Companies today are pressured to find business solutions faster and with more ease. As a leader in your company, you may be relying on your IT team to provide these solutions. However, there are various circumstances hindering them and in turn, your business strategy. The solution you need may be under your nose and all you need to do is look for the citizen developers in your company. Otherwise, you may be missing out on the untapped potential of these employees to find new, creative solutions, that further lead to innovation.
One essential element of citizen development to keep in mind, is the alignment between business and IT. While looking for and enabling your citizen developers, make sure IT is involved throughout the development process. The path to innovation starts with business, but IT provides the development environment from the start. The point at which the project transfers to IT comes when the citizen developer has built the application and it then requires a more robust infrastructure, maintenance, implementation and preparation for scalability.
Who is the Citizen Developer?
The Citizen Developer is a user who builds applications to facilitate the processes of business operations while following the development guidelines of IT. They think of creative ideas to improve areas of business such as customer relationship management, internal operations and product development. Citizen developers support your company’s ability to react when there is a need for change. There are three main values that define the citizen developer: the drive to change, moderate tech skills and organizational alignment.
Driven by Change
Citizen developers demonstrate the desire to make a difference in the company. Many are millennials who have recently entered the professional field with a progressive mindset and an eagerness to work with technology. As digital natives, they grew up with software and understand the value of it. These citizen developers seek customizable software that can be adjusted to the needs of the company. The applications they build can make a drastic difference in the company, unlike applications provided on rigid software platforms.
Moderate Tech Skills
They possess “good enough” tech skills. In other words, they are able to use tools to their advantage to find solutions, without needing intensive training or an understanding of complex technological processes, such as coding. Citizen developers are open to learning and implementing new tools that increase productivity and assist their workflow. The tool that best supports citizen developers is no-code application development software. Furthermore, they have a minimum understanding of the existing business’ application infrastructure to know what data and processes operate in the system.
Organizational Alignment
Unlike traditional programmers who develop from a purely functional, technical perspective, citizen developers build with the organization in mind. They use the existing policies and standards of IT to design, build, and move. They build minimum viable products and release them early. Using design thinking, they provide more efficient and user-centric solutions. The citizen developer understands the need for urgency so they can deliver a solution quickly and with more flexibility.
No-Code for Citizen Development
To create enterprise solutions rapidly and easily, provide your citizen developer with no-code application development software. High-productivity tools can reduce development time from months to weeks or even days. Betty Blocks' HPaPaas enables citizen developers to efficiently build the applications your business needs now. Try the platform out here.
