LowCode - The Rise of the Citizen Developer

A low-code development platform provides a development environment used to create application software through a graphical user interface. A low-coded platform may produce entirely operational applications, or require additional coding for specific situations.
Wikipedia

LowCode is often billed as the democratising of development, with the rise of the Citizen Developer, but what is a Citizen Developer?

Gartner define it as

A citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report to a business unit or function other than IT.

So it sounds like a non IT developer of IT applications/web sites/automations, using tools provided by their business. It's easy to see how enticing this is, IT departments are often stretched just keeping the lights on (maintaining current / replacing end of life systems ). On top of that you remove any issues in requirements, as the developer is the customer, though know the data, uses and required features.

So all is great, roll out the LowCode platform and lets get an army of Citizen Developers to do what ProCode developers would, at less than half the price. But there are a few potential issues that business should be weary of.

1. LowCode is still code

Well that's obvious, but what I mean is it's a skill, not anyone can be a Citizen Developer. Good Citizen developers, are in my opinion, just ProCode developers who didn't go into IT. They have the same skill set, they just never got the experience by using it every day. But they trade that with business knowledge, which is very valuable. Without detailed and well researched requirements devs can easily make something that doesn't solve the problem, a Citizen Developer will never make that mistake.

And as LowCode continues its growth, Citizen Developers will become Power Platform Developers or OutSystems Developers. And guess what, you have just upskilled one of your employees and there is a market out there for me, offering to pay a lot more.

2. It's not just code

And this is a big myth, that the only challenge in App development is developing the code.

People will be quick to say that the LowCode Platform covers not just the code, and that's partly true, but it doesn't remove them.

• Security - the platform will add walls, but no wall is high enough for either a malicious or incompetent employee
• ALM - no application life cycle management is fully automated, who manages environments etc
• Bugs - how are bugs captured, what's your plan to resource for them, do you have enough projects to cover the scale of it?
• Platform - updates, regression testing, users maintenance, whos doing it?
• Training - how are you empowering / validating your Citizen developer?

And the list goes on, you may be moving work from your IT department, but you will also be sending more their way.

3. Cost

Although the developers may be cheaper, there are additional costs of platform licenses. Also as its a Platform, not a language, you are locked into the platform vendor. What would you do if after half your business is using a LowCode platform and the license price doubles. Or worse they discontinue support for it, I know there is similar challenges to all SaaS software, but moving from out of the box to another out of the box is considerably easier.

4. The Rise of Shadow IT

And this is the one every business should be wary of. For every Citizen Developer who goes through all the processes and embraces your safe guards, there will be 5 who don't. And every extra protection you put in will just push more to the dark side.

Just think about all the Excel macros running across business, or Access databases holding business critical data. All the PII data on an unlocked excel file emailed out across the business. Now imagine what they could do with a LowCode platform, what they could build, the scale it could reach out to. No longer locked to a couple of peoples laptops, now it runs even when they are on holiday or even leave the business. The platform might give you some visibility, but some (and I'm looking at you Microsoft) seem to think of it as a nice to have, not a must have. And even the good ones would struggle to understand the data flowing through the system.

If you open up your LowCode to the business, which you need to to get the value, you run the very big risk of empowering all the shadow IT departments out there. It's so much easier to make it yourself:

• You get exactly what you want,
• You often don't pay for it,
• You don't have to jump through all those boring hoops like security.

After a couple of years you will then start to feel the pain:

• Your already stretched IT dept will start getting inundated with service tickets because a LowCode app isn't working properly
• Senior Leadership will drop that a LowCode app is now business critical, and the business dept can no longer support it (after all they are not an IT dept are they)
• If you are lucky someone else will have 'the' data breach because of the LowCode Platform, but even then you will then be desperately trying to patch the vulnerability in all these poorly documented apps

The LowCode Platform you decide on, and the strategy your business takes is critical. By its very nature you are creating enterprise level solutions, who builds them and in what way should be your first requirements, make sure the platform can deliver those requirements.

I often think back to a presentation my Power Platform Architect showed when it was being rolled out

As a business you are empowering a new generation of developers, but they, and the Senior Leadership team, need to know the responsibility that comes with that Power.