Citizen Development
What it is. Why you need it.
The Need for Citizen Development
Citizen development is business users with little to no coding experience building applications with IT-approved technology. Business users building their own solutions is not new, people have been building solutions using spreadsheets and database tools for years, just without the approval or knowledge of IT.
The concept of end-users creating their own solutions might not be new, but organizations understanding the potential impact of empowering citizen developers with more powerful tools is. Organizations are noticing the value of citizen development. According to a recent Gartner report, 61% of organizations either have or plan to have active citizen development initiatives.
Here’s why there’s a growing need for citizen development:
The IT need
Enterprise digitization efforts are more mature – 40% of CIOs have reached scale for their digital endeavors, more than double the proportion of digitally-transformed enterprises from 2018.
The result of a more mature digital business model is a never-ending IT backlog. Research has found that 77% of IT leaders and 71% of business leaders agree that IT teams have a huge pipeline of new IT solution requests, which aren’t being built. In addition to keeping an organization up and running from a technology standpoint, IT is under immense pressure to modernize the existing IT infrastructure and advance their organization’s digital agenda by building new business-critical apps.
IT can’t do it all, all alone.
The business need
On the other side of the house, the people who need new solutions to do their jobs more efficiently are getting frustrated with IT’s inability to quickly deliver the apps. Business users prefer to fix their problems by building their own solutions on spreadsheets, desktop databases, etc. rather than waiting for central IT to help.
Overtime, rampant unchecked development by business users, magnified by the boom of SaaS applications, has resulted in a complex network of solutions that IT has no visibility into.
Citizen Development Changes the Game
When you look at the business impact of IT’s inability to deliver new solutions on time, it puts the rise of citizen development into perspective.How is the business impacted when IT is not able to deliver new IT solutions in a timely way?
Frustration among forward-thinking employees
Inability to meet key strategic targets
Miss cost reduction opportunities
Loss of competitive advantage
The Benefits of Citizen Development
Through citizen development, IT can partner with the business to build solutions the organization needs - faster and with less rework. Working collaboratively will ensure that the right processes and technology are in place. When done right, citizen development can help you:
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Meet the growing need for apps ›
Today every company is a software company and needs more applications to improve operational efficiency, drive innovation, and generate revenue. IDC predicts that by 2023, over 500 million apps will be developed. That’s the same number of apps developed in the last 40 years! IT, with its limited resources, is never going to be able to build the apps business needs in time. Citizen Development represents the best bet to overcome this challenge.
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Address shortage of skilled developers ›
With the software developer unemployment rate below 1.9%, there’s a limited pool of skilled developers in the market. The stark shortage of talent puts additional pressure on IT. Organizations that adopt a formal citizen development program address the challenges of talent shortage head-on by empowering non-technical, highly motivated business users to build apps that solve their immediate problems.
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Govern shadow IT ›
Our recent study confirms that 78% of IT and business leaders agree shadow IT has increased greatly over the past 5 years. While the existence of shadow IT is mostly good (yes, it really is), when left unchecked it can create a technical wild west for IT. Instead, IT should govern it using a program like citizen development. When a recognized citizen development program is in place, all those must-have apps are built on IT-approved platforms, giving IT the visibility and control they need to maintain and monitor quality and security.
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Boost IT and business productivity ›
Citizen development provides business users with the approved technology and required IT support to build the basic productivity apps they need. When citizen developers build their own apps, they can perform their job more efficiently, help the company save on operating costs, and help reduce IT backlog. IT is then free to focus on more technically complex projects like legacy modernization, core system extensions, and enterprise-wide applications.
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Break down silos ›
As companies grow, so too do the silos within the organization. There’s already a disconnect between IT and the business. Citizen development can help repair this disconnect by creating an opportunity for business users and professional developers to work collaboratively. For instance, when the app a citizen developer is building on the IT-approved tool gets complex, they can invite a professional developer to help build the complex parts in the same tool.
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Citizen Development the Right Way
A key component to ensure the success of citizen development is picking the right technology. IT needs to think through the needs of their organization and partner with the business to pick the technology and define the processes that will enable more people to build software the right way.The Mendix low-code platform is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of a citizen development initiative.
Simplified development environment
IDEs for all developers. Studio for citizen developers and Studio Pro for professional developers.
Re-usable components
Leverage work of professional developers into reusable, drag -and-drop modules.
Collaboration
Use built-in tools to collaborate with professional developers on complex features or integrations.
Powerful foundations
Seamlessly sync Mendix Studio and Mendix Studio Pro to unleash the full power of the Mendix Platform.
Governance
Maintain control and prevent ungoverned adoption of the low-code tool with the platform’s in-built guardrails.
Accelerate time to value
Get results quickly and reduce the risk that critical apps aren’t being built.
Citizen Development in Action
When IT organizations embrace the correct technology, they empower citizen developers to contribute and build apps the right way.
Take Yasmijn Joosten, for example. With no software development background, Yasmijn was able to develop applications that enhanced operational efficiency at Kuehne + Nagel, one of the world’s leading logistics companies.
One of the apps Yasmijn built helps warehouse workers perform their jobs efficiently. It automates an existing manual process and even leverages wearable technology.
"What I like about creating is that you see the product grow and turn into a value-adding product for your customers."