Ongoing Provision of Resource for Product Development and Pipeline Improvement

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done We have a large portfolio of digital work to complete over 3-5 years, including strategic projects and key legislative deliveries: • ROEBO (Register of Overseas Entities Beneficial Owners) - September 2021 • LP (Limited Partnership) Reform – September 2021 • Register Reform – April 2022 These form part of a wider, organisation transformation programme that will re-imagine our services from legacy platforms, to our new technology stack, in line with our digital strategy, and changing our culture, processes and organisational design. To achieve our ambitions for change, we need to flex our capacity and increase our speed of delivery. Problem to Be Solved Our existing development capacity and speed of delivery is insufficient to deliver the volume of change required. We are looking to engage with a supplier to provide development capacity to both deliver product and improve the pace and quality of our delivery pipeline. The high degree of inter-relationship between our services, our requirement for common component re-use and the need for internal teams to maintain overall ownership of product, predicates a co-operative approach. During an initial engagement phase, we will assess how the supplier works with our existing teams as well as product delivery and pipeline improvement. Who Are the Users This will be a rolling engagement covering multiple pieces of work, however, in order to assess the efficacy of the approach, we propose a trial phase that will encompass development of an ‘Appeals’ service: As a user who has received a late filing penalty (LFP) for failing to file my accounts by the due date, I need to be able to appeal against this penalty, supplying Companies House with all relevant, mitigating information, including supporting documentation, in one digital journey, so that they can assess my case. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done We have completed Discovery and Alpha phases and have approval to proceed to Private Beta development. In addition, we have already developed and released to Private Beta, a similar service that allows customers to ask for an “Extension” to the date by which their accounts are due to be filed, with structured journeys designed to elicit the relevant information and the facility to upload supporting documentation. It is anticipated that the supplier will be able to re-use components from this service and develop their own components that can then be used in further iterations of the Extensions service. Existing Team Companies House operates twelve scrum teams: eight in-house, four from an existing partner. Teams work in two-week sprints and consist of: • Scrum Master • 2 Developers • 2 Senior Developers • Tester • Senior Tester • Systems Analyst The supplier will partner with an in-house team and Companies House will supply user research and activities to support our Product Owner, who will prioritise the work. The teams may operate a shared backlog, but the supplier will be responsible for agreed, discrete deliveries. They will be expected to lead and role model improvements to the delivery processes for Companies House. Current Phase Beta Work Location Crown Way, Cardiff, Wales CF14 3UZ Working Arrangments Supplier teams are expected to operate on-site at our Cardiff office, in partnership with in-house teams and subject to the same governance, standards and processes. These will evolve as our delivery pipeline improves, with the supplier expected to help drive that improvement. Development is cloud based (AWS). Companies House will supply client devices and access to relevant cloud services. The initial trial phase will be with one team, developing the “Appeals” service to a schedule agreed with the Head of Profession for Delivery. Future phases will entail the deployment of multiple teams to deliver similar, discrete chunks of work. Security Clearance Some of our data is classed as Official Sensitive, accessible only to certain designated bodies or individuals. Whilst the Appeals service, that forms the initial trial phase, does not fall into this category, future developments, that do involve such data, will require individuals cleared to SC (Security Check) level. Additional T&Cs Skills & Experience Demonstrable experience of rapid delivery of high quality, secure and accessible web services, meeting or exceeding Government Digital Service Standards Demonstrable experience of collaborative working with ‘in-house’ teams including coaching and mentoring, knowledge sharing, joint development and exchange of re-useable common components Demonstrable experience of improving the productivity of ‘in-house’ teams and the overall pace and quality of pipeline delivery Demonstrable experience in rapid scaling of teams to meet changing capacity requirements Demonstrable experience providing highly skilled development teams covering a variety of technologies eg: Java; NodeJS; GoLang; AWS PaaS and SaaS services; DevOps automation technologies; Mesos Marathon; Kafka; Elastic Stack; MongoDB Nice to Haves Demonstrable experience of providing specific technical consultancy, coaching or training on any of the listed technologies or similar Demonstrable experience of providing consultancy, coaching or training on process improvement eg Agile, DevOps etc. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria Approach to engagement including initial trial phase, ongoing agreement of work packages and overall relationship management Proposed resources in terms of skill set / level and day rates and the value for money they represent Evidence of successful operation of similar collaborative delivery models, preferably in the public sector Evidence of ability to improve speed and quality of delivery pipeline Details of resource capacity and how this is scaled in response to client demand Ability to provide technical and process consultancy Cultural Fit Criteria “Working as one” – collaborating and partnering with in-house teams and other suppliers to ‘create and operate trusted services, at the the speed of our users need’ “Every achievement counts” – highlighting and celebrating success to promote a high-achieving culture "Excellent standards and behaviours” – role model professional, inclusive and positive behaviours, calling people out when they fall short Be Adaptable, Bold & Curious – challenging what we do, why and how we do it, fostering an innovative culture that continually drives improvement Be transparent – building trust with all stakeholders Take responsibility for delivery of your work Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers Budget range