Today, businesses are increasingly turning to citizen development as a means to improve process automation and digital transformation. This approach gives non-programmers, such as customers and employees, the opportunity to create their own applications for specific tasks. It also enables companies to quickly adjust to customer preferences or business needs.
Although this approach has many benefits, it also presents some difficulties. In this article, we'll discuss some of the issues businesses may encounter when implementing citizen development, and how to address them.
1. Understand citizen development and its advantages and obstacles
In the process of digital transformation of enterprises, citizen development is becoming more and more important—digital transformation should not only be led by enterprise IT, but also require the participation of all employees. Therefore, many non-technical personnel, such as business departments, administrative departments, finance or human resources, etc., need to have certain technical development capabilities to create applications that meet their own needs and realize automated processes. This process does not need to rely on the support of the IT department. For enterprises, the benefits of doing so can undoubtedly improve the agility of the entire enterprise and reduce the resource requirements of IT personnel.
However, building citizen development can be a challenge for many businesses, and one of the main difficulties is ensuring that all employees are proficient in using the appropriate tools.
Additionally, data governance and security issues may arise when allowing non-technical personnel access to sensitive data or systems. Therefore, businesses need to be aware of the impact of user-generated content in order to address these risks while empowering employees through citizen development programs.
Another hurdle businesses encounter when building citizen development programs is balancing application design control with freedom for end users—many businesses struggle to provide enough independence to customers while maintaining focus on the core Difficulty in controlling components such as data structures or system performance characteristics.
A final hurdle to consider is ensuring that every stakeholder within the business understands and supports the ultimate purpose of a citizenship development program before it is implemented, rather than seeing it as an unnecessary cost or risk.
2. How to overcome resistance to change
To put it bluntly, when implementing any change in an enterprise, there will almost always be obstacles, large or small, especially for changes involving all employees of the enterprise, the obstacles will be even greater. For example, the entry of new technologies will bring employees a sense of anxiety about being replaced, and for management, it may also increase management costs and so on.
Also, people who don't understand how citizen development works or its advantages may become another source of resistance. To avoid this problem, businesses must develop an executable strategy from the outset that clearly sets out the goals and expected outcomes of implementing the system, including information on why citizen development can achieve these outcomes more easily than traditional methods.
But it has become a consensus that civic development can be a new opportunity for internal growth within the business, which is why companies should involve early on the digital transformation process with those who support civic development, so that everyone sees progress positively, rather than resisting it altogether it.
3. Develop an effective citizen development strategy
When an enterprise tries to introduce a citizen development strategy, it needs to formulate an effective plan in order to more effectively overcome obstacles and challenges.
One of the challenges is ensuring that the established civic development program meets business goals and needs. Therefore, companies need to define exactly what each app should contain and set clear guidelines and expectations so developers understand their responsibilities. Additionally, it is important to document requirements accurately so that any changes or additions can be easily implemented without delay or disruption.
Another challenge concerns data security, as these applications often involve third-party tools, which can pose potential risks if not managed properly. To reduce the likelihood of a security breach, organizations must establish controls to manage who can access sensitive information and how it is shared internally and externally.
Before any application is released to production, security checks must be done using cryptographic protocols to prevent situations that could compromise security if left unchecked or managed for long periods of time.
Additionally, managing deployments across multiple platforms, including web-based services (such as mobile devices) or cloud computing systems, can also be a hurdle. Ensuring consistent performance across all systems requires careful planning; therefore, organizations need to not only define acceptable performance standards, but also develop strategies to evaluate user experience during regular and peak hours to help identify areas that require additional resources.
4. Train employees to use citizen development tools
The low-code development platform is one of the typical effective tools that can support citizen development. The low-code development platform enables enterprise employees to build applications and various types of digital solutions more easily and quickly. However, low-code with a low learning threshold does not mean that there is no need to learn. Therefore, it is very important to provide necessary training for employees.
Therefore, bringing any new technology into the business requires a successful train-the-trainer program that develops knowledge of the products in use and employs a teaching method that includes interactive activities and practical examples that allow learners to easily grasp concepts as they learn. There is also a risk of reduced productivity if someone has difficulty using the tool, leading to errors or time-consuming tasks during application creation or delivery.
5. Build flexible solutions that adapt to changing needs
There are many issues that businesses need to address when performing citizen development. One of the most important and critical issues is to create solutions that can be adjusted to changing needs. The Citizen Development Project was developed to enable users to create applications on their own without relying on IT teams and traditional software developers. This means that businesses must be able to create, upgrade and maintain custom applications for each user to meet their changing needs.
To ensure that citizen developers get the tools they need, organizations should focus on building a solid foundation for managing multiple forms of code in production. A version control system enables users to easily track any changes and allows engineers to store copies of all previous versions in case something goes wrong with the current version. The system also includes an audit trail feature that helps companies spot bugs or security-related issues more quickly, should they arise at a later stage.
Businesses also need to consider investing in automated testing tools that can be used by both IT and citizen developers when making changes or adding new features. By running a suite of automated tests on all versions prior to each release, you can ensure that no new bugs are introduced during the deployment cycle before it becomes widely available to end users.
Finally, businesses should consider building frameworks that are easily extensible, so that citizen developers can easily add add-ons at any time without too much integration with existing code. This saves a lot of time and gives customers flexibility when extending existing applications according to changing needs.
Summarize
In general, before adopting a citizen development strategy, enterprises must clarify its pros and cons, but it is worth affirming that by simplifying operations and advancing digital transformation goals, it is bound to bring huge benefits to enterprises. To ensure the successful implementation of a civic development strategy, businesses should conduct a thorough assessment of their current environment and develop an action plan to establish strategies that will help them seize the opportunities that civic development offers. By taking precautions and considering potential risks, businesses can successfully deploy projects that will benefit both employees and customers.