DVSA Commercial Vehicle Services Assurance Team

Description

Summary of the work The Commercial Vehicle Services (CVS) Project is a large-scale digital transformation. To provide technical assurance of the primary delivery, the Project requires technical roles to work as part of an Assurance Team. Please email CVSProject@dvsa.gov.uk to obtain a copy of the Requirements document. Expected Contract Length 10 - 15 months Latest start date Monday 23 August 2021 Budget Range Up to £2m over the term of the contract. DVSA makes no commitment to any level of spend under this contract (actual spend agreed in SOWs). Why the Work is Being Done The Project will digitally transform CVS for the DVSA. This will involve re-designing and re-developing the service so that it better meets user needs, for both our internal and external users. The delivery assurance team seeks to assure the quality of the CVS delivery across the technical specialisms. This will involve close collaboration, coaching and problem solving as part of the delivery team. The roles that a supplier may be asked to provide will cover: • Technical Architect • Solution Architect • Agile Business Analyst • Lead Software Engineer • Lead Test Engineer • Lead DevOps Engineer DVSA will have a requirement for different roles at different times to contribute expertise to an Assurance Team. Problem to Be Solved The roles will form part of a multi-disciplinary team that will provide assurance for the CVS Project. They will work closely with the CVS Project Primary supplier. They will work closely with the DVSA Digital Profession Leads to ensure alignment between DVSA and the CVS Project. They will work closely with the DVSA CVS Delivery Manager who will matrix manage the Assurance Team. The roles will have autonomy to assure within their technical specialism and will work as part of the Assurance Team. The team will require different specialists at different times as the team inspects and adapts in line with the primary delivery. The Assurance Team will ensure the CVS Project has a clear strategy across: -Governance, financial reporting and stakeholder engagement and risk management -Project team -Communication and collaboration -Delivery approach -Definition of non-functional requirements -Application / Service Architecture -Testing strategy -Test Environments (e.g. QA, Staging, UAT and production) -Development pipelines and path-to-live -Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD pipelines) -Version control and branching strategy -User research approach -Service Design -Design standards and reviews -Coding standards, code quality checks and reviews -Alignment to DVSA IMS policy and practice -Alignment with DVSA enterprise architecture Who Are the Users For the CVS Project external primary users include: Authorised Testing Facility (ATFs) providers, Vehicle Operators, vehicle manufacturers, vehicle builders and customers who require specialist vehicle tests, such as Dangerous Goods or Individual Vehicle Approval. Secondary users include, DfT, DVLA, DVA, TfL, Vehicle repairers, Road haulage and Passenger Vehicle Trade Associations. User requirements for CVS, include. • Making payments for test periods and other services • Applying for, paying, and booking specialist tests • Access to data, for legal, business management, road safety or environmental reasons, such as the availability of annual test and vehicle emission data for enforcement purposes Our internal customer base includes, frontline vehicle testing staff and back-office vehicle testing supporting teams. Early Market Engagement Please email CVSProject@dvsa.gov.uk for a copy of the video presentation recording used during the Delivery Partner market engagement. This should be viewed in conjunction with the Requirements document which is available on request via email CVSProject@dvsa.gov.uk Work Already Done Beta work has been carried out on the CVS solution. An iOS application has been completed, called Vehicle Test Application (VTA), which is used in “Live” by DVSA’s vehicle assessors. Four further digital products that will constitute CVS have been identified and some work across these products has begun. We have a target technical architecture model. We have a view of the products that will be needed to provide the CVS service, in addition to which there is integration work, data migration and MI / reporting. We want to maximise use of as much of the completed work as possible. Existing Team The Assurance Team will include DVSA staff who will contribute expertise to the team. These will initially include: • Delivery Manager • User Researcher • Performance Analyst • Service Design DVSA profession leads covering Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, Solutions Architecture and Service Design will provide oversight to standards, assurance and share expertise as required. Current Phase Beta Skills & Experience • Detail your experience, within the last 3 years of successfully delivering complex large-scale digital transformation projects. • Can provide individuals across all roles with expertise in Agile frameworks, including Scrum, developed by working with these frameworks in real-world situations. • Can provide individuals