Request for Proposal (RFP)
DS01-087
APPENDIX A – REQUIREMENTS
This document forms Appendix A to the Request for Proposal (RFP) for Digital Services Framework
Agreement – RM1043, along with Pricing Matrix (Appendix B) and an Award Questionnaire (Appendix C).
CONTENTS
PROJECT START DATE AND TIMEFRAME
CURRENT SITUATION/ BACKGROUND INFORMATION
REQUIRED OUTCOMES
USER NEEDS
CAPABILITIES AND ROLES
PRICING MODEL
CUSTOMER LOCATIONS
TEST & DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS
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Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
PROJECT START DATE AND TIMEFRAME
Key delivery dates
PROJECT PHASES
START DATE
COMPLETION DATE
Beta
03-11-2014
31-12-2014
Live
1-1-2015
31-10-2015
CURRENT SITUATION / BACKGROUND INFORMATION
1.
Skills Funding Agency Overview
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA - the Agency) is a partner organisation of the Department for Business,
Innovation and Skills (BIS) and directs and oversees the use of public funding to further education colleges
and training organisations. This investment enables it to deliver the Government's aspirations for a skilled
nation through implementing the policies set out in Investing in Skills for Sustainable Growth, (BIS, November
2010) and in New Challenges, New Chances (BIS, 2011). The Agency invests circa £3.6 billion of public
funding annually to support over three million learners.
The Education Funding Agency (EFA) is the Department for Educations (DfE) delivery agency for funding and
compliance. The EFA provides revenue and capital funding for education for learners to the value of £52
billion p.a. The EFA currently use the funding and contracting service of the Agency to support their services.
2.
Funding and Contracting Services
Funding and Contracting Services are essential core functions of the Agency. They ensure the Further
Education system can fulfil its role in meeting the skills needs of the economy by managing the allocation of
£3.6bn per year for over 3 million learners through agreements and contracts with over:
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350 General Further Education (FE) Colleges, Sixth Form Colleges and Specialist Designated
institutions.
1000 private training providers.
200 public training providers (e.g. Local Authorities).
35 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) offering Further Education Courses.
2,470 schools, including Maintained, Academies and Special.
The Agency issues contracts with providers and employers. Contracts vary in detail, but there are two general
types:
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‘Pay on Profile’ where standardised payments are regularly made, with annual reconciliation
undertaken to review delivery
‘Payment by Results’ where payments are made based on actual delivery information that is returned
to the Agency on a regular basis, generally monthly. These contracts enable regular performance
management to be undertaken, with contracts being varied as required.
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Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
The Agency manages the relationship and financial interactions with the European Social Fund (ESF). This
fund supports the provision of learning that meets agreed qualifying criteria. The Agency submits claims to
ESF when eligible training has been delivered. The Agency has a responsibility to ensure eligible funding is
claimed according to the ESF governance rules. Key aspects of these rules are that the claims are timely, can
be evidenced through management information and audited.
3.
The Funding and Contracting Transformation Programme
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) is currently delivering significant Reform. The Funding and Contracting
Transformation (FCT) programme will transform business operations and replace CCM and Match & Claim
systems with a new system to contract, performance manage and trigger payments to providers. Specific
business service areas to be addressed by FCT include:
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Contracting with Providers for learning delivery
Claim Management for ESF
A small subset of Provider Contracts and Finance Hub that fits strategically with FCT
To achieve these strategic objectives, FCT is developing Core IT Services and delivers corresponding
business change in time to support transactions in the 2015/16 Academic Year. It replaces the services
delivered currently by CCM and M&C.
4.
Delivering FCT Transformation
FCT is being delivered according to the Government Digital by Default Standard. It is employing an Agile
Scrum method for development, test and continual release of system functionality. The programme
successfully concluded its Alpha phase in July 2014 and is now preparing to move into Beta.
Through Alpha, the FCT programme built a working prototype of FCT IT Services using Microsoft Dynamics
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) on Azure. The prototype technology was chosen from a short list
recommended by PA Consulting in the market evaluation commissioned by FCT in Discovery. Evidence from
the Alpha project shows that a core CRM capability can fulfil significant elements of FCT requirements.
