A Citizen Developer (the German translation as „ziviler Entwickler“ is not very meaningful or helpful here) is a business user who also creates new applications and extends or modifies existing ones. Unlike a classic (“professional”) software developer, the Citizen Developer uses modular IT tools at a higher level of abstraction, allowing them to create applications largely independently through configuration and modeling, with much less technical knowledge and programming experience, instead of relying on the extensive development work of the traditional IT department.
Given the diverse and extensive challenges of digitalizing business processes and the immense shortage of qualified IT professionals, the question arises whether and to what extent this approach can make a meaningful contribution.
In this article, we will present the key opportunities and risks of establishing Citizen Developers in companies and provide concrete recommendations for successful implementation.
Requirements for Citizen Developers
The requirements for a Citizen Developer can be divided into three areas:
Domain Knowledge
The Citizen Developer is organizationally assigned to the business unit and therefore usually has a very good and up-to-date understanding of business requirements and challenges as well as possible solutions. The advantage of deep domain knowledge is also a significant disadvantage, because the Citizen Developer only knows their own slice of the larger picture, and end-to-end process responsibility often does not exist in the company. Therefore, it is important to mitigate the risk of isolated solutions that do not consider the overall value along the process chain.
Low-Code Platforms
In many cases, business units have independently built solutions using simple tools without IT involvement (“shadow IT”). Most companies would likely face existential problems if Excel were no longer available. Approaches using Robotics Process Automation (RPA) have often exacerbated this proliferation. The motivations are understandable: IT often lacks capacity, solutions are too expensive, and by the time requirements are clearly defined, employees have already created quick solutions themselves with Excel or similar tools. These advantages of “democratizing software development” also have disadvantages, and the risks are just as serious: maintainability, IT security, data protection, and scalability often fall by the wayside.
In recent years, so-called low-code platforms have emerged to address these issues.
Low-code platforms offer simpler ways to design applications with modeling and graphical application tools. As the name suggests, low-code requires very little traditional programming to create an application. Applications are modeled rather than coded line by line, and forms and user interfaces (UI) are built using drag-and-drop. For many requirements, a professional IT developer is often no longer necessary, which is where the Citizen Developer comes in. They know the capabilities of the low-code platform and, within their permissions, can implement requirements largely independently of IT.
A strategic choice of the right low-code platform is critical. In addition to functional diversity and flexibility in configuration and modeling, attention should be paid to openness and support for established standards. For example, open standards such as BPMN, DMN, and CMMN have become established for modeling (and digitalizing) business processes, and these should be supported by a low-code platform.
BizDevOps and Fusion Teams
Undisputed prerequisites and success factors for digitization initiatives are agile approaches (e.g., Scrum). Requirements are continuously and iteratively implemented, and all participants learn continuously, also based on customer feedback. With low-code platforms and Citizen Developers, there will be user stories that can be fully and independently implemented by the Citizen Developer. Nevertheless, user stories still require development by traditional developers.
It is therefore important that Citizen Developers and traditional developers work closely together in a multidisciplinary team, with full transparency on the different developments through a shared backlog. Such a Fusion Team, see also https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/why-fusion-teams-matter, can become a key success factor in a company’s digital transformation.
This also prevents the work of Citizen Developers from diverging from traditional IT. An integrated agile approach between business, development, and operations is thus established.
9 Recommendations
Our 9 concrete recommendations for successfully establishing Citizen Developers in your company:
Create the right culture
Create the right corporate culture so that the role is established within the business unit and collaboration with IT is not compromised. It is important to make traditional developers understand that the Citizen Developer approach does not threaten their existence but rather frees them from simple coding, allowing them to focus on more complex topics in the future.
Start with the right business unit
Start with a business unit that has both the motivated and qualified employees needed and existing potential for early successes in digitalizing business processes (“low-hanging fruits”).
Choose the right low-code platform
Make the right strategic decision when selecting a low-code platform. This is not an isolated IT decision. Pay attention to standards support (BPMN, DMN, CMMN) and openness (ideally open source) to avoid expensive vendor lock-in.
Train and support Citizen Developers
Initial training and ongoing coaching of your Citizen Developers are important for success. This should cover not only functional aspects of the platform but also methodological aspects.
Integrate with existing development processes
Ensure that Citizen Developers and traditional developers do not work in separate silos. Establish multidisciplinary Fusion Teams. The division of work must be clear, but full transparency over development must be maintained at all times. Ensure that your platform and approach conceptually support aspects such as (automated) deployments, versioning, and quality assurance.
Practice agile methods across teams
Ensure the necessary discipline in consistently applying agile practices. Establish joint ceremonies (e.g., retrospectives) among all participants.
Learn and improve
Establish continuous learning cycles (Build -> Measure -> Learn) and embed necessary management support.
Show and celebrate success
Early successes provide the foundation for the next steps. Showcase these successes within the organization and make them measurable (e.g., duration or effort for implementing user stories).
Build a Center of Excellence for Citizen Developers and Process Management
As a final step, after initial successes, establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) for the community of Citizen Developers and process owners. The goal is to optimize and digitalize processes end-to-end across departments. This ultimately achieves the optimum for your company and customers.
