Additional technical resource for Innovation Funding Service (IFS), a user-centred digital service

Tender description

Summary of the work Experienced developers, testers, business analysts to work in fast-paced agile delivery team. Developers will produce high-quality, accessible, cross-browser user journeys that meet well-researched user needs. Testers must have strong automation experience. Anticipate appropriate team size to deliver outcome is eight developers, two testers, two business analysts working alongside existing team Expected Contract Length Upto 12 months (possibly shorter), sufficient to launch service into Public Beta (est. Spring 2017) Latest start date 31/10/2016 Why the Work is Being Done Innovate UK is the UK's innovation agency. As Innovate UK has grown, we have developed a range of highly effective products and services to support business and accelerate innovation. However, a significant number are dependent upon legacy systems impacting our ability to scale-up operations efficiently. In response, Innovate UK launched the IFS project to move all our end-to-end transaction services online. We aim to operate a “Digital by Default” business model to meet government Digital by Default Service Standards. The service is currently in beta phase, and we anticipate a public beta in Spring 2017. Problem to Be Solved The aim is to create digital services that support the entire funding process from idea generation to impact reporting. Who Are the Users As a funder I need to advertise an opportunity to businesses and academic organisations for funding in priority areas. As a business or academic organisation, I need to be able submit applications for innovation funding (respectively) so that I can respond to requests to undertake work in priority areas that have the potential to benefit the UK economy. I need to be able to collaborate with other organisations on my application where applicable. As an assessor I need to be able to review funding applications so that an application’s suitability for funding can be assessed and granted (or refused). Existing Team Interaction Designers and Testers. The existing team is made up of two suppliers, Worth Internet Systems and Nomensa. The current agile delivery team is made up of around 30 people including Developers, User Experience professionals, Scrum and Delivery Managers, Business Analysts and Testers. The developers will be working with Innovate UK employees and multiple suppliers across various strands of work for delivery of the service. Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Provide a team with extensive experience in Java development and experience in Java Spring framework (Scores: 8%) • Provide a team with Business analysis skills and experience of capturing user stories within an Agile Environment.(Scores: 6%) • Robust understanding of of object oriented concepts and design patterns (Scores: 5%) • Solid experience of of relational databases and SQL development (Scores: 5%) • Solid Knowledge and experience of utilising automated test tools (Scores: 6%) • Excellent understanding of all desktop and mobile browsers and cross-browser compatibility issues.(Scores: 5%) • Demonstrable ability to produce intuitive user interfaces while working to a style guide or pattern library.(Scores: 5%) • Working knowledge of GIT, Bitbucket, Stash and distributed version control. (Scores: 5%) Work Location The primary site is Polaris House, Swindon SN2 1UH. Working Arrangments Minimum three days per week on-site, locations as described above. A professional working day, hours and working pattern as needed to deliver the service in an efficient way as agreed by the IFS Product Owner and Delivery Manager Security Clearance BPSS - Baseline Personnel Security Standard No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • How the approach meets user needs (Scores: 5%) • How the approach meets your organisation’s policy or goal (Scores: 5%) • How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them (Scores: 5%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstrate flexibility (e.g. the ability to shift tasks to meet changing priorities) (Scores 4%) • Demonstrate responsibility (e.g. act like a leader, serve your team, provide solutions to problems, engage in external/internal environments, seek the best for the organisation beyond your team) (Scores 4%) • Demonstrate simplicity (e.g. take simple steps to goals, do less but better, mitigate failures, talk straight with respect) (Scores 4%) • Demonstrate excellence (e.g. seek actionable feedback, set challenging targets, know users, deliver cost effective high level customer satisfaction) (Scores 4%) • Demonstrate enthusiasm (e.g. bring whole self to work, celebrate success, share passion and energy with others, optimistic) (Scores 4%) Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. What is the budget range for this project? We expect suppliers to quote competitive rates given the volume of work for the team of people as per the scope described. 2. Please can any existing documents about user needs and initial technical design/architecture be shared to help identify the best team members? We are unable to share existing documents. We believe that people with the skills and experience as identified in the requirement will be able to pick up the scope of the project easily (as we have proven already from building the existing teams). 3. Will the existing project team be continuing with the next phase and working alongside this new team or does this new team replace/have a handover from existing team? The new team will enhance the existing team so there will be knowledge transfer 4. Will existing suppliers' staff be involved/available? If not, how can we ensure appropriate knowledge transfer? Yes 5. Is this project following the GDS Service Design Manual process (Discovery -> Alpha -> Beta -> Live)? Are any future formal/independent assessments anticipated? Has there been an Alpha phase assessment? Yes. We are in beta phase, following a successful Alpha assessment 6. Will future development following an iterative/incremental delivery approach? Yes 7. Is there a target technical operating environment for users - e.g. operating system, web browsers (if browser-based solution), etc? Yes. We will provide the hardware for the team members. 8. Will the system operate at an elevated level of Information Security Classification - i.e. above OFFICIAL? Yes – Official sensitive 9. What project roles are being filled by Innovate UK during project delivery? Will they be full-time? In particular, will there be a Project Sponsor, a Business Owner, and a Product Owner / Business Ambassador Yes to all of the above 10. With regard to working arrangements, can you confirm that it will be a 5 day week with a minimum of three days on site per week with the other two remote? Yes - we would expect more on-site working in the early days in order to collaborate face to face with other team members to ensure knowledge transfer is as seemless as possible 11. Are you following a specific Agile method? If so, please could you provide details? Please see GDS way of delivering digital services. The project methodology has evolved as a result of lessons learned and retrospectives, in line with standard Agile methodologies. 12. Do you operate with continuous integration or continuous delivery? If so, what tools are you using? We are working towards this. 13. What collaboration tools are available / being used? For example telephone / video conferencing, tools such as Jira, Trello, etc. Slack, JIRA, Confluence, Webex 14. Are you open to suppliers offering part of your team requirements, or is it mandatory that we would need to be able to provide all the resources you've identified? You would need to provide all resources – sub-contracting is allowed under DOS rules 15. Please let me know if SEO is also a consideration. No is isn't a consideration 16. Could the Innovate UK please provide a best estimate of the number of resources required for each of the resource types identified and view of expected duration ? Could Innovate please supply any materials (User Stories, Diagrams etc) that have been developed to date for the IFS All information is in the procurement pack. 17. Will the offsite/offshore model be acceptable for this requirement? You have stated minimum 3 days work onsite... please clarify. Please see response to question 10. 18. What is the approximate size of the overall team expected to be (i.e. the 12 staff identified in this requirement + others provided from Innovate + existing suppliers (if continuing)? Approx 40 19. What is the structure of the current project / programme team(s)? We are running an Agile multi-discipline team according to the GDS Agile way of working. 20. Which relational database system is in use at the moment? Is this planned for future development too? IFS uses MySQL. Other RDBMS may be investigated as part of the refactoring of the Architecture. 21. Is there a preferred system operating environment that the system is being built for? If so, please can you advise on details (e.g. operating system, databases, middleware, etc)? IFS uses industry standard technologies (Linux OS, Java etc) and people with the skills and experience as identified in the requirement will be able to pick up the scope of the project easily (as we have proven already from building the existing teams) 22. Are there any existing systems that will need to be interfaced to? IFS will need to interface to a number of other Innovate UK systems. 23. Which specific automated test tools are you currently using? For static inspection we are using SonarQube. For Functional testing IFS uses the Robot Framework with Selenium. Jmeter is being used for performance testing. A number of external services are being used such as BlazeMeter and SauceLabs.