Digital Transformation -New Registers

Tender description

Summary of the work RoS require a dynamic, highly skilled, collaborative supplier to work on delivering a number of new registers with the initial focus on housing management registers. As work moves into Alpha and beyond we need a supplier capable of delivering significant technical change in a data focused environment using Agile techniques Expected Contract Length 2 years. The first SOW will be for a 3 month duration with other SOWs developed over the term. Latest start date Mid September 2016 + 2 weeks Budget Range Overall contract value will not exceed £900,000 Why the Work is Being Done Registers of Scotland (RoS) have set up a team to focus on new registers to RoS that relate to property or land; some are to replace existing registers, others are new registers created to meet legislative requirements. While many registers have been moved online, the user experience is fragmented and often confusing, relying on inefficient, manual interventions for a number of transactions. There is an opportunity to make savings by improving the user experience in the broadest sense and to deliver digital tools that meet user needs and support organisational goals. The same concepts apply to new registers. Problem to Be Solved There is a need for a delivery team to support an under-resourced team and thereby ensure the functionality and quality of the registers is enhanced by integrating additional applications and technologies on time and budget to the required quality. Delivery of the new registers, using agile methodology and to GDS equivalent standards, with the initial focus being on a suite of housing management registers. A full delivery team may not be required initially but built up as the team progress through the project lifecycle. Who Are the Users Registration Officers – depending on the Register this may be staff within Local Authorities, Scottish Government or Registers of Scotland. They will be required to approve or decline applications for registration, and maintain the data within the register. They will also be required to access data from the registers for reporting purposes. Applicants - complete and submit an application for registration, e.g. for the Landlord Register this would be a landlord or a letting agent. General Public – most of the registers require a publicly accessible search function Work Already Done Work has commenced on the suite of housing management registers, with the focus being on the new Scottish Landlord Register which is in alpha phase. Some discovery work has been carried out on other new registers. Existing Team There is multiple multidisciplinary product teams in place with which to collaborate. The team has a Product Owner, Scrum Master Project Manager, Technical Lead and Business Analysts, Developers, Test Analysts and UX in situ. The team is made up of contract staff and RoS permanent staff. Current Phase Alpha Skills & Experience • have demonstrable success in delivery using agile methodologies including scrum - 20 points • have demonstrable success in the design and implementation of continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines - 10 points • have experience in modern engineering practices including TDD, pair programming - 5 points • have the experience of full stack design and development of delivering web-based services - 10 points • have experience in the following technologies, java, micro-service architecture, RESTful services, API design, spring framework, spring boot - 5 points • have experience in PL/SQL (PostgreSQL), NoSQL (MongoDB), JPA / Hibernate, HTML5, CSS3, javascript, and common javascript libraries - 5 points • have test analysis skills with experience in carrying out the following tasks: analyse user stories, develop test plans, develop scenarios and test cases - 5 points • have SQL experience sufficient to mine or prepare test data (when required), collaborate with developer, business analyst and product owner using BDD approach - 5 points • have programming skills sufficient to develop test automation for front end and APIs - 5 points • have range of UX skills and experience - user research, understanding user needs and communicating customer journey, prototyping, usability, accessibility, interaction and interface design - 10 points • have the broad range of business analyst skills and experience, including business process and system analysis - 10 points • be able to provide product owner ability with proven experience in gathering requirements, prioritising requirements and backlog refinement - 5 points • have a ScrumMaster who leads from the forefront managing the agile process, supporting the team to be high performing and continuously improving - 5 points Nice to Haves • have experience of working on digital by default government services and meeting digital by default service standard criteria - 30 points • have proven experience in skills and knowledge transfer - 20 points • have experience of delivering services based on the following technologies Docker, PaaS such as OpenShift / Kubernetes, Jenkins, HAL and HATEOAS - 20 points • be able to hit the ground running and deploy an effective multi-discipline workforce to fulfill the required outcomes - 20 points • have experience in building registers - 10 points Work Location The current team is based in Edinburgh, however Glasgow will also be considered Working Arrangments The team will work alongside existing team building products to strategic drivers and objectives. They will collaborate with other teams across the service and beyond and will invest time and effort into knowledge share, coaching and mentoring across individuals in order to ensure increased capability of RoS people. They will be co-located with technical and business colleagues, operate using Agile tools and techniques, actively participating in Agile ceremonies including service show and tells. They will be expected to be on-site 5 days per week. Security Clearance All team members must be in possession of a current Disclosure Scotland clearance prior to starting contractual work. Additional T&Cs Any expenses shall be submitted in line with the RoS standard Travel and Subsistence policy and agreed in advance of expenditure. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Overall technical approach and agile methodology • Approach to managing dependencies, risk and delivering quality • Estimated timeframes to recruit and service the assignment • Contingency plans to ensure sufficient recruitment • Proposed team structure (including CVs of key members) • Value for Money - how proposal will optimise delivery and generate savings or provide added value. Cultural Fit Criteria • Proposed approach for working with existing scrum teams - 25 points • Demonstration of transparency of decision making and collaborative working including working with stakeholders at all levels - 25 points • Have a no blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes - 25 points • Proposed approach to skills and knowledge transfer and developing in-house digital team capabilities - 25 points Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. The technologies you are looking for are different to what we use on the Microsoft stack. Is there any scope please for discrete components or subsystems being developed in .Net, C# and SQL Server since these are obviously interoperable in a Web services based API ecosystem? There is no scope for delivering this work using the Microsoft stack. 2. The requirements state, "There is a need for a delivery team to support an under-resourced team..." and "a full delivery team may not be required initially but built up as the team progress through the project lifecycle". What a "full delivery team" is to one organisation can be quite different to other organisations. Please can you clarify, in terms of team member roles and numbers, what you regard as a "full delivery team" The model of a “full delivery team” that we have currently in RoS is between 8 and 12 people, including many of the specific skills mentioned elsewhere in the requirements.The exact composition of the team will be determined by the specific scope of the work and the nature of the backlog. Generically, current RoS delivery teams have the capabilities of: Product Owner, Business Analysis, Test, Software Engineer, Continuous Delivery and release management, ScrumMaster, Tech lead / architect, User Experience.Some stages of work requires only a subset of these capabilities, and the composition of the team will change. 3. Does RoS require the successful supplier to take responsibility for deliverables associated with the specific project phase detailed in the Statement of Work (SoW) or to simply augment the existing team on an ongoing basis? Initially it may be to augment the existing team but the intention in the longer term is that the supplier will be responsible for delivering discrete features or artefacts or even complete registers to the standards laid down by RoS. The specific outcomes will be detailed in the SoW.