SPS2453A - ICT Product Partner

Description

Summary of the work Support and accelerate Greenwich’s digital strategy. -Lead targeted/accelerated discoveries for transformation opportunities across different services. -Lead the beginning of alpha software development for opportunities that are prioritised post-discovery. -Provide handover, either at end of the discovery phase or during the alpha-development phase, as appropriate. -Upskill and Coach -Embed Standards Expected Contract Length 1 year with the option to extend for a further 1 year Latest start date Friday 13 August 2021 Budget Range Up to £1.5m Why the Work is Being Done Please email andrew.clark@royalgreenwich.gov.uk for further information/ Royal Borough of Greenwich has a new and ambitious digital strategy that identifies 6 key workstreams and major areas of opportunity. Of these, our initial priorities are: children’s services, street services, Council Tax, and Housing transformation • The lead department, Digital and Customer Services, is undergoing a significant restructure and building an entirely new team with in-house development capability. While that team will be able to realise our strategy independently in the future, we won’t have the full team for some time, and they won’t be well-practiced in working together, so we are seeking a partner to help cement the new team and get us started on delivery. • We need support and skilled resource to help us deliver prioritised opportunities while embedding our new Product, Delivery and Technology teams in the department. • We need support to embed strong standards for software engineering and agile ways of working from the outset so the new teams can be operationally effective. • 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 We have some clear internal and external delivery priorities for the year, but we don’t yet have the team in place to deliver on these.While we’re working hard to recruit and embed an entirely new team,we don't yet have the people or the culture to manage our needs.We need a partner who can:1.help us deliver against our strategy quickly, by undertaking discovery exercises in 3-4 key areas of interest with us.This will be in partnership with incoming members of staff, who will gradually replace partner staff as appropriate so that partner staff can move onto shaping the next priority. 2.Depending on what we find in discovery, begin software development in alpha on the priorities we choose from these discoveries.3.Upskill some of our staff, supporting us to evolve to more agile ways of working.4.Begin to help us shape standards and practice for our new disciplines, including product, design and engineering. 5.Help us to support anything we build until the new team is operationally effective. 6.Undertake structured handovers of code, components and learnings to our team at the end of the engagement, meaning we can safely ‘fly solo’. 7.Help us use agile ways of working, and start to develop our agile culture. Who Are the Users The users are residents and staff of Royal Greenwich Council Early Market Engagement None Work Already Done You can read our new strategy here: https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/blog/digital/post/103/we%E2%80%99ve-published-our-first-digital-strategy-at-the-royal-borough-of-greenwich Existing Team We are currently recruiting product and delivery people as well as engineers. By the time this work begins we will have some members of staff who will be working with our new partner on our priorities, but they will only have recently met and started to work together. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • A skilled multidisciplinary team with experience of working in agile ways, preferably with staff who have knowledge of the public sector. Must include design, engineering, product, delivery and research. • For engineers: knowledge of front-end frameworks such as React as well as HTML5, CSS etc, GDS patterns and design system, and Java for back/full stack engineers • For designers: knowledge of GDS patterns and design system • A small amount of technical architecture consultancy is expected to be needed, but not full time • 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 • Understand how to meet the needs of a diverse range of users, and a demonstrable commitment to accessibility • Demonstrate a track record of successful capability building with internal teams • Have delivered a service that’s been assessed against a government service standard Nice to Haves 1 Agile coaching (we would expect an amount of this from any delivery managers) Work Location Likely to be initially from home due to Covid restrictions, but moving over the summer and beyond to up to 3 days per week at The Woolwich Centre, 35 Wellington Street, London SE18 6HQ. Working Arrangments We would eventually prefer co-location onsite for 3 days a week (as soon as Covid-19 allows), most weeks in order to engage with the current team, building broader engagement with the style of working (eg through show and tells), and capability