Picture this. You have an accountant on staff that is tasked with creating monthly reports for the executive team. Every single month, that accountant has to perform tedious chores such as copying and pasting data from numerous spreadsheets to start the process of packaging the raw data into something deliverable. However, that is only the beginning of a productivity destroying process that is further hindered by numerous follow on manual steps.
Although the end result may have significant value, the simple fact of the matter is that tedious manual processes can introduce errors into the data and are far from being productivity enhancing. It a situation that has both management and staffers wondering if automation could replace that tedious, manual, inefficient process.
CXOs have come to realize that most digital workers are faced with some degree of digital toil. It really doesn’t matter what role the individual plays in the organization, if they are dealing with data they often encounter repetitive tasks. Just ask most any business analyst, marketer, HR representative, healthcare practitioner, or manufacturing operator—we all in our day-to-day work. And, repeating these actions over and over again can take a toll on the psyche.
Writing for Computerworld, Mike Elgan found that frustration with technology was a top reason why they left their last job. Repetitive processes should be computerized and automated wherever possible, but IT is often too backlogged to program these integrations. Or, they don’t intimately understand the domain expert’s unique workflow.
Improving employee experience is just one of the many reasons low-code/no-code technology has thrived in the tech scene over the last few years. By providing non-programmers the opportunity to construct applications themselves, low-code/no-code platforms open a range of possibilities to encourage innovation and creativity. With this empowerment, ‘citizen developers‘ are streamlining the creation, deployment, and maintenance of custom software and automation.
But, introducing low-code/no-code isn’t all that easy. Not only does it require a solid toolset, but it requires a cultural shift. This involves establishing a common path to success that encourages adoption in a safe manner. Below, I’ll consider ways organizations can use low-code to increase employee satisfaction. We’ll consider some general tactics for nurturing a citizen developer culture and see how this might affect the day-to-day experience of your workers.
Encouraging the Citizen Developer Mindset
Truly embracing the low-code approach necessitates a different mindset since not all employees may be aware of its capabilities. Thus, the first step of nurturing a citizen developer approach is spreading awareness. This could mean organizing an internal roadshow to share knowledge across a corporation. Workers will likely benefit from hands-on training, too. Although low-code tools are intuitive and UI-driven, they do assume some knowledge of foundational developer concepts and platform-specific semantics.
Some organizations create a dedicated Center of Excellence (CoE) around low-code to further these goals. A CoE is an ongoing internal strategy involving a group of expert individuals that disseminate best practices and offer advice to users. Along the way, it will likely behoove organizations to standardize on one common platform to use company-wide. Reports estimate that by 2024, the average business will be utilizing four separate low-code tools. Thus, aligning on a common platform upfront could avoid future tech debt. It could also increase knowledge sharing around the platform.
Creating a Community Around Low-Code
On that note, the best low-code endeavors succeed when there is a sense of community around development. Ways to encourage a community to form could be organizing regular meetups and workshops. Featuring employees’ work within internal message boards could inspire more usage as well. Other methods to further the cause are showcasing creations with case studies on a public-facing blog and maintaining an internal forum to share knowledge and answer questions.
When it comes to low-code, “community” and “collaboration” aren’t just marketing jargon — they can produce tangible outcomes too. For example, creators could share their templates and workflows for others to use. Professional developers can upload code libraries into a shared environment, increasing reusability for valuable assets. This helps connect experienced engineers and less technical users who aren’t comfortable with IDEs or Git.
Safety First: Place Guardrails On Abstractions
People can’t create if they don’t have room to try new ideas. But, most corporate governance models interfere with the spirit of more open development. It’s good to recognize this upfront to see what policies need changing. On the other hand, bringing less experienced users into the development fold does present new security risks. The secret sauce is then striking a balance between freedom and oversight.
Setting guardrails will help safeguard citizen developer use, especially if they’re creating apps that deal with user data in any capacity. Establishing a standard review process or checklist can also help maintain quality for these creations. For example, this may include automated code analysis and UI testing to collect feedback before applications move into production. It’s also important to invoke role-based access to avoid information overexposure — low-code/no-code development platforms with more fine-grained access controls are inherently more secure and less prone to misconfigurations.
Continuously Review Low-Code Employee Success
Low-code has the potential to increase worker attitudes by eliminating doldrum. By giving the programming keys to more folks, you also encourage more diverse viewpoints around how to best optimize processes. This on-the-ground perspective can provide more of a voice to roadblocks. But of course, the strategy hinges on having digitally-savvy workers that want to improve the status quo and are excited to get their hands dirty. Such enthusiasm is hard to mandate.
Although strict top-down demands might not inspire innovation, managers should still participate by continually assessing the status of the overall initiative. Do users feel motivated to use the platform? Why or why not? Does it solve employee hangups and save time? Does it deliver real-world business outcomes? Is it easy to use? Does it require too much maintenance to support? Continually answering these questions can help nurture healthy low-code adoption that meets your worker’s needs.
Final Thoughts
The goal of any new tool should be to reduce effort. And hopefully, low-code/no-code platforms take away more toil than they introduce. But we’re still early on in the ongoing low-code resurgence, so time will tell.
What is apparent is the need to connect an escalating assortment of cloud vendors, data lakes, and siloed internal departments. Low-code presents an interesting middleware to help coordinate these development efforts; and, perhaps, reduce some tedium along the way.
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