Assessment Application Build for PTML/Doctoral

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done During FY 17/18, an SLC Programme of work needs to deliver new products in the form of Part Time Maintenance Loans and Doctoral in line with the GDS Standards and Technology Code of Practice. These demand new supporting features and capabilities to be produced including complex, large elements such as Means Testing and Post-Liability Change of Circumstance. Problem to Be Solved Whilst SLC has a core team of resources required to deliver the Programme of work it also requires an expert professional Supplier to provide specialist services and capabilities to support the delivery of specific short term outcomes. Outcomes will cover all areas of the delivery of digital services in line with GDS design. Specific outcomes will be agreed case by case with the selected Supplier during the contract period via individual Statements of Work. Who Are the Users As a internal assessor within SLC I need to, on behalf of applicants, ascertain eligibility and entitlement for part-time maintenance loans or doctoral products, so that the appropriate loan and fees are issued in support of study. Early Market Engagement No early market engagement has taken place with suppliers for this requirement. Work Already Done To date SLC has created a programme of work which has established high level requirements for PTML/Doctoral. SLC has estimated indicative effort and associated timelines with preferred product launch dates. There will therefore be several projects to take through each phase of the digital lifecycle (Discovery, Alpha, Beta, Live) which will be planned over the coming months and may run in parallel. Consequently, there will be peaks and troughs where the mix of skills and volume of resource will need to blend and be flexible to meet programme demands as required. Existing Team The team is a multi-disciplinary team made up largely of developers, testers and business analysts supported by a product owner, technical and business architects, DevOps, project management and test consultants.The Supplier will work in a mixed team of full time SLC staff and other suppliers. There is an incumbent supplier who will continue to be in place through the duration. All parties involved in the delivery are expected to operate in a collaborative manner while adopting the agile processes and working practices already established within the team. Current Phase Discovery Work Location 100 Bothwell Street, Glasgow. G2 7JD McMullen Road, Darlington. DL1 1RW Working Arrangments You should set out how you will maintain the availability of services over time, and your ability to respond to an immediate surge in requirements. SLC reserves the right to both extend and shorten the service provision period subject to discussion with the preferred supplier(s). The team is expected to work across multiple sites as required. Expenses will conform to SLC policies. Relevant Supplier team members are expected to be on site 5 days per week. Security Clearance All Supplier resources must meet the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS/DS) Additional T&Cs Proposed individuals who are non British/EEA nationals must either be in possession of leave to remain with no restrictions on their time to live/work in the UK or their leave to remain must be valid for the duration of this award and permit work in this capacity. Monthly financial reporting reconciled to a SFIA skill matrix. Monthly expense reconciliation. Fortnightly and Monthly progress reporting against planned deliverables and other balanced scorecard measures. Skills & Experience The Supplier must evidence ability to provide the full range of skills across the relevant roles for each phase of an Agile project in order to deliver successful digital outcomes. Resource provided must have the ability to elicit and inform solution design, solution architecture, quality assurance and project planning etc. The Supplier must be able to demonstrate with evidence, their experience of and ability to provide resources capable of working in an environment with a core focus on user experience. Resource provided must be skilled in the use of techniques and practices to elicit user needs and continually improve and optimise the user interaction. Integrate into existing teams/processes with minimal disruption, drive existing complex architecture, balancing competing demands of challenging delivery schedules with effective management of technical debt, achieving key strategic objectives. Demonstrate experience of operating agile at scale and effectively prioritise and manage significant backlogs of work across a number of Agile delivery teams, including knowledge sharing/transfer. Demonstrate experience of operating agile at scale and effectively prioritise and manage significant backlogs of work across a number of Agile delivery teams, including knowledge sharing/transfer. Demonstrate experience of working on systems heavily integrated into a complex legacy estate involving heterogenous platforms and different delivery methodologies. Demonstrate experience of delivering solutions to the public sector in complex policy driven environments. Demonstrate track record in operating in a DevOps culture helping to deliver effective Continuous Delivery, infrastructure automation, test automation and application monitoring leading to tangible business and customer benefit. Be able to provide resources with knowledge or experience of Test Driven Development or a similar methodology Must be able to provide resources with experience of working within an agile development team and strong communication skills and the ability to work as part of a team Demonstrate, experience and challenges with particular focus on exposure to patterns such as REST, event-sourcing, CQRS and dealing with orchestration and consistency issues in such an architecture. Demonstrate with evidence a depth of skill in a range of technologies including Java, DropWizard, MongoDB and RabbitMQ, also in adoption of new technologies (eg Clojure) Provide resources with experience of at least one Object Oriented programming language (preferably Java) Provide resources with knowledge or experience of a Functional Programming language (preferably Clojure) Provide resources with experience of working with JavaScript and/or JavaScript libraries (e.g. ReactJS) Provide appropriate breadth and depth in the following skills:- Knowledge or experience of RESTful APIs, Microservices, Message Queuing (e.g. RabbitMQ), automated test frameworks and Pair Programming Provide resources with knowledge of relational and non-relational database systems (e.g. MongoDB) Nice to Haves No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria The Supplier must confirm that it will: adhere to Agile principles, align to GDS Digital By Default Service Standards, and fully engage with the Team Activities detailed in this document (15%). provide evidence of a track record of building complex microservice and event based architectures (15%). provide evidence of its ability to integrate into existing teams and processes with minimal disruption (10%). provide evidence of operating agile at scale and ability to prioritise and manage significant backlogs of work across a number of Agile delivery teams, including knowledge sharing/transfer (15%). provide evidence of working on systems heavily integrated into a complex legacy estate involving heterogenous platforms and different delivery methodologies (10%). provide evidence of its responsiveness to client demand and the appropriate flexibility in delivering solutions to the public sector in complex policy driven environments (10%). provide evidence of operating in a DevOps culture to deliver effective Continuous Delivery, infrastructure automation, test automation and application monitoring leading to tangible business and customer benefit (5%) provide evidence of the required skillset detailed in the Essential Skills and Experience for all team members, or across the team as a whole, as appropriate (20%). Cultural Fit Criteria Give details of management processes and mitigations for poor service delivery, staff handover, turnover, quality maintenance and corrective actions. Describe how good performance is incentivised to ensure milestones are delivered on time. Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Reference Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 10% Price 40% Questions from Suppliers Budget range between £300,000 and £900,000. for the purpose of evaluation, it is assumed that there will be a work package duration of 120 working days with estimates based on the following mix of roles: for inception 1 delivery/scrum manager, 1 senior tda, 2 design specialists (6 week estimate); for the remaining period (alpha) 1 delivery/scrum manager, 1 senior tda, 3 qas, 3 bsas, 9 developers. separate day rates for each role should be supplied. statements of work to be agreed as required.