Low-code Weekly (11.22.22)

Over the past week, we’ve seen some great case studies published about Johnson & Johnson and Shell, in addition to some excellent critical opinions that acknowledge the value of low-code approaches, but that underscore the importance of establishing strong governance, choosing the right people, having the right training in place, and not being afraid to mature through evolution and iteration.

Opinions

• A modern approach to enterprise software development ( Cliff Saran , Computer Weekly) - low-code tools represent a massive opportunity to scale innovation while decreasing IT backlogs. But they also represent risk if opened up too broadly and in the absence of effective governance. Tom Wilmot (Dyson) argues that it is vital to consider which specific business and IT users should be given access to low-code tools, as a function both of competence and interest.
• Why CIOs should invest in digital through economic headwinds ( Doug Drinkwater , CIO) - An economic downturn is not the time to slow digital transformation efforts. Instead, it is an opportunity to move ahead of the pack through increased investment in skills training, AI-powered automation, and experimentation with the ‘highly visible and highly hyped’
• Ditch the DX: take the right route to transformation ( Lucas Greyling , Tech Central) - The author emphasizes that successful digital transformation requires both a clear vision and an acknowledgement that requirements constantly evolve in a way that requires related initiatives to progress through iteration.
• Low-code is not a cure for overworked IT departments just yet ( Joe McKendrick , ZDNet) - Despite the promise of low-code approaches to software development, the biggest barrier to adoption, according to a survey by Capterra, is a lack of trained personnel. The observation resonates well with my own experience with successful Pega clients who recognize that, although low-code is significantly easier than traditional development modalities, ensuring that citizen developers have at least basic training is absolutely essential to establishing an effective and sustainable program.
• Predictions 2023: Citizen Development And The Metaverse Stir Up Software Development ( Chris Gardner , Forrester) - Forrester expects a widely reported security breach to be borne from citizen development in 2023. To avoid this, low-code platform and security teams must work together to review roles, configure security guardrails, and implement a governance policy specifically built around citizen development.
• With great Power (Apps) comes great responsibility ( Jon Howells , Global Legal Post) - The fact that everyone in an organization may have the ability to create PowerApps is a blessing and a curse. Lack of visibility into what is created may place unexpected burden on IT, not to mention the fact that apps created by individual contributors may not be built with enterprise standards in mind, means that organization need to be aware or risks and actively put processes in place to mitigate them. (See my response HERE)

Case Studies

• Johnson & Johnson’s big bet on intelligent automation
• How Shell Led A Citizen Developer Movement

Latest research

Understanding Low-Code or?No-Code Adoption in?Software Startups: Preliminary Results from?a?Comparative Case Study (In Product-Focused Software Process Improvement)

Usman Rafiq,?Cenacchi Filippo?&?Xiaofeng Wang?

Preliminary results show that software startups apply low-code-no-code in an ad-hoc manner and use it for experimentation, prototyping, and idea validation. On the flip side, large companies enjoy a stable workflow of low-code or no-code development. The motivations include achieving rapid product development, fast feedback, and empowering business users.?

Generating Low-Code Applications from Enterprise Ontology (In The Practice of Enterprise Modeling)

Marien R. Krouwel,?Martin Op ’t Land?&?Henderik A. Proper?

By taking a Model-based Engineering (MBE) approach, starting from ontological models of the enterprise and explicit organization design decisions, the authors bridge the gap from organizational flexibility to (automated) IS flexibility, in such a way that IT is no longer the limiting factor for enterprise flexibility.

Calls for Papers

Managing the Dynamics of Business Processes

Business & Information Systems Engineering [Deadline: Nov 1, 2023]

The ambition behind this special issue is to provide a space for original contributions that investigate how the dynamics of business processes can be represented, explained, and managed.?Even if you have nothing to contribute, this CFP is rich in the way that it summarizes issues in the space, including an excellent bibliography.