As IT services have become essential, organizations are increasingly using citizen developers. These are team members who have not received developer training but contribute to the creation of applications, sites, or other digital products.
The IT department acts as a guide, recommending tools and supporting decision-making, but the work is divided to lighten its load. As these citizen developers take part in development initiatives, it is essential to continue to train them to assess their work and ensure that they are supported in their tasks. That is what this article is about.
Why invest in the training of citizen developers?
The advantage of having citizen developers in your organization is to lighten the workload of your IT team and speed up development times. Nonetheless, citizen developers should not act as a form of shadow IT team.
For example, if they don't communicate properly with technically competent teams and management, it wastes time and resources and creates even more applications to manage. This lag can also lead to applications that don't fully meet business requirements and require IT departments to do a lot of work to fix them or to start from scratch to create something more suitable. Citizen developers may also not be fully aware of security protocols, which can lead to cyberattacks.
What can better governance of citizen developers bring to your business?
A co-productive approach between citizen developers and IT teams bridges the gap that often separates business teams and their IT counterparts. Therefore, the governance of citizen developers ensures that those who have been assigned to design technical solutions such as applications are able to do so while creating a user experience that is consistent with best practices for functionality and security.
By placing the sales team in the co-pilot seat of developers, you can leverage their first-hand experience of customers and business needs.
Our advice for training your new citizen developers?
1. Define a strategy and establish guidelines
First of all, you have to clearly define the areas where citizen developers are best able to help. This will allow them to focus their efforts and set the right expectations.
2. Create teams and define roles
By bringing sales and IT departments together in fusion teams, your business can accelerate processes and create significant added value. Shared responsibility for business and technological results between the two divisions can result in an increased commitment to product success.
3. Establishing user profiles based on experience
Empowering people with varying levels of technical skills by allowing them to work on a platform adapted to their skills. In a fusion team, IT developers will use tools that are different from those of business experts. Les solutions Low code are more appropriate for business expert profiles because they don't necessarily have the technical coding knowledge that developers have.
4. Train citizen developers on the platform
Your sales experts may not be familiar with the code at first, but thanks to the development options on the platform, they can develop their skills at their own pace. This allows them to make their idea a reality without the need for you to invest in third-party teaching platforms.
5. Offer ongoing training and support
Improving skills is a key part of the citizen developer program. So you have to make sure that they have access to the resources, tools, and support they need to build applications. Some organizations even choose to set up mentoring programs.
6. Maintain transparency with the IT department and integrate it into IT governance
Align your citizen developer program with the IT governance in place to avoid conflicts. By keeping communication channels open between sales and IT teams, the fusion team will be able to function properly and speed up delivery times. Not to mention improving the work environment!
6. Verify application features and security requirements prior to deployment
As the team develops its digital products, it is essential to check that each of them meets functionality and safety standards. Version control and testing procedures should be properly followed before the application is launched in order to avoid errors.
7. Check and review applications
Testing is important, but you won't really know if your end products are working well until they're used by the end user. Continuous testing and updates are important to ensure continued functionality and security.
8. Encourage feedback and continuous improvement
It is essential to get feedback from the people involved in your citizen development program. So you can address the problem areas and challenges that arise in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the program and to reinforce good practices.
Gartner estimates that by 2024, 40% of in-house technology products will be designed by people who are not technical professionals. When your citizen developer governance process works well, you'll see the benefits of an intuitive program that capitalizes on ideas that business experts can bring to the table.
About StoryShaper:
StoryShaper is an innovative start-up that supports its customers in defining their digital strategy and the development of automation solutions tailor-made.
Sources: StoryShaper, Bizagi, Gartner.
