Managing Export Projects

Tender description

Summary of the work To strengthen our position as one of the 21st century’s great trading nations, DIT require a supplier to conduct Discovery - Beta for an Export Project Management tool. Expected Contract Length Total contract duration 26 weeks with option to extend for 6 weeks Latest start date Monday 26 November 2018 Budget Range Discovery: £56,000 - £72,000 Alpha: £168,000 - £216,000 Beta: £392,000 - £504,000 Total budget range: £616,000 - £792,000 Why the Work is Being Done The Department for International Trade (DIT) wants to carry out a discovery, alpha and beta into an Export Project Management tool. On 21 August 2018, DIT launched its new Export Strategy. It ambitiously sets out how we aim to raise our exports from 30 to 35% of our GDP, and strengthen our position as one of the 21st century’s great trading nations. Moving from 30 to 35 percent will add over £100 billion pounds worth of exports to our current performance, helping UK businesses to generate higher returns, produce more higher paying jobs and provide more money for the exchequer. Problem to Be Solved To help us to manage our progress against this target and evaluate our export activities we want to build an export project management tool. We already have a similar tool for Investment on our in-house customer relationship management system, Data Hub. We envisage reusing this functionality and other Data Hub functionality wherever possible. The tool with sit on the Data Hub platform. Who Are the Users The users of this service are internal DIT staff and some delivery partners. Our users are based in 9 English regions, devolved administrations and across 108 countries around the world (mainly in Embassies and Consulates). Existing Team A civil servant product manager from the department will lead the team and be the single point of contact for the successful supplier. Civil Servant staff may also be placed to work within the team or alongside the team and the supplier is expected to support their development by transferring knowledge and expertise to these individuals. Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Experience in the planning and delivery of a user centred agile discovery, alpha and beta phases. (2%) • Experience in the ability to identify user personas, deliver user journey mapping and deliver evidenced and prioritised user stories. (2%) • Experience of conducting user research. (1%) • Experience in working in a complex stakeholder and technical environment (integration with legacy systems/ infrastructure and open sources) (1%) • Extensive experience of development using an Agile Scrum methodology, operating in sprints and aligning their development activities to the GDS Digital Service Standard. (1%) • Credible and referenced proof of experience and excellent technical competence in JavaScript, using node.js, preferably using the Express framework, and Python Django. (1%) • Experience of development pipeline tooling, specifically Git source code repository, defect tracking systems, continuous integration tools and automated testing frameworks. (1%) • Evidence of working with Elasticsearch (1%) Nice to Haves • Experience of working with Central Govt and/or Arms Length Bodies (2%) • Experience of developing international products and services (1%) • Experience of designing services for users that may demonstrate aversion to change (1%) • Experience of developing a pipeline tool (1%) Work Location Windsor House, 50 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0TL Working Arrangments Team members provided should be collocated with the Department’s other delivery teams at Windsor House. Security Clearance All staff should have minimum BPSS level security clearance. Developers should have Security Clearance or must undergo Security Clearance. Additional T&Cs Individual statements of work may be arranged on a fixed price, T&M or capped T&M basis with agreement from the buyer and supplier. Discovery 4 weeks with option to extend 2 weeks. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Outcome Delivery: Describe your overall approach to delivering our outcome, how you will plan, build and manage the project including risks/learnings that are important for successful delivery. (15%) • Team structure: Describe your team set up (including roles) and how you would adapt the team to changing priorities during the course of beta and transition to live - (10%) • Understanding user needs: Detail how you will ensure user needs are understood and met in the development and delivery of the service (10%) • Knowledge Transfer: How will you ensure DIT staff are ready to take on operational control and support upon completion of the work. (5%) • Architecture:How will you develop (and continue to develop and iterate) the service (5%) • Delivery Plan: Provide a delivery plan to deliver within the stated time frames demonstrating how you have sufficient resources to deliver the outcome - (10%) Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstrate your ability to deliver in an open, collaborate, agile way according to the principles outlined in the Government Service Design Manual - (3%) • Demonstrate your ability to work and communicate with clients / team members with low technical expertise - (3%) • Demonstrate your ability to deliver outcomes, applying an agile methodology, in non-agile environments and successfully bridging the two worlds - (2%) • Demonstrate how you will deliver simplicity (e.g. do less but better, explaining complex issues in a clear, simple way, break down and prioritise complex issues) - (2%) Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. How many specialists will a supplier be required to put forward to work on this outcome and what specific roles are you expecting? We estimate:For discovery1 x product manager (provided by DIT)2 x user researcher1 x service designer1 x technical advisor For alpha (estimate prior to discovery)1 x product manager (provided by DIT)1 x delivery manager2 x user researcher1 x service designer1 x front end developer1 x back end developerFor beta (estimate prior to discovery)1 x product manager (provided by DIT)1 x delivery manager2 x user researcher1 x service designer2 x front end developers2 x back end developers 2. What is the tech stack of the data hub? Node.js (express framework) and Python Django 3. Hi. Is it possible to get an overview of Data Hub? This is obviously setting the bar for what is envisioned for Exports, and would greatly inform understanding the outcome you're driving for. A show and tell can be provided to the successfully shortlisted suppliers 4. Did you work with a 3rd party agency/supplier to build the Data Hub? Data Hub is built internally within DIT. We do currently have one agency team working with us on one part of the platform. 5. Will this project undergo formal GDS Discovery, Alpha, Beta assessments? No, this will not go through GDS assessments. 6. Nice to have – Experience of developing international products and services. – Please can you expand on this – what sort of products and services were you thinking of/are interested in. Products related to international trade or used by users spread across the globe. 7. Has DIT done any Use-Case analysis for the Project Management tool that they are aiming to build?a. If so, can this be provided so that we can assess the effort?b. If this is not available, we assume that this is something you would like to conduct during discovery? No we haven't. The discovery, and each of the stages, should follow the GDS guidlines outlined in the service manual - https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works 8. Can you please provide us with a synopsis of key activities that DIT would like to conduct during Discovery? E.g. Market comparison on similar technology, Use-Case Analysis, Business Case development etc. All stages should follow the GDS Service Manual - https://www.gov.uk/service-manual 9. What deliverables would you expect at the end of the Discovery phase and what are the key areas would you like factored in these deliverables? The deliverables should be as outlined in the GDS Service Manual - https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works 10. Would you like Business Change impact to be conducted through Discovery? The discovery should follow the GDS Service Manual - https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works 11. Can DIT provide access to the Data Hub Source Code for suppliers that are downselected? Yes. All our code is open source. 12. Is the Export Management Management system required to run under Node.js, or is this a preference? The export service will be build on an existing platform with other services which use Node.js. We would expect this service to be consistent in style and technical design. 13. Would you consider a blended on-site / off-site delivery model? We would expect the team to co-locate with our other teams and the DIT Product Manager although some off-site working is acceptable this should not be for the majority of the time and the team is expected to always have a presence in the office 14. Are tenderers required to submit any of the assessment methods for this opportunity prior to being shortlisted or is it only the online completion of the 'Skills and experience' section required at the first stage? For the first stage you need to respond to the essential and nice to have criteria. For the 2nd stage we may not use all assessment methods other than the mandatory written proposal, but we will inform you if shortlisted of the methods to be used.