Collaboration between IT and citizen developers
Although no-code platforms allow citizen developers to create applications without the assistance of the IT team, the best results are often achieved when the two collaborate. This can not only improve the quality of the applications built with low-code tools, it puts organizations in a better position to deploy solutions after vetting them or involving professional developers.
In a different sense, the IT department is a necessary partner to ensure the risk of shadow IT is mitigated. As citizen developers create more workflows and applications, there is potential for the organization to lose control of each and every one. As citizen developers are capable of changing roles or organizations, The IT team should be aware of all solutions being created and retain ownership of them.
The advantages of citizen developers?
There are numerous advantages involved in utilizing citizen developers.
From a cost perspective, organizations don’t need to employ as many expensive developers with the expertise of building extensive enterprise programs. While the programmers may still provide support, citizen development significantly broadens the number of people who can assist in the organization’s digital transformation. This can also help foster greater collaboration between different departments, as employees work with the IT groups to build new functionalities together.
Citizen developers are equipped with unique hands-on knowledge of specific work processes and business goals that are key to their individual departments. This knowledge means they are more aware of their own critical needs, which in turn helps them zero in on applications that can support and streamline crucial business processes for cost savings and higher productivity.
In line with the idea of increasing productivity, the fact that the low-code no-code platforms are visual processes using pre-built modules means that citizen developers can not only build applications very quickly, but testing the applications is also a faster process.