ONS Digital

The Beta delivery team currently consists of;

Product/Service Manager
Associate Product Manager
Delivery Manager
Business Analyst
User Researcher/Information Architect
Performance Analyst (shared with BAU)
Content Migration x3
Technical Lead
Developers (Senior) x2
Developers (Junior) x2
UX/Design Lead
Front-end developers (Junior) x2

A number of roles are already filled by permanent ONS staff while the other roles are supplied via the contract with Methods Digital at present. Ongoing funding for all the technology roles has been approved and recruitment for the permanent Technical Lead is underway already.

The new Technical Lead, once in post, will work with the Product Manager and Delivery Manager to recruit the rest of the team through a combination of identifying in-house staff with the right skills and external recruitment.

In this team the Technical Lead takes on elements of the Architect role and that has worked well. However a lesson has been that a lack of a dedicated ‘web ops’ or ‘sys admin’ type role has at times created some drag on the project. The activity has been covered comprehensively between the Tech Lead and senior developers but this has meant moving focus from other elements of the project.

The Product/Service Manager has been given wide ranging authority as related to the delivery of the service. He has led the procurement, recruited the team and set the priorities for the project. The decision to build a bespoke publishing service rather than use an ‘off the shelf’ CMS lay with them as did development of the roadmap.