Awarded to FIMATIX UK LTD

Start date: Monday 30 July 2018
Value: £1,000,000
Company size: SME

BPDTS Ltd is a new company that provides services exclusively to DWP.

Agile Coaching

6 Incomplete applications

4 SME, 2 large

16 Completed applications

14 SME, 2 large

• Published: Monday 11 June 2018
• Deadline for asking questions: Monday 18 June 2018 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Monday 25 June 2018 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: Agile Coaching - Adopting Agile Working Practices, discovery period, initial transformation with pilot projects with a view to rolling out across the whole organisation circa 600 staff. Teams covering Application Development, Maintenance and Support, IT Service Management and Business Users.
• Latest start date: Monday 30 July 2018
• Location: North East England
• Organisation the work is for: BPDTS Ltd is a new company that provides services exclusively to DWP.

About the work

• Why the work is being done: One of the strategic aims of BPDTS in the current business plan is Capability, to continually refresh the skills of our people so they are equipped to deliver innovative solutions and service excellence
• Problem to be solved: Increasing/building knowledge and improving capability. BPDTS are adopting Agile working practices across the whole organisation covering Software Development Teams, IT Service Desk and Business Users.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: Users are BPDTS Ltd employees at various level of skill and experience. Teams may cover design, development and test of applications currently in Cobol on VME, migrating to MF Cobol on Linux, Operations teams covering 1st & 2nd line support, leveraged support teams and management teams.
• Existing team: Teams will vary in size and experience. Current teams are responsible for Application Development, Maintenance and Support. IT Service Management and Business Users.
• Current phase: Discovery

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Benton Park View, Newcastle NE98 1YX & Peel Park, Brunel Way, Blackpool, FY4 5ES
• Working arrangements: Coaching has to be delivered onsite. When not coaching, location to be agree with business. Maximum of £1,000 per week limit on expenses which must be pre-approved and adhere to BPDTS Ltd Expenses Policy
• Security clearance: Baseline Personnel Security Standard

Additional information

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

• Essential skills and experience:
  • Experience of Transformation Programmes, coaching teams who have basic agile awareness through transition to agile working practice
  • Identifying user needs correctly and tailoring approach to ensure all members of the team are taken on the journey to agile delivery
  • Able to understand complex processes and interdependencies within a large organisation and how they impact relationships in a multi-supplier environment
  • Identifies and compares the best processes or delivery methods to use
  • Experience of using Jira in Agile Teams scaling across the organisation based on different user groups
  • Understanding of constraints and requirements when working with or interfacing with legacy systems

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • Value for money
  • Approach and methodology
  • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal
• Cultural fit criteria: Work as part of the team within our organisation; guiding the team through the implementation of new processes through discussions, facilitating workshops and collaborating with customers and other suppliers.
• Payment approach: Time and materials
• Assessment methods: Written proposal
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  65%

  Cultural fit

  15%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Could you confirm the length for this please?: As per the published advertisement BPDTS Ltd have not set an expected contract length.
• 2. What's the expected length of contract?: Please see answer to Q1
• 3. What's the budget for the work?: As per the published advertisement BPDTS Ltd have not set an expected budget for this work.
• 4. Is this coaching, training or both?: This is coaching, although this may include an element of ‘training’ as the expectation is that the coaches work alongside the teams. However, we are not bringing in people to run training courses in agile.
• 5. Since you haven't disclosed the Duration or the Budget, it is difficult to gauge the volume of work. Are you expecting to hire an individual to come and train or a team?: The aim is to complete this work by the end of March 2019. Given the numbers, circa 600, it is expected that this would require more than one agile coach but a team of coaches.
• 6. How many coaches do you envisage you will need - do you expect this to scale?: We do expect this to scale. Our assumption is there would need to be a short period of discovery for the supplier and following that a pilot with circa 40 staff, split between Peel Park (PP) Blackpool and Benton Park View (BPV) Newcastle. We expect as a minimum, we'll need 2 coaches (PP and BPV), but will be guided by the supplier's as to the number of coaches required.; Post this pilot we will review with the supplier and plan the roll out for the remainder of the staff, using the supplier's expertise to help inform the roll out plan.
• 7. There are approx. 600 staff from different teams that are recipients of this Coaching & Training. Between Peel Park (PP) Blackpool and Benton Park View (BPV) Newcastle - could you share the Number of Project teams / Service teams you have?: There are around 19 end to end project teams comprising approx. 190 resources covering development, test, maintenance and support. In addition there are around 320 staff in IT service management and leveraged teams covering configuration management, DBA, Build Support among others. Remaining resources are formed from Management and Business users and small teams covering roles such as Infrastructure Engineering and Hosting.
• 8. Given the need for multiple coaches in multiple locations, would you consider appointing more than one supplier or is the requirement for all coaches to come from the same supplier?: We re open to considering all options regarding the supply chain, based on the best value for money for BPDTS and this may result in us appointing more than one supplier.
• 9. In the essentials skills and experience there is the following requirement: "Identifying user needs correctly and tailoring approach to ensure all members of the team are taken on the journey to agile delivery". Is the second part of this requirement asking about tailoring the approach to identifying user needs, or tailoring the overall approach of building the teams skills and capability in agile delivery?: It is about tailoring the approach to delivery, based on the user needs.
• 10. We were not able to attend the Q&A session. Was there a recording or any notes that you could share?: Unfortunately no suppliers dialled into the Q&A session, so no notes were taken
• 11. Q&A session - could you hold another one perhaps?: The DOS Market Place is prescriptive about when a supplier Q&A session should be held and we have now past this period. Please ask any questions you have via the online portal.
• 12. Are you referring to the suppliers ability to correctly identify your teams needs so that we can tailor our agile coaching approach to them, or are you referring to coaching the team in how to correctly identify their end users needs?: The users referred to in this point are our BPDTS resources not the end business users. So yes, we are referring to the suppliers ability to correctly identify our teams needs so that you can tailor your agile coaching approach to them
• 13. Is "Identifies and compares the best processes or delivery methods to use" relating to the Agile delivery process (e.g. using scrum vs kanban etc) or relating to delivery methods for the coaching and up-skilling? (e.g. using CBT vs workshops vs structured training etc.). Thank you.: 'Identifies and compares the best processes or delivery methods to use' – its Agile (and all its methods) vs traditional – so we need the supplier to understand the business and identify the best method to use, whether it be all Agile or 10% Agile etc. There will be areas where full Agile isn’t the best delivery method to use with that team given the limitations / constraints they may have. ; The supplier needs to recognise the best practice on how to get BPDTS resources to the best way of working e.g workshops, hands on training etc.
• 14. Are you able to give more information as to which of the 'Assessment Methods' of Written Proposal, Case Study, Work history, Reference and Presentation - you will be using?: We will be using Presentations for the shortlisted/sifted suppliers. These will be held on the afternoon of Tuesday 3rd July at Caxton House, London. Drawing out the published essential skills and experience, the Presentation will need to address how you propose to approach and deliver this opportunity, using examples based on your previous experience.