Agile Digital Development and Lifecycle Management

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done The Funding Directorate within the Education Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is transforming the way it interacts digitally with stakeholders both internally and externally. We are looking for an agile partner to help our Service Delivery team Manage Your Education & Skills Funding (MYESF) complete their digital transformation. MYESF is an external facing digital platform providing transactional capabilities and funding information for organisations delivering public education and training which receive £64bn funding managed by the ESFA. In addition we are looking for a digital partner to continue the work to develop the Erasmus Domestic Alternative service. Currently Erasmus+ is the EU programme which funds education, training, youth and sport exchanges in Europe. The question of the UK's participation in the next Erasmus+ programme from 2021 forms part of the negotiations between the UK and the EU. In readiness for a future where we may not participate in Erasmus+ and to avoid a gap in provision of international mobilities from 2021 we are developing our own Erasmus Domestic Alternative service. Problem to Be Solved Both services, MYESF & Erasmus Domestic Alternative need to be enhanced and developed to meet the evolving business and policy needs and interface with other ESFA systems. This may require the spectrum of GDS agile roles. We are looking for a pertner to transition knowledge, skills and experience to help build this . Types of roles and skills required are detailed in the GDS Service Manual (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digital-data-and-technology-profession-capability-framework) Who Are the Users As a school, academy, local authority, college, training organisation or employer provider I need to know what and when I will be paid and carry out any contract related transactions required to receive ESFA funding, so that my organisation receives the correct funding in a timely manner. Early Market Engagement Work Already Done Manage Your Education and Skills Funding is a live digital service that has completed and passed alpha, beta and live Government Digital Service assessments. The service enables users to sign funding contracts online, return contract related information and see how much funding they will and have received. It runs a business-as-usual team to iterate, improve and support the live service and a project team to transform legacy applications and processes into new features for the service. The Erasmus Domestice Alternative service is not yet a live service. It is still in the development stage. Existing Team The existing teams are comprised of multi-disciplinary agile delivery skills. These teams are involved in continual product improvement as well as providing brand new digital services. Typical team size is up to 12 with a skills mix such as service/product/delivery managers, business analysts, developers, testing, architecture, user research and design professionals. These teams can have a mix of permanent staff and managed resources. The new supplier will be expected to provide resources across all or any of these roles according to the business need for the initiative. Current Phase Not applicable Work Location Primary location will be Cheylesmore House, Coventry. Any travel to other sites to be approved and will follow the DfE's travel and subsistence policy. Working Arrangments This will be a 5 day per week commitment and detailed working arrangements, including team location, size and make-up, will be contained within each statement of work. Day to day delivery will be governed by standard agile delivery techniques. These could be either a Kanban or a scrum approach (depending on the work) but the standard agile ceremonies appropriate to those will be undertaken. Security Clearance Personnel from the Service provider need to have both BPSS and an enhanced DBS check. Additional T&Cs Expenses must be pre-agreed and comply with DfE Travel and Subsistence Policy. Any expenses shall be submitted in line with DfE standard T&S policy. Primary work location stated in SoW will not attract expenses. No parking is available on site. Skills & Experience Experience of successful agile product management, using knowledge of user needs and business goals to set priorities for delivery teams Experience of successful agile development, software patterns, continuous integration and Test Driven Development Experience of successfully delivering frontend and backend development, and Implementing APIs for internal and external use Experience in successfully building SaaS and PaaS services in Microsoft Azure Experience in successfully building scalable server-less cloud-based web applications using Microsoft Azure stack Detailed knowledge and experience of C#, .NET, ASP.NET MVC, REST API, Cosmos DB optimisation Detailed understanding of front-end web development (HTML/CSS/JS/SignalR) Provide evidence of building funding and systems and/or services within the last 2 years Proven experience of successfully supporting customers to build in-house capabilities and ensure effective knowledge management and transfer Nice to Haves Experience in working with identity and access security in Microsoft Azure PaaS environment Experience in building services to meet the UK government Digital Service Standard Evidence of successfully delivering Minimum Viable Product solutions within compressed timelines No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria Technical competence in the identified technologies and agile practices Experience and methodology in approach to agile project using both Kanban and scrum Demonstrable experience of successfully working alongside clients in co-located, integrated teams Demonstrate understanding/ability to successfully deliver digital products/services to government Digital Service standards Demonstrate approach to knowledge and skills transfer to enable the transition of service delivery to the business ability to promptly mobilise expertise to scale up team and flex resource when needed and to respond to fluctuating requirements Ability to demonstrate good value for money for the UK tax payer Demonstrate understanding of the challenges of agile service delivery in a multi stakeholder environment Demonstrate ability to build effective funding and systems and/or services Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team – Collaborate, establish good working relationships, generate team spirit Innovate – Act on initiative, drive improvements, balance risks Build capability – Encourage learning, share knowledge, address capability gaps, act on feedback Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 30% Cultural fit 10% Price 60% Questions from Suppliers No questions have been answered yet Budget range up to a maximum value of £8.4m