Develop Pipeline into a portfolio reporting tool which supports collaboration copy

Tender description

Summary of the work Developing LocalGovDigital Pipeline into software that can also support portfolio reporting for an individual borough or public sector organisation Expected Contract Length 6 months Latest start date Monday 14 May 2018 Budget Range £20-30,000 excluding VAT for this phase of the development Why the Work is Being Done We do not have a clear and consistent way of reporting and sharing the status of projects. We publish some projects in LocalGovDigital Pipeline which provides a clear visual summary for a programme and the status of individual projects. However, maintaining our own list and updating Pipeline is inefficient. If we could build a version of Pipeline that could be used for reporting on all our projects, whilst also sharing that data with other local authorities, then we could identify where we are working on similar projects to other organisations and establish where there are opportunities to work collaboratively. Problem to Be Solved Local authority IT/Digital teams need to report on their portfolio of projects easily, and in different formats (eg a subset of projects for a particular directorate). If local authorities knew what their peers were working on, there would be more opportunities for collaboration. But for a tool to work at scale, it needs to work for individual users. Making Pipeline into a valuable portfolio reporting tool would serve these dual aims. This may be through the tool generating reports, or acting as a repository of links to more detailed project documentation. Who Are the Users As a delivery manager I need to report once on the status of my project so that it’s easy to update stakeholders As a portfolio manager I need to see an overview of all my projects so that I can communicate our projects As a manager I want to see other authorities’ pipelines so that I can identify opportunities for collaboration Work Already Done We have developed some design principles for the tool, to explain our thinking: - The information is available publicly and in a machine-readable format, optimised for search - The product is the first port-of-call for more detailed information about a project - The product is so good people use it, and succeed first time - The product facilitates self-organising teams - The product focuses on what it does well, but doesn't try to do everything LocalGovDigital Pipeline (https://github.com/LocalGovDigital/pipeline) currently provides the basis for reporting the status on a portfolio of work. Existing Team The work will be led by a Delivery Manager in Hackney, but show & tells and sprint planning will be conducted via video to enable members of LocalGovDigital and other local authorities to inform the prioritisation of user stories. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Provide a multi-disciplinary team, including user research, service design, front-end and back-end developers • Demonstrate a track-record of user-centred design and Agile approaches • Have delivered a service that’s passed a government service standard assessment • Be able to build or design a tool that’s so good, people prefer to use it • Show how it can support development of REST APIs to Hackney’s standards Work Location Hackney Service Centre, 1 Hillman Street, E8 Working Arrangments This work can be done remotely No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Understanding of user needs from the service • Clarity of the approach • Experience from a similar project • Team structure, including skills, experiences and relevance of individuals • Identification of risks and plan to mitigate them Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Share knowledge and experience with team members and the wider service Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. Are you looking to appoint a single supplier to carry out all activities or will you consider applications that involve several delivery partners? We would welcome bids from agencies working in partnership (and have previously appointed on that basis) but seek assurances around the agencies’ familiarity with each other and the clarity of roles and responsibilities. 2. - How many users will this software be supporting? i.e. devs, testers etc. - There are commercial products available on the market that support all of your requirements. Is this something you'll consider? - Does this need High Availability and/or DR requirements? We aren’t certain, but we would be surprised of the volume was significant (we assume between 100-1,000 users). High availability and data recovery will be important, but our expectations are reflected in the budget. We have been working with a number of existing SaaS options and haven’t found anything that fully meets our needs.