building activity through activities such as pair programming/design review. However we also know that remote working is both possible and will also be necessary over the next few months. Security Clearance • BPSS – we will ask for evidence of this from incoming partner staff Additional T&Cs None No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Ability to meet the team size and skill criteria set out • Understanding our needs across delivery, upskilling and support/handover - Clarity of approach • Experience from a similar engagement 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 other team members • - Take responsibility for their work • - Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes • - Ability to put forward a representative team for the diversity of our council and borough Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Is this work related to SPS2454 – ICT Technology Partner, and is it possible for a company to bid for both, or does winning one exclude the company from competing for the other? SPS2453 and SPS2454 are 2 x Separate requirements/Contracts and there will be no exclusions against bidding for both opportunities. 2. Additional Information (Part 1) We expect the following outputs from the period of engagement:1. For each discovery, a report including:• user research results• stakeholder mapping• risk / reward assessment• assessment of other boroughs’ work• recommendations for next steps• recommended tech• assessment of main user needs• peripheral/overlapping opportunities• visual designs of potential interfaces• process maps• key metrics and data. 3. Additional Information (Part 2) We expect the following outputs from the period of engagement:2. For any software development undertaken:• code which is engineered to agreed cross-government standards• sprint-based development using agile methodology• publication of any code• fully accessible (or on the path to this) front-end interfaces 4. Additional Information (Part 3 and Final) We expect the following outputs from the period of engagement:3. For any upskilling or handover to our teams, either at end of discovery or during alpha phase:• agile coaching ‘on the job’ as necessary• pairing in specific skills e.g. software engineering, research and design• full documentation of anything build, designed or recommended• a series of handover meetings• some dual running of partner skills and our skills 5. Is there an existing incumbent or a supplier who has been helping to develop products on the website? There is no incumbent supplier 6. Can you say more about how you have determined that “the off-payroll rules will apply to any workers engaged through a qualifying intermediary, such as their own limited company”? RBG will consider companies who use external people (eg an associate model) to be outside of IR35 and welcome applications from such organisations provided they have the appropriate contracts in place with associate and subcontracted organisations 7. Regarding your question: Have experience designing services for a wide range of digital skills and confidence. Can you please confirm if you are referring to users of systems, or if the question is about upskilling internal stakeholders RBG means users of systems and services (whether they’re staff or external users). 8. Can you please confirm the difference implied between ‘a wide range of digital skills and confidence’ and accessibility (Part 1) Designing/building for a wide range of digital skills/confidence in this context means activities such as wide-ranging user research making sure that we design in an inclusive way acknowledging different methods/channels of service access for different people. 9. Can you please confirm the difference implied between ‘a wide range of digital skills and confidence’ and accessibility (Part 2) When we say accessibility, we mean the specific actions which we will take to make sure that our services promote equity - meaning that we will take measures to make sure (for example) that disabled, neurodiverse or non-native English speakers can use the service. This goes far wider for us than the first statement, and would lead to compliance with good practice (like the GDS design system and service standard) as a minimum, with the intent of exceeding these so that anyone who can use the service online, can do. 10. Evaluation Criteria (Part 1) Technical Competence: Total 50 % Broken down as below:Ability to meet the team size and skill criteria set out - 20%Understanding our needs across delivery, upskilling and support/handover - Clarity of approach 20%Experience from a similar engagement 10% 11. Evaluation Criteria (Part 2) Cultural Fit: Total 20% Broken Down as below:Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers 4%Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions 4%Share knowledge and experience with other team members 4%Take responsibility for their work 3%Have a no-blame culture and encourage people to learn from their mistakes 3%Ability to put forward a representative team for the diversity of