Supporting and cloud hosting digital services whilst teaching devops practices

Tender description

Summary of the work Supporting and cloud hosting digital services whilst teaching devops practices Expected Contract Length 2 years Latest start date Tuesday 2 April 2019 Budget Range We anticipate spending c. £35-45,000 on support and maintenance of the existing applications per annum, excluding VAT. We then expect to spend up to £200,000 in year 1 and £100,000 in year 2 in upskilling the current team. This will be subject to regular reviews (through show & tells and sprint planning) to ensure we're achieving positive results. Why the Work is Being Done Hackney Council has built a number of new, innovative and successful services in house using Ruby, Ruby on Rails and .NET. To support and continually improve these new cloud based services we need help to upskill our existing teams to: - Reduce the complexity of deployment. - Provide monitoring, support and maintenance of new applications - Implement continuous improvements to the applications We plan to gradually reduce the amount of external support we need as the skills and confidence of the internal team grows. Problem to Be Solved Hackney is transitioning from an ITIL approach to change management, to an Agile / continuous improvement approach. We’re developing the skills and resources to manage this in-house, but currently require external support for our new digital services. As a work-around we have agreed individual support arrangements and we are now looking to consolidate our approach as a next step. Now our focus is on capability building as well as provision of daily support. We are looking to improve: - Continuous delivery & integration - Establishing robust development, staging and production environments - Lean management and monitoring capabilities Who Are the Users As an applications manager I need to learn how to approach continuous improvement so that I can effectively monitor support and improve services As a developer I need to learn how to build services so that they can be easily maintained and continuously developed by myself and others As a member of a delivery team I need to work with the DevOps team so that I can reduce delivery lead times As a product owner I need to know we will continuously improve my service so that my users get the best possible experience Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done We currently have a range of smaller support and maintenance contracts in place for individual services such as Repairs Hub and Pipeline. Existing Team Head of Service (project sponsor) We have an existing application support team and an in-house development team. We also have apprentices in both teams who we would want to upskill through this work. Current Phase Live Skills & Experience • Provide a multi-disciplinary team, including front-end and back-end developers, agile coach • Knowledge of Ruby on Rails and .Net • Demonstrate a track-record of user-centred design and Agile approaches to delivery • Have experience designing services for a wide range of digital skills and confidence • Demonstrate an understanding of Hackney’s emerging API layer • Share their work freely and openly with the Council and the wider community • Demonstrate a track record of successful capability building with internal teams Nice to Haves A track-record in role-modelling best practice in CI/CD practices in a complex multi-stakeholder environment Work Location Hackney Council offices in Mare Street, E8 Working Arrangments We would prefer co-location onsite for 3 days a week initially, most weeks in order to engage with the current ICT team, building broader engagement with the style of working (eg through show and tells), and capability building activity through activities such as pair programming. However we believe the level of onsite engagement needed will reduce over the period of the contract, and more remote working will be possible. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 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 • Hackney Council is a diverse organisation, reflecting the diversity of our borough. Describe how you would successfully work as a team with Hackney and other suppliers in a diverse environment. Payment Approach Time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 5% Price 35% Questions from Suppliers 1. For the question "Demonstrate an understanding of Hackney’s emerging API layer" Can you provide more information about the API layer All the information we have available is documented at: https://developer.api.hackney.gov.uk/