Making sense of Low-Code

Why? Why Low-Code?

The ambition is to achieve more with less. Empower people to focus on value-adds. Democratize technical capabilities like building user interfaces with no or very little technical proficiency.

By doing so, serve the purpose of gaining traction and achieve faster time to market.

What is Low-code?

Low-Code is a design paradigm that can be summarized with "configuration over coding". Solutions would be configured instead of written. (More details further below.) This paradigm transcends across any type of software solution - and aims to make application building accessible to virtually anybody.

How is this working, exactly?

While the basic paradigm itself is quick to explain, solutions built in low-code fashion follow certain patterns.

Attempt of a classification

You will find Low-Code applied in a) Robotic Process Automation, b) Integration Flow Engines usually also referred to as Workflow Engines, c) Aiding Tools for building front ends of any sort - be it Web or Mobile. (Most of the time, both.)

Since these solutions are all API centric, value add services hooked up into any and all of the above are common. The latter come mainly in forms of ML/AI services supporting automation efforts and enabling better, automated decisions.

Speaking of APIs. APIs are in fact the fabric of what holds all these building block domains together and for good reason in the center of the illustration below.

In reality, the different technical capabilities are mainly used in orchestration and not in isolation. In the continuum of different solution flavors, in many cases it's hard to make a distinction between one or the other. Solution packages like Mendix or OutSystems come with Integration Flow, Frontend Building and ML/AI functions all bundled up.

User Groups and Benefits - some examples

Depending on the target audience (=users), the value proposition of a Low Code solution is different, though.

In broad strokes, the types of users can be segmented into Developers and Business Users.

Business Users in our context can be everything from Product Management to colleagues from departments like Marketings.

Here is an example overview of benefits per "target group":

 ( >> Follow this link to a PDF and see a neatly formatted table here, grouped by target group and benefits. << )

Reality Check

All expected gains are merely assumptions until verified with the respective stakeholders.

To check those assumptions, a classic value proposition canvas can help with the conversation.

What we've assessed thus far

Low Code belongs into the domain area of Operational Excellence / Execution Excellence.

Governance is a key consideration with Low-Code in general, because democratizing the software creation process can result in mushroom solutions and painful architecture mistakes. One thing that the Low Code paradigm cannot take away is the architectural work - and there remain many ways to screw things up if that fact is neglected.

What needs to be done in order to unfold value with Low-Code

• Define what solution scope you want to focus on
• Define what user types/groups will profit from the solution embracing Low-Code
• Define business scenarios that are candidates for first prototypes, but only after verifying business scenarios with the target group. Calling for user research!
• Define the tool chain to work with (RfD) - the business scenarios support with the decision process
• In parallel, check for central initiatives and strategic fit of tool chains considered
• Evangelize - show peers and maybe the wider organization what's possible
• Speaking of which, are you interested in ML services?
• Prototype - identify a suitable business domain, maybe CRM 

A list of low-code / "no code" tools can be found here, far from being exhaustive.

What are your thoughts on Low-Code? Game changers? A fad?

Whatever your thoughts are - happy building!