The Rising Tide of Low Code

Top Requirements: Governance & Security

In my first post in a series on the Disruptive Tide of Low Code, A Market Trends Overview, January 2020, I described how the hype for Low Code is surging and offered a brief perspective on what I think is driving that. I’ll have more to say about the market, but I wanted to shift in this post to double clicking in one of the key requirements that those looking to learn more and potentially evaluate the space need to consider.

Specifically, I want to talk about the requirement and focus needed on Governance and Security, key focus areas for any organization contemplating adopting Low Code and Citizen Development platforms.

Taking a 50K’ view, any Low Code solution or Citizen Development platform promises to either enabling developers to code / configure stuff faster or by enabling more people to have their hands in the pile to building software. This is a great promise, as it helps companies innovate faster for the customers. AND this requires great responsibility in the form of Governance and Security!

I see the requirements here as spanning Product, Process, and People themed requirements.

Product Requirements.

The responsibility is to avoid having the Citizen Development platform spawn a bunch of really powerful Shadow IT solutions outside the purview of IT’s control or awareness. This can lead to all sorts of totally reasonable product style questions, including:

• How is the data protected and encrypted?
• What data is in these applications and is any of it sensitive?
• Am I able to audit who changed the applications or who accessed the data when?
• What if someone changes and application and I need to roll it back? Is there an ALM or CI/CD type capability?

Brief advert â€” I'm proud to say that Quick Base invests heavily here, and we will continue to as we think this is so important. This investment pays off: as we have a differentiated approach. Our data is encrypted in flight and at rest with 256-bit encryption. We offer the ability to track and audit user access, schema and data changes. And we released in December 2019 the industry’s first and only integrated enterprise grade, citizen development ALM solution, our new Sandbox. We are also received an industry leading 97 from Security Scorecard, the online security rating service.

Process & People Requirements.

In addition to having a product and technology stack that has strong security foundations and capabilities, it’s important for teams and organizations to build in the appropriate processes and ensure teams understand how they will work together.

What we see here is that one size does not fit all. By and large, organizations we work with seek to have IT and the business group working together and partnering. But the nature of that partnership and who has responsibility for what is fluid, depending on the organization, the culture, the people. I’ve seen a full spectrum. In some organizations, IT is really only controlling the user admin and some of the application management, but the day-to-day building and usage of a Low Code platform is pushed to the business unit — this is more of a Citizen Development style of approach. In others, IT is instead building and managing the applications, and the business unit is really just consuming and using the app.

And in my personal favorite, business and IT are teaming up and working very closely together to quickly build and iterate on what the business unit needs: securely, sustainably, scalably. I prefer this, as it seems the most likely to create the most value long-term using these tools.

At Quick Base, we work with organizations that utilize process models across the spectrum. At this point, we have a solid and documented set of Best Practices, and we are able to help customers on their journey towards implementing and managing Low Code at scale in their organization. So please feel free to reach out. We are confident that we have the experience and track record to help any company build and evolve a powerful new innovation capability in their firm using Low Code to fuel speed and agility in their operations.

I hope this is helpful to the community in and around Low Code and to anyone interested in learning more about the space, the opportunities, and the key needs in the market. As always, feel free to ping me on LI, drop me an email at jjamison <at> quickbase <dot> com, or reach out to @jay_jamison on the Twitter if you'd like to discuss. Thanks!