Introduction to Capabilities and Standards

Owned by Robyn Brooke (Unlicensed)
20-07-2023
3 min read

What are Capabilities?

The requirements to deliver Solutions are grouped into Capabilities. Each Capability describes the business need at the highest level.

Capabilities will be used by:

  • The Authority to express the business needs during the procurement.

  • The Authority for the initial assessment of Solutions for onboarding to the Buying Catalogue.

  • Suppliers to categorise their products and to see market opportunities.

  • Buyers to search for products that meet their needs on the Buying Catalogue.

What are Epics and Acceptance Criteria?

Epics are individual high level business requirements and describe features relevant to the Capabilities they belong to. All Epics together define the full scope of a Capability.

The Acceptance Criteria associated with an Epic define the minimum expected functions a Supplier’s Solution must deliver and are test scenarios that will be used during Capability Assessment stage of Onboarding to establish whether a Supplier’s Solution meets the Epic or not. In order to pass any Epic, all associated Acceptance Criteria for that Epic must pass the assessment.

Epics are classified as either Must or May Epics and all Epics will be assessed during the Capability Assessment stage of Onboarding. It is recommended that Suppliers consider all Epics as part of User Research to understand what the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is for their users.

Each Epic has a unique identifier which allows for the identification of Epics in a consistent manner, e.g. ‘E00092’.

MUST Epics

MUST Epics describe the minimum functionality required to deliver a Capability. Solutions MUST be successfully evaluated against each Epic and Acceptance Criteria via Capability Assessment in order to be associated with this Capability.

MAY Epics

MAY Epics describe additional functionality associated with the Capability. Suppliers should consider all MAY Epics as part of their User Research. Suppliers can choose to map their Solutions to these Epics and they will be evaluated via Capability Assessment. Framework Authorities or purchasing organisations may require these Epics as product qualification or requirements criteria.

What are Additional Implementation Details?

Additional Implementation Details are mandatory details related to a specific Epic and are assessed during the Assurance stage of Onboarding.

These details can include references to other Standards and Suppliers will need to complete assurance activities related to those Standards.

What is Supporting Information?

This information may be useful to Suppliers when implementing the related Epic, but is not mandatory and is for guidance only.

Do I have to build a solution that delivers all Capabilities?

No, Solutions only need to deliver one of the Capabilities listed for the PCSS Framework.

What are Standards?

Standards describe the technical or operating conditions required to achieve Catalogue Compliance.

Standards will be used by:

  • The Authority to express any technical and non-functional requirements.

  • Suppliers to understand what is expected of them in order to be compliant and to onboard onto the Buying Catalogue.

  • The Authority’s Solution Assurance to assess Supplier Solutions against in order to award compliance.

  • Buyers to assess various Suppliers against each other (levels of compliance) for competitive procurements.

Capabilities and Standards Model

The Capabilities and Standards are structured in the model which can be found on the Overview page.

  • There are a set of Overarching Standards that are applicable to all supplier Solutions (e.g. Information Governance Standard).

  • There are Capabilities to describe the business needs at the highest level.

  • There are Standards specific to certain Capabilities to mandate specialist functionality such as Capability specific data extracts or services.

  • There are Interoperability Standards which contain requirements applicable to all Solutions and some that are only applicable to certain Capabilities.

See Capability and Standards Structure page for more detail on the structure and content of Capabilities and Standards.