FCT will now move into Beta and Live phases developing core IT services using an OpenSource accelerator
(Grants Manager Plus), based on Microsoft CRM 13, with the surrounding elements being bespoke build,
in .net. The services will be developed, tested and operated on Microsoft’s Azure platform and will be loosely
coupled to other elements of the SFA IT estate.
This procurement will secure technical development, test and integration resources for the Transformation
project to build and deploy the FCT Core IT Services. The Transformation project team has been mobilised
and is partially staffed by SFA and BAE Systems as the Agency’s Service Integrator. The resources secured
by this procurement will join scrum teams managed by the FCT Delivery Manager.
The FCT Business Change Delivery project has analysed existing funding and contracting resources,
structures and processes and refined these into streamlined user stories, epics and personae. This depth of
content informs the FCT product backlog. Prioritisation of the backlog for technical development is informed
by the Academic Year business cycle which requires transactions between SFA and Providers to occur at
specific times. The FCT programme team is constantly developing further depth in business transformation
plans and continually prioritising the backlog for development.
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Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
CAPABILITIES AND ROLES
The project delivery plan requires the resources described below from October 2014 to August 2015 inclusive.
The exact start date in November is subject to process completion and will be agreed with the winning bidder.
It is envisaged there will be a 2 week mobilisation period following contract award before the first resources
are required on site.
The project will follow agile principles.
The following table details the roles and skills required to support FCT delivery. The capacities and
capabilities shown represent the starting configuration of the team, excluding those roles already filled by SFA
staff and suppliers. It is expected that both the capabilities and the number of staff will evolve over the
lifecycle of the project. All FCT requirements fall under the category of Software Engineering and On-going
Support.
CAPABILITY
ROLE
CUSTOMER’S REQUIRED OUTCOME
6x Scrum Team Members (Engine Developer)
Experience: C# .NET, WCF, Web Services
2x Scrum Team Members (Workflow Developer)
Experience: C# .NET, WF, WCF, Web Services
4x Integration Team (FCT,CODA,DCSS Developers)
Combination of skills for .NET C#, WF, XSLT, WCF, Web
Services, REST, C# and SQL Server Developer (Engine, SSAS,
SSRS, SSIS)
2x Delivery Team (Scrum Master Developers)
Essential Duties:
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Software
Engineering
and Ongoing
Support
Developer
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Guiding the team and organization on how to use
Agile/Scrum practices and values
Guiding the team on how to get the most of out of selforganization
Assessing the Scrum Maturity of the team and organization
and coaching the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace
that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and
organization
Removing impediments or guiding the team to remove
impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the
impediment.
Building a trusting and safe environment
Facilitating getting the work done without coercion, assigning,
or dictating the work.
Facilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict
resolution
Internal and external communication, improving transparency,
and radiating information
Supporting and educating the Product Owner, especially with
respect to grooming and maintaining the product backlog.
Providing all support to the team using a servant leadership
style and leading by example
Page 4 of 8
Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
Required Skills/Experience
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First level Scrum Master certification (CSM, PSM I)
Experience playing the Scrum Master role for at least one
year for a software development team that was diligently
applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory.
Good skills and knowledge of servant leadership, facilitation,
situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual
improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparency
Knowledge of numerous well documented patterns and
techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum
approach(example: numerous Burndown techniques,
numerous Retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc)
Preferred Skills/Experience (Any of these is a plus)
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Second level Scrum Master certification (CSP, PSM II)
Experience playing the Scrum Master role for at least two
years for a software development team that was diligently
applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory.
Knowledge of other Agile approaches: XP, Kanban, Crystal,
FDD, etc
Knowledge and/or experience with widely successful Agile
techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous
Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing,
Agile Games
Applicable knowledge of the technologies used by the team
Experience applying a wide variety of well documented
patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in
the Scrum approach(example: numerous Burndown
techniques, numerous Retrospective formats, handling bugs
etc)
Previous experience as a team lead
Excellent communication and mentoring skills
Page 5 of 8
Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
CAPABILITY
ROLE
CUSTOMER’S REQUIRED OUTCOME
1x Architecture Team (Integration Architect)
Requirement: Architect responsible for all integration designs
within the FCT programme. This resource will articulate all
integration patterns and designs to be used within the programme
to a high level of detail.
