Organizations are rethinking their strategic plans and operating processes to remain competitive in today’s market. They continuously search for methods to improve client experiences and fix shortfalls to save expenses and acquire new business. Everyone’s attention is focused on digital transformation. Companies are searching for digital solutions that can give rapid results and are flexible enough to enable them to pivot as needed. The need for information technology solutions is increasing at a breakneck pace. High prices and a lack of qualified professional developers result in IT backlogs and unsatisfied business units. Citizen Development comes to the rescue in this instance.
What is Citizen Development?
Citizen development is the process by which non-technical users create and develop enterprise apps for their personal use or the utilization of their team with little or no coding. These applications are developed utilizing recognized and approved development processes and runtime environments by the IT department, which distinguishes them from the concept of shadow IT. Citizen developers are typically corporate experts looking for a solution to a specific problem.
No-Code Platform
Citizen Development lacks coding skills. As a result, they require a platform or tool that enables them to design unique applications without writing a single line of code. Due to its platform portability, no-code technologies are gaining popularity every day. This allows them to diversify their skills and prospects and alleviates pressure on the information technology department. Business users can automate monotonous operations, eliminate paperwork, and increase efficiency by utilizing these solutions.
Advantages of Citizen Development
Reducing IT Team Burden
The IT department is constantly engaged with mission-critical duties, resulting in an ever-growing to-do list. However, it can be difficult for the IT staff to prioritize this work in the face of frequent non-mission-critical tasks. Citizen development can assist in relieving the IT staff of such responsibilities, allowing them to focus on more expansive, strategic, and complex projects.
Increase Agility
Citizen development enables businesses to quickly pivot in response to new demands or challenges. Assume that everyone is actively involved in finding a solution instead of a select group of people. They can thus quickly adjust to new surroundings. Citizen development increases organizational agility, resulting in speedier response times.
Cost Cutting
Your business can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with application development by utilizing citizen development. Applications can be developed more quickly, allowing users to focus on other tasks. It’s simple to maintain applications created with no-code tools. This also minimizes the cost of software maintenance. CloudApper, for example, demands a monthly or annual membership. The fee covers both full access to the platform’s functionalities and ongoing maintenance and support.
Smooth Development Process
Citizen development bridges this divide by empowering the end-user to act as the developer. With a stronger foundation of knowledge about the required app, the citizen developer can produce it far more quickly than the developer can.
Solution For Developer Shortage
Due to the seeming shortage of professional developers compared to the demand, businesses might capitalize on their employees’ improved digital dexterity by introducing citizen development. With the appropriate tools, these citizen developers can assist in bridging the supply-demand gap for developers.
Disadvantages
Security Issue
While citizen development enables a business to design software applications to solve their own problems, it also adds the danger of security vulnerabilities being introduced by citizen developers’ handwritten code.
As a result, the central IT team must implement the appropriate controls and safeguards to limit this risk. Notably, low-code tools are more prone to security problems than no-code tools, as no-code tools do not involve coding.
Requires instruction
No code is designed to be intuitive. They do, however, require some training to operate properly and accurately. Suppose you host workshops and seminars to teach interested employees how to utilize these tools. In that case, you’ll quickly have a team of capable individuals on their way to becoming successful citizen engineers, rather than flailing in the dark without instructions or guidance.
Take Away
Empowering employees with easy-to-use technology can help them accomplish their tasks more efficiently and create a more productive work environment. With some technical training and guidance, these business users can also help alleviate the IT department’s workload, resulting in a greater emphasis on enterprise-wide holistic solutions. Citizen development also contributes to the organization’s increased digital skills, resulting in employees picking up technology more quickly and readily in the future.
