Citizen developers are usually employees with no formal training in software development. They must have some affinity with technology and an interest in using technology to their advantage in problem solving. It may be general issues at a company level or with their own tasks. They usually have a good knowledge of processes and data, think logically and are highly motivated to master new technologies that help create business solutions, which can be used to simplify tasks and make work easier.

From a company perspective, this provides a lot of benefits. Unfortunately, in practice, we still often see users solving their problems by simply placing a Band-Aid on an open wound. In IT, this is also known as “Shadow IT”: everything that the IT specialists in the IT department cannot see. Massive amounts of Excel sheets, outdated databases and various individual software packages hold things together with pieces of tape. That is, until something goes wrong somewhere within this complex and fragile network of homemade and small systems.

Areas that Citizen Development can excel in, include, administration, data tracking and reporting. For these tasks, people usually use disconnected applications that run on separate systems. A better solution is centrally linking the applications through a coherent low‑code platform.

The benefits of Citizen Development:

• Application development is a lot faster
•  User-friendly
•  Easy to use
•  User wishes and needs become the guiding principle!

Are you interested in learning about what Citizen Development can do for your company? We have developed the Learning@work teaching method for this purpose. Nimble trains your employees in becoming a team of independent, skilled low‑code developers. Moving forward, this in‑house development team will be able to direct and shape the digital transition on their own. Further, they can also develop their own technologies to support day‑to‑day operations.