Citizen Developer – why does your company need them?
In today’s digital world, where technology plays a key role in every sphere of life, new concepts and roles are emerging with the development of a technology-driven society. One such concept is “Citizen Developer,” which describes a person outside the world of professional programmers who creates and develops applications or IT solutions.
Who is a Citizen Developer?
A Citizen Developer is a person who has no formal training or work experience as a programmer, but uses available tools and platforms to create their own applications or adapt existing technology solutions. They are often people from other areas, such as entrepreneurs, business analysts, operations department specialists, serial employees or freelancers.
The main feature of Citizen Developer is the ability to create solutions without the need for professional programmers. This is due to low-code or no-code platforms, which enable the development of applications by using pre-built modules, graphical interfaces and visual tools. This allows the Citizen Developer to focus on solving a business problem or creating a tool that meets his or her specific needs, without having to report to the IT department.
Benefits…
One of Citizen Developer’s main strengths is its flexibility and speed in creating solutions. Thanks to them, organizations can quickly respond to changing business needs, implement new functionalities and improvements without a lengthy programming process. Citizen Developers thus become a driving force of innovation in organizations, contributing to digital transformation and increasing operational efficiency.
… and risks
There are also some challenges or risks associated with the role of Citizen Developer. Lack of formal programming education can lead to inappropriate solution design and implementation, which can negatively affect the security, scalability and quality of the final product. Therefore, it is important that Citizen Developers have access to technical support, training and tools to ensure the quality and security of the created solutions. It is worth subjecting their work to an external audit if your company’s IT department is not efficient enough or lacks strictly programming competence.
What you need to know.
CitDevs are an essential component needed for digital transformation, and their presence on board your company will enable technological democratization. After all, deploying low-code platforms doesn’t have the right long-term impact on your business if you have to reach for external resources instead of being able to respond to change quickly with your Citizen Developers. A good CitDev can act as both an analyst and implement changes, significantly shortening the entire process involved in its implementation.
A big advantage of having CitDev with the implementation of low-code platforms is also the fact that you can use existing human resources. Such a process has great advantages – selected employees have a real sense of developing their competencies, their knowledge of your organization translates into a better understanding of business changes, and costs – even taking into account training, supervision and use of low-code platforms – are much lower than when hiring professional programmers.
As for the disadvantages, it is worth remembering that CitDev will not replace a classic programmer, and their deficiencies in the area of fundamental knowledge related to programming, require supervision and audit. Communication is also important – CitDev is often the link between IT and the business, so they must be people with the right skills in this area. Not insignificant, also for the portfolio, is the need for continuous training for them – especially in the areas of security and quality of application development. It can also be a challenge to evangelize one’s own organization, so that expectations for CitDev are not as high as for classic developers.
The moment you are fed up with the dictatorship of code and want technological democratization and digital transformation, consider creating such jobs or even teams. Low-code applications are on the rise. If you want to start with something free then try Dew-X, a solution that automates processes and enables digitizing workflows. With a zero entry threshold and free consultations still offered, you can easily get started with your first CitDev, which you can easily find in your own company today. Interested? You can register here – a few fields, no credit cards… one click and you’re done 🙂
Finally, I would like to highlight the potential of Citizen Developers as a driver of innovation, while pointing out the need for proper support and management to ensure effective and secure application development by those outside the traditional development community.
