Citizen Development is currently on a rapid rise and this is something that excites us tremendously. With companies like Dutch insurance firm Univé, EY, Gasunie, and many others pioneering this movement, we’ve already seen amazing results. For example, the city of Zaanstad saves €2.3 million over a 4 year time period by employing a Citizen Development strategy.
Citizen Development is all about empowering the full innovation capacity of your organization. This is possible because Citizen Development platforms remove the barrier of technology. By doing so, people outside of the IT department can also build applications.
You can deploy Citizen Development in different ways. For example, you can go at it all by yourself, or work together with an experienced no-code developer and partially develop yourself. Every organization will have someone fit to be a Citizen Developer in their departments. So, let’s dive a bit deeper into the kinds of people that already used our Citizen Development platform with great results.
The power of Citizen Development is that the people that know exactly what they need to perform their job better now can take action on it themselves. Take one of the business consultants at telecommunications operator Tele2 for example. He spotted a problem in the day to day operations of the partner channel that slowed things down and knew how to solve it.
As a kickstarter of the application development, he led the process. For speed purposes, they got our partner Ilionx in the loop to take on the development process for the CRM application. This is a perfect example of a Citizen Developer that works together with a no-code developer and takes over, later on, takes to make adjustments.
The Zuiderzeeland Regional Water Authority has an Innovation Lab in place. Innovation manager Leslie Postema’s idea to digitize parts of the organization’s processes was put to the test. Within a month, the proof of concept for his idea was ready and well-received by stakeholders. In the application, built by Leslie himself, users can submit their measuring data in an easy and effective way. This results in less paperwork, more efficient walking routes, fewer errors and real-time insight into the measuring data.
Leslie is a prime example of a citizen developer. His innovation has a big impact on the workflow for the entire organization and they are currently in the process of presenting it to other water authorities as well.
Way back, before Citizen Development was even a thing, a startup from the same town as us took their skills to the absolute limit. Marketer turned entrepreneur Tim Remmerswaal had the idea for Beer in a Box. A subscription model supplier of crafts beer. What sets Beer in a Box apart from other beer vendors is their capacity to deliver you new beers catered to your taste. Through data, they know exactly what you like. Every month you get a personalized box with 12 special beers. How’s that for exploring new beers and not risking buying beers that will end in the sink after a sip?
Beer in a Box is your typical startup and ‘do it yourself’ success story. A man on a mission utilizing the tools at hand to get what he needs, no matter what. Now many years later, Tim is a leader in the Citizen Development movement.
Want to know what how to govern Citizen Development in your organization? Download the whitepaper below.