Guide for the Chief Information Officer

In conditions where the IT department spends most of its time (and budget) on maintaining operations, it is difficult for companies to embrace large-scale digital transformation. This makes the IT department unresponsive to the organization's needs for change.
Consistent project schedule delays are why many organizations turn to citizen developers and low-code/no-code software development platforms. Although citizen developer programs are not new, the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying digital transformation are forcing CIOs to take a fresh look at low-code/no-code platforms.
For CIOs considering these programs, the biggest challenge is not deciding whether they need them (they do), but rather convincing their C-suite colleagues and business unit heads to participate in the program.

Create a Vision

The first step to gaining support is to create a vision. After all, to get where you want to go, you need to know where you want to be. All successful citizen development programs start with understanding three things: the current state, the ideal state, and the reasons why you want to make changes.

Current State vs. Ideal State

In most organizations, business units overwhelm the IT department with project requests that cannot be fulfilled. Large and small projects remain unrealized or take too long to complete. This inadequate responsiveness to business requests fosters the perception that IT is where projects go to die.
If that description of the current situation seems rather bleak, then logically the ideal state should be the opposite, right? Well, sort of. In real life, that is usually not the case. Thus, the goal of defining the ideal state is to set a target that you will constantly strive for but likely never reach. Without "stretch" goals, as they are also called, you are unlikely to make significant progress on the problems that are actually solvable.

Other Stakeholders

Once you have decided on the vision and direction, it is time to reach out to other stakeholders to convince them of the idea's merit. Since everyone likely knows what the problems are, it is important to talk about the benefits of the program rather than its features. The program will save them time, increase profits, smooth out workflow deficiencies — these are the kinds of outcomes that will win stakeholders over.

Roadmap

As with any new initiative, it is necessary to start small, score a few "easy" wins (the proverbial "low-hanging fruit"), and secure stakeholder support. Only then can you scale up the program to give it the momentum needed for organization-wide success.
Once the program is created, there is no limit to what can be achieved with citizen developers. Modern low-code/no-code platforms are used for everything from highly complex customer-facing projects to simple tasks like adding a new field to a web page form.

Start Small

The first step of your program will be to engage a low-code/no-code platform vendor to get started. Then you can create a playbook that sets the parameters and defines the role of the citizen developer.
The first version of the guide does not have to be final. Rather, it will be a framework or outline defining things like project deliverables and artifacts, project checkpoints and IT sign-offs, standards and best practices, processes that citizen developers must follow, as well as roles and responsibilities and other program governance structures. The role of IT in this process will be primarily oversight, so rely on their recommendations.
Once the playbook is ready, find a few willing volunteers from the IT department to learn the platform. They will serve as instructors for less tech-savvy businesspeople who will later become citizen developers.
After a few people have learned the platform basics, look for projects that are intra-departmental and use data from that department. Automating processes based on manual data entry into Excel spreadsheets is an excellent candidate.

Rapid Scaling

After the first few wins, look at what was done right, what went wrong, and where improvements can be made. Adjust the action plan, then go back and execute another project. As confidence grows, you can increase project complexity.
More complex projects tend to be cross-departmental and use shared data sets. They involve formulas, some custom code, and integration with other applications. Such projects typically require IT to conduct testing before production release. Responsibility for project design and development also falls on IT.
IT professionals ensure that new workflows adhere to all organizational standards (e.g., proper branding), ensure data privacy and integrity, are secure, and do not negatively impact application performance.

High-Complexity Projects

Over time, you can move on to high-complexity projects. These projects are typically customer-facing, require custom coding, rely on cross-departmental data, and can impact operations if improperly coded. Most of the design and development work here can be done by IT professionals, but they will still use a low-code/no-code platform to do it.

Tracking

As you progress along this path, it is necessary to track progress by focusing on a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that can measure success. Such metrics can include reducing the software development project backlog, improving the timeliness of changes, enhancing workflows, and/or increasing IT responsiveness. All of these are good ideal goals that can be achieved through a citizen development program.

Scaling

As you accumulate wins, you can build on these early successes by identifying new projects and training new citizen developers to carry them out. Once such developers exist, you can create a small community to foster collaboration and share best practices.
Some organizations even establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) to oversee the program and share recommendations and best practices.
Since organizations of all sizes face the need for digital transformation, they must use all the tools in the application development toolkit. Given the long and successful history of low-code/no-code platforms in reducing project delivery times, it is no wonder that interest in citizen development is growing.