across all roles experienced with coaching and leading within their specialism. • Can provide individuals across all roles that have experience of assurance gained on complex digital projects. • Can provide Lead DevOps Engineer with extensive and practical experience working with DevOps toolsets including Jenkins, Terraform, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines. • Can provide Lead DevOps Engineer experienced with designing and implementing automated development pipelines using tools such as GitHub, Maven, Nexus, Jenkins, JIRA and Confluence and automated testing frameworks. • Can provide Lead DevOps Engineer with experience of designing and developing AWS/Azure solutions: Amazon SQS, Amazon S3, Amazon SNS, SES, RDS, DynamoDB, Dynamo Stream, AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Dynamics. • Lead Software Developer experience with programming languages and frameworks including: JavaScript (Angular, Typescript, Node.js), .NET Core, C#, working awareness of Java , HTML/CSS/SASS • Lead Software Engineer experience with automated development pipelines using tools such as GitHub, Maven, Nexus, Jenkins, automated testing frameworks, code quality tools (e.g. SonarQube). • Lead Software Engineer experience with AWS platform technologies: Amazon SQS, Amazon S3, Amazon SNS, SES, RDS, DynamoDB, Dynamo Stream, AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway. • Lead Test Engineer experience with modern software test strategies and with automated test tools including: Java, Selenium, Cucumber, Maven, BrowserStack, automated performance and security testing tools and Continuous Integration. • Lead Test Engineer experience with creating and implementing test plans suitable for short iterations where a shippable increment of code is produced. • Lead Test Engineer experience with metrics and measures that support understanding of code quality. Experienced with leading and coaching teams toward transparency and visibility. • Agile Business Analyst experience of facilitation skills and techniques used to build shared understanding of desired outcomes across technical and non-technical colleagues. • Agile Business Analyst experience in last 3 years of working with User Stories and detailed understanding of this practice. Understand how this is different to requirements gathering. • Architect experience of design assurance for code and data pipelines, API resources and microservices, and experience of assuring technical documentation produced by delivery teams. • Architect experience of understanding organisational architectural governance processes and aligning with these. Experience of championing organisation standards and patterns and of constructively challenging these as appropriate. • Please confirm you can provide CVs of individuals proposed for these roles (YES = Criteria is met; NO = Criteria is not met/no evidence provided)) • Please confirm you will abide by the DVSA's Travel & Subsistence Policy when making applicable arrangements (YES = Criteria is met; NO = Criteria is not met/no evidence provided) Nice to Haves • People with experience of Microsoft Dynamics integrations. • People that have worked together previously and have a track record of successful delivery. • People that have experience of working in multi-vendor environments and that focus on collaboration and partnership. Work Location The project will be based in DVSA/Government offices in Nottingham. Initially this will be the Axis Building, 112 Upper Parliament Street, Nottingham, NG1 6LP. Travel to other locations may be required. Working Arrangments The Supplier is required to support the DVSA during normal opening hours (Monday to Friday 07:00 to 19:00), whilst covering deployment activities outside normal working hours. The Nottingham office will be a focal point for the CVS Project and DVSA would expect supplier staff to spend part of their time at the Nottingham location as required, including for, workshops, meetings, collaboration, and team building. Security Clearance All individuals must have Baseline Personal Security Standard (BPSS). Security clearances will be at the supplier’s cost and time. Additional T&Cs DVSA want to work with a single supplier, experienced in large-scale digital transformation, with the in-house capabilities and skill-sets to provide these roles. DVSA want separate suppliers for Delivery and Assurance provision. Suppliers who choose to tender for both competitions should make their preference clear. In the event of a supplier being successful in both, they will be asked to confirm their choice. Travel and accommodation to the work location (Nottingham) will be at the supplier’s expense. Travel, accommodation, and expenses to other sites must be pre-agreed between the parties and be in line with DVSA’s Travel and Subsistence Policy. