverable Tiers

The Right Depth for the Decision in Front of the Team

The tiers share one project-specific intelligence foundation. They differ in depth, audience, and the decisions they are designed to support.

Tier 1

Identify What Applies.

Applicable Reference Register

A categorized register of the Federal, DoD, service, agency, installation, facility-type, and location-specific references identified as applicable to the project. Entries provide the reference designation, title, category, applicability basis, and public-source link.

Best for: Establishing the reference library and confirming the criteria baseline.

Tier 2

Understand What Each Reference Contributes.

Reference Intelligence Brief

Tier 1 expanded with concise descriptions of each reference, its principal subject matter, the disciplines or roles that use it, and how it connects to the criteria chain. It can also incorporate client-provided project information and relevant site, hazard, acquisition, and delivery context.

Best for: Project orientation, kickoff preparation, management planning, and shared team understanding.

Tier 3

Position the Team to Win.

Pursuit Intelligence

A pursuit-focused briefing that identifies the project's defining requirements, technical challenges, delivery obligations, external coordination, review pathways, and other factors affecting the proposed team and approach.

Best for: Capture leaders, proposal managers, principals-in-charge, project managers, contract managers, and proposed technical leaders.

Tier 4

Organize the Team to Deliver.

Delivery Requirements Intelligence

A discipline- and role-organized requirements briefing for the project team. It presents captured requirements with their governing reference and source location, identifies responsible and coordinating parties, and surfaces required analyses, decisions, submittals, reviews, and deliverables.

Best for: Principals, project managers, design managers, quality managers, architects, engineers, technical specialists, and consultants.

FoundationTier 1 · IdentifyTier 2 · Understand

Two Courses ForwardTier 3 · PursueTier 4 · Deliver

Optional Project-Planning Outputs

Carry the Intelligence Into the Team's Working Plans

Optional modules use the same project intelligence to support risk, workload, quality, and team-readiness decisions. They are scoped separately and do not create an additional deliverable tier.

Risk and Contingency Intelligence

An internal AE risk register for scope, staffing, fee, schedule, and contingency planning, plus a segregated client-facing view formatted to support CSRA development when applicable.

The register is CSRA-ready; it is not represented as a completed quantitative CSRA unless the applicable modeling, inputs, reviews, and agency deliverables are included in the engagement.

Drawing and Workload Forecast

Estimated sheet ranges by discipline and submission milestone, with the assumptions, exclusions, uncertainty, and project-complexity drivers behind the forecast.

Draft Project Quality Management Plan

A requirements-informed draft tailored to the firm's authorized quality procedures, review gates, responsibilities, and lessons learned for Project Manager and Quality Manager approval.

Team and Discipline Briefings

Project-specific training slides for whole-team orientation or individual disciplines, organized around their requirements, interfaces, risks, responsibilities, and deliverables.

Pursuit Intelligence

Rapid Insight for a More Credible Pursuit

A pursuit team must understand enough of the project's technical and delivery environment to assemble the right team, select relevant experience, and demonstrate that it understands the work ahead.

VeraFix™ helps the team identify defining requirements, differentiating challenges, specialized expertise, coordination obligations, and the language needed to speak credibly about the project.

Pursuit Decisions Informed

Teaming and specialist needs
Relevant personnel and project experience
Technical and management approach
Fee and schedule considerations
Compliance and proposal content strategy

Delivery Intelligence

A Source-Backed Starting Position for the Project Team

Delivery teams inherit requirements from many sources and must translate them into coordinated work across disciplines, firms, phases, reviews, and deliverables.

VeraFix™ organizes captured requirements by role and discipline, preserves their source locations, and makes responsibilities, interfaces, and coordination needs easier to see early.

Delivery Decisions Informed

Project and discipline work planning
Consultant scopes and responsibility alignment
Fee and schedule development
Reviews, approvals, and coordination pathways
Traceable, quality-focused design delivery

Source-Backed and Traceable

Evidence for Action, Not a Substitute for Professional Judgment

VeraFix™ connects requirements intelligence to its governing source. Where requirements are presented, the deliverable identifies the reference and applicable source location so the project team can verify the requirement and work from its controlled project library.

VeraFix™ supports—but does not replace—professional judgment, project-specific verification, or the responsibilities of the architects and engineers of record. Its requirements intelligence is bounded by the project information and governed reference set established for the engagement. Client-provided procedures and lessons learned remain segregated from the reusable VeraFix™ library and other clients.

VeraFix™

Establish the Requirements Position Before the Team Sets Its Course.

Contact Polaris Strategy & Capture Consulting to discuss a VeraFix™ requirements-intelligence engagement for a Federal AE pursuit or project.

Request a VeraFix™ Consultation