Intranet Discovery

Description

Summary of the work Help Essex County Council (ECC) run a discovery to understand how we can better provide staff with job-related information. Expected Contract Length 6 to 10 weeks Latest start date Monday 22 February 2021 Budget Range Up to £70,000 Why the Work is Being Done Essex County Council has a disparate intranet for employees that we don’t believe is fit for purpose. While some work has been done to update and improve the intranet, problems still exist such as: • multiple sites • problems with access to parts of the intranet • a lack of clarity around what content exists and where. This makes it hard for our users to perform the necessary tasks or receive information they may need for their employment. We would like to explore what employees need, and how providing them with the right actionable content in the right place will help us run a more efficient organisation. Content is signposted to employees via: • GovDelivery (email marketing platform) • email • text • Yammer • Teams • Sway This also varies considerably depending on which function you work in. We’d like to understand user needs around corporate and functional communications and whether or not we are meeting these needs. This discovery will focus solely on user needs. We are running a technical discovery around our platforms at ECC. The two discoveries will inform each other but remain separate. Problem to Be Solved We believe that how we provide job-related information to employees at ECC is inefficient, frustrating and confusing. This is because the way that we produce, present, share and host information isn’t what they need. How can we better provide people with the information they need to work at ECC in a way that suits them? Employees find that they: • cannot find what they need • do not trust that the information is current • spend a lot of time looking for information • have to go elsewhere for the information • don't know where to go for further support and advice • struggle if they have accessibility needs. Through this discovery project we want to gain an understanding of how we can better meet user needs and encourage self-service. Who Are the Users As an ECC employee, I need to know where to go for information about my work, my role and the wider organisation so that I can get what I need quickly and in a way that suits me As a line manager, I need quick and easy access to information that will support me in this role so that I don’t have to waste time looking for it As an ECC employee, I want to be able to access job related information from any device so that I can get the information that I need in a way that suits me As a service editor, I want to be able to easily update and amend content so that we can be sure that we have the most current information for our employees As an ECC employee, I need to be able to access job related information wherever I am working so that I can get the support and information I need when I need it As an ECC employee working in a partner organisation, I need to be able to access the links that are sent in internal communications so that I can keep up to date with important information Existing Team Product manager, ECC Service Transformation User researcher, ECC Service Transformation Content designer, ECC Service Transformation Senior Internal Comms Adviser, Comms and Marketing Senior Content Advisor, Comms and Marketing Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Take a user-centered and agile approach • Recent experience in conducting a Discovery phase and applying the principles of user centred design to the development of digital solutions • Provide multidisciplinary skills, which should include user research, service/ content/visual design • Knowledge and expertise in inclusive design, including accessibility • A track-record of taking decisions guided by user research, measurable metrics and good user centred design practice • Experience of building and maintaining positive long-term relationships with internal stakeholders and the project team • Experience of working in line with the Government service standard Nice to Haves • Provide evidence of having passed a government, local government or NHS digital service assessment • Experience in delivering a solution to provide staff with job related information based on user research and user-centred design Work Location Remotely Working Arrangments In the current circumstances, we anticipate the team will work remotely and communicate via Microsoft Teams. Essex County Council use other collaboration tools such as Miro. All project ceremonies such as stand-ups, sprint planning and show and tells will be held by video conferencing on Microsoft Teams. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • how to approach research and design that enables clarity around meeting user needs within the Government Service Standard • the proposed approach to conducting the discovery phase • balancing user needs within the constraints of platform and capability • the skills your team will bring • how to create a compelling case for change after discovery • how to create understanding and alignment with senior leaders and stakeholders Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as one team with our project team • Be transparent and collaborative • Share knowledge and experience with ECC team members • Be comfortable in advocating for agile practices, user centred and inclusive design Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 20% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold? There will be people from the user research, content design and comms and marketing teams. 2. Can you please advise the timelines of this procurement (e.g. shortlisted companies notified, anticipated contract award)? Also, can you confirm if shortlisted suppliers will have the opportunity to present? We are aiming to notify shortlisted companies in the first week of February and awarding the contract in mid to late February. Shortlisted suppliers will have the opportunity to present. 