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On Wednesday, Jan. 11, at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT/7 p.m. GMT, @eWEEKNews will host its 51st monthly #eWEEKChat. The topic will be, “Citizen Development: No-Code Wave of the Future?” It will be moderated by Chris Preimesberger, eWEEK’s editor of features and analysis.
Some quick facts:
Topic: “Citizen Development: No-Code Wave of the Future?”
Date/time: Jan. 11, 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT/7 p.m. GMT
Tweetchat handle: Use #eWEEKChat to follow/participate, but it’s easier and more efficient to use real-time chat room links.
Chat room real-time links: We have two: http://tweetchat.com/room/eweekchat and http://www.tchat.io/rooms/eweekchat. Both work well. Sign in via Twitter and use #eweekchat for the identifier.
“Citizen Development: No-Code Wave of the Future?”
We’ve been moving toward this for more than 15 years: The rise of citizen development of software apps. This is the creation—or ideation, if you will—of business applications and application features by the employees who use them.
Citizen developers is a clear trend as 2017 begins, and a specialized new IT business sector is springing up around it. Please note that nobody is saying the conventional—and, in many ways, unconventional—software development communities of skilled and experienced professionals are going to become irrelevant anytime soon.
However, since the turn of the century, a growing number of enterprise and consumer applications intentionally have been designed to be configured for specific use cases by line-of-business professionals who wouldn’t know a line of code from a verse in a Shakespearean play.
But they do know how to follow a wizard, use a drop-down menu and follow directions. A lot has changed from the days of write code, test, debug, test again, debug, beta test, release GA—wash, rinse, repeat.
Some key data points:
Applications Are Being Developed Much Faster
More than half of organizations engaged in citizen development report that application builders are able to create applications in less than two weeks. Additionally, 42 percent of citizen developers are developing applications at least twice as fast compared to traditional development.
Citizen Developers Are Building Higher-Tier Applications
Citizen development is being used for all types and tiers of applications. Applications designed by citizen developers for mission-critical and long-term use (such as Enterprise Resource Planning and supply chain management) rose slightly to 45 percent in 2016.
Building Applications Is Becoming a Daily Responsibility
Building and maintaining applications has become more central to the way line-of-business professionals do their jobs. According to the Quickbase report, 76 percent of citizen developers consider developing applications as part of their day job, up from 68 percent last year.
Use Cases for Citizen Development Apps Are Growing
On average, organizations estimate that a platform supporting some portion of development by line-of-business developers could be used to build 26 different types of applications. IT help desk, project, asset and workforce management were selected among the top use cases for no-code development by survey respondents.
Customer-Facing Software Is Growing
The customer experience now more than ever is a key business driver. Applications must adapt easily and quickly to reflect rapidly changing customer needs. This year, citizen developers at 35 percent of organizations report building customer-facing web and mobile applications, up from 27 percent in 2015.
In this month’s eWEEKchat, we’ll want to know how your IT team is using citizen development techniques and what benefits are being derived from the approach. We’ll also be asking the following, among other questions:
- What platform or toolset is your team using for collaboration and rapid development?
- How often are you iterating software?
- What issues are you seeing—and solving—in moving to citizen development/agile development?
- How would you describe the total ROI of your citizen/agil operation?
Join us Jan. 11 at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. GMT for an hour. Chances are good that you’ll learn something valuable.