Digital Process Automation Blog

When A ‘Citizen Developer’ Should Be A ‘Citizen Creator’

Written by Shay O'Connor, Head of Solutions | 9/8/21 9:29 AM

As the urgency to ensure organizations remain competitive in their field, by becoming more efficient and providing better customer service continues, using business resources to build digital solutions to achieve this is no longer just a possibility - it's a must!

Part of Gartner’s definition of 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.” The interesting verb here is ‘creates’.

When you are dealing with ‘low code’ and ‘no code’ platforms, the differentiation is quite plain. For example, when digitizing business processes that require multiple steps and multiple actors, this is considered ‘complex’ and suddenly requires a lot of scripting and coding within a ‘low code’ platform. You are most certainly in the realms of the Citizen Developer now, as you need to develop. But do your business owners want to become developers or have the time and space in their job schedule to even attempt to become that developer role?

In theory you may wish for this but in practise it is all too difficult. After all you will also need to maintain the code & scripts in said applications. Therefore, the low code platforms become firmly the responsibility of IT professionals. No need for a Citizen Developer when you have developers employed or contracted.

Standardized Solution

In essence, when dealing with the need to arm select employees with the ability to create; "application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others" – you need them to become Citizen Creators. This is only achievable by using a truly ‘no code’ platform.

If the processes are simple, single step with a sign off, then any platform will do but if there’s a bit more meat on the bone of your process, then ‘no code’ is the only route. You want a platform you can standardize upon, where all forms have consistent look and feel, no matter which Citizen Creator has produced it.

Digitize Your Operations

Give your aspiring Citizen Creators the fillet of options so as not to confuse and as a result accelerate education and adoption of the new digital way of operating.

Take the first steps today in empowering your workforce to revolutionizing your business with a powerful process automation tool to standardize and streamline your internal business processes. Take a free 14 day trial today of the award winning FlowForma Process Automation tool and experience 100% no code process automation!