Why Businesses Are Embracing Citizen Developers
Citizen developers are members of organizations that, despite a lack of traditional IT skills training, manage to utilize low-code or no-code tools to create the apps or digital tools they need. They could represent the next step in business agility, and many organizations are encouraging these “have-a-go heroes.” Why do citizen developers do what they do?
What’s Driving Citizen Developers?
The first and most obvious question when considering citizen developers is, “Why?” What drives HR personnel, salespeople, or marketing experts to dive into the world of software development?
Forbes Technology Council recently postulated that the global skills shortage could be a driving factor. Businesses increasingly rely on SaaS services and other software-based solutions for the majority of their daily operations. Yet there is a huge skills gap in programmers and developers, so support for this often highly distributed business architecture can be lacking. Even well-established IT service management (ITSM) providers can’t always support every type of service an organization might need.
This can lead to bottlenecks in IT support for companies. Legacy systems that run slowly or can’t perform newly business-critical tasks have to wait much longer to have those problems resolved. IT teams are generally firefighting daily issues and often don’t have the personnel available to handle what they might see as low-priority issues.
The Do-It-Yourself Approach
In the past, this would have been the end of the tale: no IT support, no fix. But with numerous low-code/no-code solutions available, determined employees can now take a DIY approach to their IT needs.
Businesses want to connect to clients, address their needs, and deploy upgrades fast. Overstretched IT teams can struggle to fulfill these needs, so it makes sense that companies will allow employees to have a go at doing it themselves; to become citizen developers. The benefits of being open to this type of working include:
Faster product development
Cost cutting
Agility
Increased collaboration
Apps aligned with user needs
IT teams can focus on issues only they can handle
The rise of citizen developers could see a new attitude towards coding and development, where the basics are handled by non-IT professionals as a matter of course.
Setting Citizen Developers Up for Success
If your business decides that citizen developers could help your organization thrive, there are a few points to take into consideration.
Removing data silos is a critical factor for success. Access to the relevant data, whether that’s customer trends or logistics info, is vital for ensuring apps meet genuine business needs.
Ensuring you have business-wide policies in place for data management and protection is also necessary.
It may also help to have a defined set of tools that citizen developers can use. This can ensure consistency of output, even if you have multiple employees working on different issues.
Final Word
It’s an exciting time to run a tech startup. The availability of tools that empower employees at all levels to get involved with development is increasing all the time. Whatever avenue you take for software development, get help with marketing your product or service from Arch Collective. Book your free 15-minute call and find out how we can support your startup’s growth.
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