PS/18/180 Strategic Enquiries Platform Engineering Squads

Tender description

Summary of the work The squads will work to identify/feed a pipeline of work that will replace the current Enquiries platforms, through migration and introduction through Business transformation. This pipeline may be defined as high-level Epics, business/technology outcomes or detailed user stories/requirements. Dependencies, expected milestones and forecast will be discussed throughout delivery. Expected Contract Length 1 year (+1 year) Latest start date Monday 15 October 2018 Budget Range Supplier to propose payment approach Why the Work is Being Done DVLA currently operates a range of enquiry services from a number of enquiry platforms. Enquiries is a major business service we provide for our customers and has the highest volumes for transactions within the DVLA. As part of the DVLA IT Strategy, DVLA intends to re-architect and re-engineer all IT systems onto new, open-source, cloud-hosted commodity IT platforms. DVLA enquiries systems are out of support and have a significant number of different platforms and different types of Databases, which is inconsistent with our technical strategy. Problem to Be Solved The Supplier is to develop services that will enable DVLA to build the Strategic Enquiries Platform. These developments form part of DVLA’s target architecture, and are well-defined in terms of business and enterprise requirements. DVLA is responsible for the overall solution architecture, systems integration and data migration. The target for all enquiries services, consumed by the Read Models that comply with a common set of standards allow the simple exposure with minimal effort. All services, both internally and external will use the relevant Read Models. All business services must meet the relevant Read Models to support their requirements. Who Are the Users DVLA receive high volumes of enquiries from Motor Industry customers, Insurance companies, local authorities, Government Agencies, General public, (list is not exhaustive) Work Already Done Limited development work has taken place within the existing DVLA Enquiries development squads. Existing Team The IT Service Creation team in DVLA (which includes Technical Product Managers, Agile Delivery Managers, Delivery Managers Business Analysts, Software Engineers, Infrastructure Engineers and Testers) DVLA’s current delivery squad structure consists of five software engineers, two test engineers, a business analyst and an agile delivery manager. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Evidence and experience over a period of 3 or more years in delivering enterprise scale projects at pace, supported by delivery examples and contactable references. • Evidence and experience over a period of 3 or more years of working in a successful agile delivery environment. • Evidence and experience over a period of 1 or more years of delivering projects using modern delivery concepts such as at a minimum containerisation and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery pipelines. • Evidence and experience over a period of 3 or more years of construction of cloud-agnostic solutions that can be deployed into multiple/different cloud providers. • Evidence and experience over a period of 3 or more years of current and future software tooling and frameworks used to build synchronous and asynchronous application components. • Evidence and experience over a period of 3 or more years using a set of open source software frameworks which combine seamlessly to delivery at speed. • Evidence detailing an example of 1 or more years using coding standards and techniques previously that could be implemented at DVLA. Nice to Haves Evidence and experience managing IT investments and large scale projects with a proven track record of meeting these in the simplest manner possible (MVP). Work Location Bristol Office Address Temple Quay House, The Square, Bristol BS1 6DG As part of the working arrangements, off premise locations will be considered. The Supplier to provide details around on and off site premise as part of their proposal. Working Arrangments The supplier is expected to work from the DVLA Bristol Offices and when applicable squad members will be required to attend the Swansea offices The squads will work to identify and feed a pipeline of development work that will collectively replace the current Enquiries platforms, through migration of services and the introduction of new customers through Business transformation. This pipeline may be defined as high-level Epics, business/technology outcomes or detailed user stories/requirements. Dependencies and expected milestones will be discussed and a forecast delivery schedule agreed in advance of work commencing and throughout delivery. Security Clearance Minimum BPSS clearance and if SC clearance is deemed required throughout delivery DVLA will sponsor. Additional T&Cs This service sits outside of IR35 No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 10 Proposal Criteria How the approach or solution meets the organisation’s policy and goal. Cultural Fit Criteria • Provide an example of being able to form effective relationships with people of all seniorities and job types • An example of how you enable Self-starters and inspire others to action • Provide an example of supporting enablement of in-house subject matter expertise, engaging with staff and creating an environment of knowledge sharing. • Provide 2 or more examples of excellent communication and influencing skills. • Ability to coach, document and handover to existing DVLA staff. Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 65% Cultural fit 10% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers 1. Note to Suppliers. Suppliers may be invited to present their proposal in person as validation of the content. 2. Could you please clarify the evidence part?Do we have to provide evidence for one program for 3 years or can we provide evidence of running several programs over the period of 3 years? Where we have asked for 3 years’ experience then this could be evidenced either by providing evidence of running several programs over a period of 3 years or 1 programme for 3 years. 3. For most of the Essential Skills and Experience, you ask for Evidence and experience over a period of 3 or more years. Please can you clarify if you are only after examples of projects which have lasted for 3 years+ or if you mean suppliers who have 3 or more years’ experience delivering these types of projects/this type of capability. Yes this can be evidenced by demonstrating having either 3 or more years’ experience delivering these types of projects/this type of capability. 4. Are you looking to expand the current team with or replace it with a supplier? This requirement is in addition to any existing teams. 5. Are you able to clarify the existing technology stack which the Enquiries platform is based on? Scala (with Java 1.7)Play FrameworkDrop WizardRabbit MQMONGO (OLD) 6. Are you able to indicate the level of budget allocated for this contract? Budget is allocated to provide for T&M contract for a duration of up to 2 years. 7. Could you please confirm the tech stack of your target architecture? JAVA 1.8SpringbootsMongo (latest)REACT/RUBYPlatform QueueDOCKER KUBERNETES 8. Hi, do you have an incumbent supplier providing any of the services described in this opportunity and if so are you satisfied with their performance to date? There is no current incumbent supplier. 9. The first essential criterion requests contactable references.We are happy to provide references for all work we have delivered for our clients.However, with only 100 words to provide relevant examples, providing references at this stage will eat into this tight word count.Is it possible for suppliers to provide references at the shortlisting stage? Just provision of the name of the contactable reference is sufficient at this stage. 10. How many Squad members are required? We are looking for the Supplier to propose the Squad size/makeup for what they think is required to deliver against the requirements, however for reference a current DVLA squad is composed of:1 Lead Software Engineer5 Software Engineers2 Testers2 BAsWith the following covering two squads:1 Solution architect currently covers two squads1 Agile Delivery Manager currently covers two squads1 Delivery Manager currently covers two squads