our council and borough 2% 12. Evaluation Criteria (Part 3) Price 30%Price will be evaluated based on the blended rate card provided by bidders using the formula:Lowest Price/bid price x price weighting % 13. Evaluation (Part 4) Scoring Rationale: 0-5:0 = No response1 = Weak Response (Serious Reservations)2= Poor response (Minor reservations)3 = Acceptable Response (Meets Expectations)4 = Good Response (Above Expectations)5 - Excellent Response (Outstanding with added value) 14. Re. the Stage 2 proposal criteria, please could you confirm what is meant by “a representative team for the diversity of our council and borough”, and are you able to provide any more details on how you intend to score this answer? a. We live in a diverse borough, and we are actively working to avoid all white- and male-dominated teams. We expect the team working with us to be balanced in terms of sex and not 100% white in make up. We will score based on at least one case study of teams you’ve previously placed in similar clients. We understand you won’t know the exact team make up in advance, but we reserve the right to request different team members if you are successful and propose an all-white or all-male team. 15. Question 4, “A small amount of technical architecture consultancy is expected to be needed, but not full time”, sounds more like a statement than a skill to evidence. How can bidders score a “3-exceeds” on this – are you looking for examples of where bidders have previously provided part-time roles? - Evidence of previous technical architecture consultancy, including outputs, is enough for this – no evidence of doing this part-time is needed. 16. The Stage 2 proposal criteria mention a “team size”. At this stage, are you able to share the size of team you are likely to require? It’s impossible to know exact numbers in advance, and we expect team size to fluctuate over time. We will compare rate cards to judge comparable pricing, rather than suppliers’ estimates of team size, which would be unfair. We estimate having between 4 and 12 people with us at any time, depending on whether we’re running 1 or more teams in parallel 17. You mention in the advert that you will be hiring new people to work with this team. Does that mean the supplier will not be owning the delivery of the overall outcome but will be using your staff in their team? Yes to the question of blended teams – we want to get the value of working closely with you, and we don’t want to pseudo-outsource this work. We will jointly own the outcome with you – we're not interested in a blame culture, we want to succeed and fail together. 18. our advert gives Sunday 1st August as the latest start-date. Can we assume that you would therefore want bidders to start work w/c 26th July? Please could you share your timeline for the evaluation of all Stage 1 bids and the likely date and timeline for the Stage 2 proposal, as this start date does not seem to allow you much time for evaluation. Yes, we’ll share timelines – we have shifted slightly so that we now expect work to begin in the second half of August 19. Are suppliers permitted to use more than one client example in each answer? Yes 20. Is Data Engineering and Data Science also part of the scope, if so what is the ratio of work it will involve? No 21. Is there a preferred Agile Framework RBG would like to adapt? No, we treat agile as a mindset – the approach should depend on the problem to be solved and the people involved. Please don’t try to pitch ‘scrum masters’ or similar. 22. Is the authority seeking to replatform the site onto a new CMS? Yes we are, and we are actively looking at options for this. 23. Please could you clarify if there have been any changes to this tender since it was withdrawn and republished? To confirm, no changes were made to the requirements for this Procurement. 24. Is the authority seeking to re-platform the site onto a new CMS? Yes we are, and we are actively looking at options for this. 25. Could you please share the Technology stack? this is too complex to answer as a single question, as we have hundreds of systems across the council. However, for product development we are currently working across a range of Jadu CMS and Digital Place (Placecube), and are also considering Local Government Drupal 26. Who is the incumbent? There is no incumbent as such. We have a range of partners, but this procurement exercise does not aim to replace any of them. 27. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? Assistant Director for Digital and Customer Services (Kit Collingwood); Head of Product (Lingjing Yin), Head of Delivery (Philippa Newis), Transformation Manager (Jamie Grant), 28. Published Timetable Requirements issued to CCS - 6th July 2021Final date for receipt of bidder’s questions - 19th July 2021Final date for receipt of bids - 20th July 2021First reading of bids - 21st July 2021Completion of evaluation of bids - 30th July 2021Bidder Demo/Presentations - W/B 2nd August 2021Contract Award - Early-Mid August 2021Proposed Contract Start Date - Mid-Late August 2021