Integration artefacts will include: corporate messages, schemas,
integration technology, communication patterns, solutions for
payloads, latency and performance, error handling, orchestration,
validation and transformation. Logging and audit will also be an
area that the integration architect will be fully involved in.
It will be the responsibility of this resource to ensure excellent
communications between the various teams and programme
within the SFA estate that will be impacted by FCT development
at an integration level.
Software
Engineering
and Ongoing
Support
The FCT integration architect will report to the FCT lead architect.
Technical Architect
1x Architecture Team (Data Architect)
Requirement: Architect responsible for all integration designs
within the FCT programme. This resource will articulate all
integration patterns and designs to be used within the programme
to a high level of detail.
Data artefacts will include, corporate data dictionaries data
technology, data patterns, entity relationship diagrams, data base
design. Logging and audit will also be an area that the data
architect will be fully involved in.
It will be the responsibility of this resource to ensure excellent
communications between the various teams and programme
within the SFA estate that will be impacted by FCT development
at a data level.
The FCT data architect will report to the FCT lead architect.
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Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
PRICING MODEL
Customer’s preferred pricing model or models, for SOWs that may be awarded as a consequence of this
Further Competition, are shown in the following table:
PRICING MODEL
PROJECT PHASES
Time and materials
Beta and Live
CUSTOMER LOCATIONS
Suppliers are required to work on site with SFA staff five days a week. This is a critical success factor for the
agile delivery method adopted by the FCT programme.
UK REGION
CUSTOMER LOCATIONS: CITIES OR TOWNS
The Midlands
Skills Funding Agency
Cheylesmore House
Quinton Road
Coventry
CV1 2WT
FURTHER REQUIREMENTS
General Requirements
Further to the descriptions in the table above, the general requirement for all developers is as follows:
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All developers must have 10 years of enterprise development experience as a minimum and
preferably Agile development team experience.
All developers to have TDD, BDD, ATDD with NUnit, MSTest, Resharper, StyleCop, NSpec,
SpecFlow, StoryQ or equivalent tools
Expected that developers will have Microsoft Azure, Cloud development experience
Knowledge of, usage of NCover, NDepend or other code quality tools
Expected that developers would have experience of:
o Agile, CI, CD methodologies and tools
o DDD, IoC, SOLID, DRY, YAGNI
o MSBuild
o PowerShell
o NuGet
o ORM’s – Entity Framework, NHibernate or others
o Pair Programming
All resources in this requirement are to provide laptops capable of running latest versions of Visual Studio
2013 Premium and the Build and Quality tools named above. The Chief Executive will supply development
environments and licences for all necessary tools.
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Request for Proposal
Digital Services – RM1043
*THE CUSTOMER CAN ONLY CONTRACT WITH MICROSOFT ACCREDITED PARTNERS
– PLEASE ONLY RESPOND TO THIS RFP IF YOU ARE MICROSOFT ACCREDITED*
Abbreviations used in the requirement:
ORM
CI
CD
DDD
SOLID
Object Relational Mapping
Continuous Integration
Continuous Delivery
Domain Driven Design
DRY
Don’t Repeat Yourself
YAGNI
You Aren’t Going to Need It
TDD
Test Driven Development
ATDD
Acceptance Test Driven Development
BDD
Behaviour Driven Development
WF
Windows Workflow Foundation
WCF
Windows Communication Foundation
REST
Representational State Transfer
SSAS
SQL Server Analysis Services
SSRS
SQL Server Reporting Services
SSIS
SQL Server Integration Services
XSLT
eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations
XSD
XML Schema Definition
XML
eXtensible Markup Language
Single Responsibility, Open Closed, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation,
Dependency Injection
Performance management for the FCT Development Team
The Development Team will be continuously assessed on quality using a common set of goal driven
performance metrics. The Team will work with the product owner to define clear sprint goals aimed at
achieving the product vision and meet the release goals. The Team’s output as an increment of the product
will be assessed during and at the end of each sprint by the product owner, business analyst and architecture
team.
Performance metrics will cover:
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Business value burn-up
Backlog burn down
Output quality Inc. management of failure demand
Management of technical debt
Adherence to development standards
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