How Citizen Development Bridges the Gap Between IT and Business

In the past, programming and software development skills were restricted to IT professionals only. Lengthy software development cycles coupled with long waiting times created many issues for organisations. However, times are changing.

The demand to simplify and shorten software development cycles has led to the exponential and continuous growth of Citizen Development with the use of low-code and no-code (LCNC) development platforms.

Who is a Citizen Developer?

A Citizen Developer is essentially a business user who can build applications without requiring programming knowledge. From HR departments to Finance, citizen development creates a space for any business user to optimize an existing business process or improve their day-to-day productivity with low code or no code technology that is sanctioned by IT.

Moreover, it empowers users to drive innovation in a cost-effective and timely manner by reducing application development life-cycles. 

The idea of end-users self-building digital solutions is not new.

However, organisations’ understanding of the power of citizen development is increasingly becoming familiar. Organisations who have adopted this approach have improved resilience, user experience and their responsiveness to the ever-changing market demands.

In fact, Gartner states, by 2023 the quantity of citizen developers within larger enterprises will be, at a minimum, 4 times the number of professional developers.

Low-code and no-code tools accelerate Citizen Development

Before LCNC development platforms, non-IT departments solely depended on IT for new solutions. For example, people in an organisation who needed solutions to do work more efficiently would need to wait for months or sometimes years for IT to deliver solutions.

Back-logs of requests, shortages of software developers and long waiting times are only some of the issues that can arise and cause serious disruptions in any business.

Citizen development powered by no code and low code technologies enables rapid development and deployment from business users in an agile manner, something previously difficult to achieve with traditional software development approach.

No-code and low code platforms allow users to focus on creating applications by using a toolset of prebuilt components, rules and actions, rather than developing everything from scratch.

Not only does citizen development accelerate innovation, but also it increases overall efficiencies.

In effect, citizen development offers a real opportunity for IT and the rest of the business to work collaboratively.

Citizen Development closes the gap between IT and Non-IT departments

An effective and IT-approved low-code or no-code technology can seal the skill gap between professional developers and citizen developers.

Typically, there has always been a gap between the implementer of a technical solution and the business user who has the business knowledge.

Knowing the requirements, it makes sense for said business user to create the application to address these particular requirements.

With a user-friendly development environment, citizen developers can easily build applications themselves and if and when, a project becomes too complex, they can simply invite a professional developer to help. 

Original post was published in PMI: "How Citizen Development Bridges the Gap Between IT and Business". To read the full article click here.