Software developers are rare gems on the job market and businesses are fighting to find the right candidates in a context of global shortage. Without an IT professional, software solutions can't be built, implemented, and maintained at the pace or scale that your business needs. In this type of environment, IT delays can quickly add up and digital transformation efforts get bogged down. But there is an answer to this lack of specialists: citizen development. We explain everything to you in this article.
What is citizen development?
Citizen development allows employees not trained in computer science To create commercial applications using platforms Low code or No code. As a result, they can improve business processes independently and free up the burden on the IT team to focus on their core activities.
It is important to note that citizen developers must be experts on the subject. They know exactly how a process or a business sector works and have the knowledge to improve it. They just need the right ones computer tools to develop a solution.
By 2023, Gartner predicts that the number of active citizen developers in large companies will be at least four times the number of professional developers.
Citizen development programs are a critical way to implement the benefits of digital transformation. Plus, they lead to happier employees who are empowered to contribute substantial changes based on their expertise, as well as to produce productivity gains and to improve the customer experiences.
The benefits of citizen developmentIncrease innovation
- Increase innovation
To get ahead of your competitors, you should always be on the lookout for opportunities to quickly launch new products and services to meet the needs of your customers. Thus, citizen development helps you to accelerate the development of products in order to put them on the market before the competition.
- Strengthen the agility of your organization
Previously, developing an application took weeks or even months. With citizen development, you can start test new processes in a few days. Through the use ofintuitive interfaces With drag-and-drop and wizards to guide the development process, business users can easily create enterprise-grade applications without slowing down other industries.
- Reducing costs
The platforms Low code or No code enable citizen developers to create applications in less time and with less budget. In the end, internalized projects that take advantage of existing resources and employees, rather than hiring new developers or buying third-party applications.
- Unburden your IT team
Chances are your IT team is already busy — from maintaining your infrastructure to driving digital transformation goals. By entrusting the development of applications largely to citizen developers, your expert developers can take a step back - by playing the role of coworkers when required and by providing the advanced technical skills required to successfully complete a project. Ce change of direction and responsibility implies that they are freed up to focus on more complex projects.
How to implement citizen development in your company?
One of the perceived obstacles to citizen development is that it is too risky to entrust development to neophyte employees who are unfamiliar with security or data integration issues in particular.
And yet, with a good citizen development program, you can mitigate all these risks while benefiting from closer collaboration between business departments and IT, in line with broader goals.
Using the right platform No- or low-code gives your IT team the ability to Define safety standards for apps and features that will be available to users before non-developers get their hands on them. To do well, close collaboration between users and the IT department is essential. It aims to determine what types of issues need to be resolved and what will be required so that a solid framework for approvals and other requirements can be developed.
If in doubt, you can set up a deployment process (from the draft to the publication to the pilot) that will allow you to have confidence in each new application that will be integrated into a real environment.
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, UiPath
