The business need for new applications has never been greater, and IT departments are being asked to find faster and innovative ways to develop and support more software projects and application releases. Even with improved processes and tools, it’s not just that easy.
Three closely linked proposed approaches—low-code development, no-code development, and citizen development—typically cause It developers to roll their eyes. But should you? Before deciding that these approaches are like doing self-surgery, take a few minutes to understand them and see, with IT’s expert guidance, they could actually work. And to understand where they are fantasy, so your negative response is backed up with analysis and not dismissed by business leadership as mere self-interest.
Why business leaders care about low-code platforms
These are the pressures many development teams are facing that are causing business leaders to look for some new approaches to supplement their IT developers:
- Three departments are sharing spreadsheets to track their production work. There’s limited data validation in the spreadsheets, and mistakes are creating delays and work quality issues. Can you prototype, develop, test, and deploy a new workflow application in a few days that eliminates the spreadsheets and improves the department’s productivity and quality?
- In another part of the business, a field operations team is being asked to update information in multiple enterprise systems whenever it visits a customer. How quickly and easily can the development team create a mobile application that connects to these systems and provides a single, easy-to-use tool for this operations team?
Business leaders know that they can gain significant competitive advantages the more they digitize their business operations and offer customers personalized experiences. They support agile practices and want to release applications early, learn from users, and adapt the applications to evolving needs and opportunities.