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Can alter the balance of the team at short notice, ensuring scalability and flexibility. Has depth to switch roles out as required and the timescales for this. • Can provide CVs of people proposed to fill the roles and explain why these people are a good fit. • Based on the Requirements Document how would you propose these roles work within the Assurance Team to meet the DVSA team goals? • The balance of roles on the team may change throughout the contract term. How will you factor this in, ensuring the right skills are on the team throughout? • Proposal should address approach for making assurance a joined-up part of the CVS project as opposed to a stage-gate. What behaviours and values will help achieve this? • Social Value: Please respond in writing to demonstrate your planned action to support health and wellbeing, including physical and mental health, in your workforce for this contract. Cultural Fit Criteria • How would the supplier achieve collaborative ways of working as part of a wider project team, including other suppliers. How does this create a partnership and shared accountability for delivery? • How will the supplier ensure openness and transparency within the team, with the DVSA and with any other delivery partners? • Capability to coach and lead as part of a delivery team, sharing expertise and experience. • Agile values and principles are referenced as a clear part of the supplier culture. Payment Approach Time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Are you looking for the Supplier to reply the questions with a specific resource and her/his experience with the tech stack ? Yes, that would be ideal. We are asking for specific CVs of people proposed for the roles and expect that these people have the experience detailed per role. 2. What are number of envisaged resources? And how many do you need from day 1? We expect that the team will need to adapt throughout the Project, balancing roles as required. From day 1 this is likely to be 4 roles. 3. Do you need a static base team or on and off resources? It is highly likely that there will always be some of these roles in the team. The specific balance of roles is likely to adapt during the Project. 4. In the Nice to have Qs on experience of Dynamics integration, could you please share which areas/ products of MS Dynamics competency are being implemented? Specific Dynamics products we’re working with are: BC, CE and UST. We will also be using PowerApps. 5. For the last two Essentials Qs : Please confirm you can provide CVs of individuals proposed for these roles. and Please confirm you will abide by the DVSA’s Travel & Subsistence Policy when making applicable arrangements. Is it fair to understand that suppliers will score 3/3 if they write only YES and there is no need to write a 100 word response, elaborating? A YES answer will score 2 (satisfactory/good evidence) for these essential criteria. 2 will be the maximum score for this criterion. 6. Have any existing suppliers been providing any assurance of the work outlined in “Any work that’s already been done” to date? The project has been working with BJSS in assurance provision during the Beta phase. 7. Is there an incumbent supplier that currently provides this service? The project has been working with BJSS in assurance provision during the Beta phase. The approach to Delivery Assurance will be different and will be DVSA-led for this phase of the Project. 8. Could you please share a resourcing plan for the tenure of the engagement? This is to help us understand how many resources of what type and skill levels are required at what times? There is no defined plan that covers the whole engagement. We may require all of these roles, or a subset, depending on the needs of the Project. Please refer to the ‘Budget range’ on the advert and anticipated resources. We have asked for day rates as part of Pricing. 9. Please confirm which roles you envisage the successful Delivery Assurance bidder to provide? Please refer to the Requirements document. The supplier will be responsible for providing technical expertise across several roles. These include: Technical Architect Solution Architect Agile Business Analyst Lead Software Engineer Lead Test Engineer Lead DevOps Engineer 10. Is there an incumbent. The project has been working with BJSS in assurance provision during the Beta phase. The approach to Delivery Assurance will be different and will be DVSA-led for this phase of the Project. 11. Questions 5-17 are asking about provision of a specific role. Are you looking for bidders to describe the relevant experience and availability of a specific (anonymised) individual, or are you looking for the usual DOS Stage 1-style evidence of where the supplier has provided someone in a similar role previously? We are asking for evidence that individuals can be supplied with the relevant experience and skills outlined and where this has been done in the past. We are asking for specific CVs of people proposed for the roles and expect that these people have the experience detailed per role. 12. Questions 18 and 19 confirm that a simple “YES” (with no further evidence) will score a “2- meets”. Will it be possible for suppliers to score a “3 – exceeds” on these questions by providing further detail, or is 2 the maximum score for those questions? A YES answer will score 2 (satisfactory/good evidence) for these essential criteria. 2 will be the maximum score for this criterion. 13. Are suppliers permitted to use multiple examples within each answer? Yes, multiple examples are permitted.