Development of a MVP event notification service for use by digital services across DWP.

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done DWP wants to move towards more event driven architecture to enable near real time data sharing. This will benefit delivery teams building digital services for our citizens through quicker, easier and more intelligent re-use of data. This in turn can also contribute towards speeding up decision making for agents and reducing the number of times a citizen has to contact us. This is a four month engagement during which we are aiming to deliver an MVP with a focus on various types of change (e.g. death) with at least one publishing service and one subscribing service. Problem to Be Solved Data is currently often collected, and then held in silos. This can result in data being held inconsistently across our estate. Services in DWP have difficulties finding out about and sharing changes to citizen data. The data which exists within DWP and how to reuse it can be unclear. The only mechanism to share data is through multiple point to point integrations, or through legacy batch updates. Services often request the same data from citizens many times which results in frustration and data which is duplicated / out of date. Who Are the Users The primary users of the service are members of digital service teams. These are typically DWP and/or supplier staff deliverying digital services for citizens. High level user needs: As a member of a digital service team I want to: - Understand what data the government already has so that I can use it within our service. - Understand how to access data sets and integrate them successfully so that I can build the right solution for our service. - Understand the provenance and semantics around information so that I can ensure that the information is suitable for service use. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done Following a wider discovery piece, we worked with domain architects to define some design principles and a Conceptual Architecture that introduces an event-driven architecture and an approach for decoupling new digital services from the legacy IT estate, and also among themselves. We have done Proof of Concepts for key components within that Conceptual Architecture: - Event Notification Service; - Legacy Bridge, which allows updates to data to be shared between newer digital services and legacy estate. We have also done some initial investigation into different messaging services (e.g. SNS/SQS, Kafka, Kinesis). Existing Team We need a supplier to provide a number of specialists to supplement our existing delivery team which consists of a Product Owner, Delivery Manager, 2 Business Analysts, 2 Developers, and a Test Automation Engineer. We will form two teams working from the same backlog. Each team will be a mixture of supplier staff and DWP staff. A part of the role of the supplier will be to assist DWP in growing its own capability and we will expect a level of support for our staff with a view to contributing and sharing knowledge. Current Phase Alpha Work Location The Supplier will be expected to be primarily located with the Customer on DWP site at Benton Park View, Longbenton, Newcastle Upon Tyne. There is the potential for occasional travel to other sites. Working Arrangments Be on site 5 days (37.5 hours) per week co-locating, collaborating and working flexibly with DWP teams. We believe in the value of face-to-face communication and that teams work together best when they are are co-located. Be responsible for travel and expenses to main workplace. Any travel required in addition to/or outside of the location specified, will only be paid if agreed in advance and in line with the DWP Travel and Subsistence Policy. Security Clearance All resources must be BPSS (Baseline Personnel Security Standard) compliant or equivalent (or prepared to undergo clearance process prior to commencement of work). DWP would support an application however costs are to be met by the supplier. Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Experience (2>5years) of delivering design and development capability of event driven architecture in an Agile environment. Immediate capacity to supply experienced technical skills in Solution and Technical Architecture supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising AWS. Immediate capacity to supply experienced (2>5years) technical skills in delivering microservices in Java. Immediate capacity to supply experienced (2>5years) technical skills in delivering microservices in NodeJS. Immediate capacity to supply experienced technical skills in Dev Ops supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising Ansible and Terraform for AWS. Immediate capacity to supply experienced technical skills in delivering containerised solutions utilising Docker. Have experience (2>5years) in functional, non-functional and automated testing of microservices in a Continuous Integration pipeline. Have experience (2>5years) in automated integration testing of APIs. Nice to Haves Have experience in functional, non-functional and automated testing of event driven architecture applications in a Continuous Integration pipeline. Have experience (2>5years) in automated Security and Performance testing of microservices applications. Capacity to supply experienced technical skills in Dev Ops supported by references of deliveries they have either led or had significant involvement utilising Kubernetes. Have experience of working within DWP or a comparable organisation within the last 3 years. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria Technical solution. Approach and methodology. How the approach or solution meets user needs. How the approach or solution meets DWP policy or goals. Estimated timeframes for the work. Approach to identifying risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them. Team structure. Value for money. Cultural Fit Criteria Ability to work as a blended team with our organisation and able to take direction within a DWP team. Experience of successful collaboration working as part of a blended delivery team, building capabiltiy and sharing knowledge within the team. Evidence of a culture of continuous improvement where individuals learn from past mistakes and offer improvement opportunities. Experience of working with a partner to deliver tangible outcomes. Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Case study Work history Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers Budget range delivering an mvp is expected to take four months. the indicative budget for this phase is £400,000. estimates do not include t&s.