3. Can you please clarify the nature of this discovery project? Is it purely User Needs identification or will it include any elements of solution formation / feature development (i.e. ‘Narrowing’ in the double diamond approach). The primary purpose of this discovery is to focus on user needs. We want to gain clarity and a deep understanding of user needs. We also want a clear plan for what we should do next. But, if it feels like a small amount of solution exploration is feasible and beneficial, we would be open to hearing your thoughts. 4. Is there any way to receive alerts or otherwise stay up to date with this discovery project as it progresses? Will the outcomes of discovery be shared? Yes, we will be working in the open, so expect to be sharing updates from the project team. This will most likely be through our Service Transformation blog. 5. You mention you are running two discovery engagements, Can you confirm what the other discovery engagement is covering? we are running a tech discovery into platforms at ECC. We want to explore how might we move away from our current inflexible systems to a modern technology stack and infrastructure that will enable us to:- Create digital solutions and services quickly, and iterate them easily and continuously so that we can meet our users’ needs in a scalable way- Simplify and consolidate our tech architecture and benefit from supplier competition in the open-source space- Continuously comply with evolving accessibility standard 6. Do you have a technology preference for your intranet solution and will custom modern SharePoint solutions be considered? Our aim is to develop an intranet that meets the needs of ECC staff. We are tech agnostic and open to exploring different solutions that meet the needs that come out of this discovery 7. Is there an incumbent SharePoint / Office 365 supplier at Essex County Council? Essex County Council procure their Microsoft Licensing from Phoenix Software Limited 8. Do you have Office 365 licences with SharePoint Online access? If so, what plans are they on? If not, have you a budget to procure them? Essex County Council are subscribed to M365 E5 and A5 licenses dependent on job roles within the Council 9. Are you open to using an intranet in a box solution such as our Mercury product https://www.mercuryintranet.com to jump start your intranet? We won't be exploring solutions until we understand user needs 10. Do you work with an incumbent digital agency? No 11. Roughly how many team members do you have in each department? What proportion of this would be made available? There are between three and 11 members in the disciplines that make up the Service Transformation Team. The team provided for this work will include a user researcher, content designer and product manager. 12. Can you specify how many departments are you looking to cover in this piece of work? There are eight functions across ECC. We will be looking to engage with people across all functions as well as partner organisations that use our intranet 13. Which platform is in use for your current intranet? Our intranet is on Sharepoint. Other internal sites that provide employees with information are on Wordpress, Umbraco and Github 14. Are there any 3rd party systems that need integrating with? Potentially, yes. The purpose of the technical discovery work that is happening alongside this piece of work will scope that out 15. Do you have a brand and a design that you need to implement in your intranet? How important is it that it is represented pixel perfect? We have some rebranding work going on at the moment that will be applied to the future solution. It will be important that any future solution applies that branding appropriately 16. Can you give an indication of the kind of job-related information and content required for the service? It covers content from HR topics (pay, sickness, holiday), support information (eg IT issues), information about ECC and team information (management, recruitment, onboarding). 17. Please could you give us some examples of ECC employees working in a partner organisation? MITIE provide facilities management for ECC. Partners such as this will be directed to information that is held on the intranet 18. The requirements don’t specifically mention intranets. How will your scoring of bids factor in the importance of specific intranet experience rather than general UX discovery skills? Correct, more importance is being given to discovery skills that will help us to uncover what users need to do their job at ECC. We don't believe that suppliers need to have specific experience of intranets to propose and run a strong discovery piece 19. Are you looking to conduct discovery work with senior stakeholders to understand their needs / objectives as part of this work as well? Yes, stakeholder engagement will be critical 20. Can we assume that all research participants (including those working in a partner organisation) will be familiar with MS Teams and have video as well as audio? Yes, that is a fair assumption 21. What’s the size of the user base (how many employees)? There are over 8000 employees at ECC 22. Roughly how many sites / pages make up the current intranet estate? There are roughly 8-10 sites that make up the current intranet 23. Who’s in the incumbent and how long they have been the incumbent? There is no incumbent for this work 24. Who’s on the panel? There will be people from the user research, content design and comms and marketing teams. 25. As an ECC employee working in a partner organisation, I need to be able to access the links that are sent in internal communications so that I can keep up to date with important information- was part of the brief. Do you also want EXTERNAL partners to be able to access this platform? Yes 26. Technology- what licenses do users have? You said “access from any device” – are there security limitations that limit access? Are you using W10? Technology- what licenses do users have? You said “access from any device” – are there security limitations that limit access? Are you using W10?