Citizen Developer: From Pariah to Superhero

TL;DR: It is estimated that by 2024 that citizen developers will account for nearly sixty-five percent of all application development. At FactSet we fully support our clients’ citizen developers. FactSet offers code snippets, proof-of-concepts, software development toolkits (SDKs), connectors, templates, training, hack-a-thons, and recipes to help accelerate all developers’ time to “hello world.” Our goal is to make it simple for you to efficiently derive intelligence from our data and applications when and where you need it.

Everybody is a Developer

Gartner defines a Citizen Developer as an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others. Gartner also reminds us that a citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. When we first started working in the industry, we thought of citizen developers as dangerous. They were someone who had just enough knowledge to get themselves in trouble, leveraging macros (or other scripting languages) in combination with FactSet’s integration tools to extract, manage, and analyze large amounts of data inside of Microsoft Office applications. Speaking in general terms, they were self-taught Excel power users trying to productionalize recorded macros running locally on their computers. Their code was often inefficient, slow, and bloated by Excel’s keystroke-recording mechanism, making it prone to memory-related crashes.

The Struggle to Move to Production is Real

Because the citizen developers had no direct oversight from IT, their solutions often violated company technology policy. Once a macro was moved into production, business units often became dependent on a process that long outlasted its creator, leaving behind no documentation or understanding of the solution. This led to disgruntled IT staff picking up the pieces. We are not saying things got any easier for IT, but a whole new world has emerged for citizen developers. They are no longer limited by the allotted memory for their Excel application and should never have to log in while on vacation to restart a macro. With proper policies in place, citizen developers (individuals) can move from a user- and team-centric solution, to productionalized solutions that enable an entire function (organization units) or even the full enterprise.

The light is getting brighter at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks to advancements in hosted solutions and low/no-code development tools, citizen developers can now create advanced workflows that interact with thousands of applications and RESTful APIs programmatically, allowing them to string together multiple applications to build personal, enterprise, or even public-facing solutions while writing little to no code.

Tides Are Changing, Fast

Once considered a pariah relegated to only using VBA, today the software industry has fully embraced the citizen developer. Low-code development technologies is a booming industry. Gartner projects low-code development technologies revenue will reach $13.8 billion in 2021, up over 20% YoY, and account for over 65% of all application development by 2024 (article). We are seeing companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, OutSystems, Mendix, Pega, UIPath, Alteryx, and Amazon invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the space.

The Playing Field Has Been Leveled

Don’t get me wrong — the concept of citizen developer is nothing new. The shift in mindset started long before low-code development environments ever existed. Thinking back in time, starting from C, Perl, Python, JavaScript, and Java, each new programming language reduced the intricacy of software development. The internet brought a vast library of sample code (even though sometimes incorrect), message boards, e-learnings, and YouTube videos to help educate the new class of citizen developers. This allows programming languages like Java(script) and Python to thrive while depending on individual contributors sharing code to improve their own usability. The (new) social aspect of development allows the strong to help lift the less experienced, unselfishly saving the next developer time. Instead of recording macros with their fingers crossed, citizen developers are now part of a large virtual collective, working together using message boards to help each other succeed. The idea that software development is reserved for only skilled engineers is a thing of the past.

Pitfalls: Don’t Accidentally Step on a Landmine

Like anything, there are some upfront costs to mitigate the risk of unleashing your citizen developers. First, you must select what low/no-code environment(s) works best for your company. Second, you must create the infrastructure and establish the governing body, policies, and training programs to prevent your citizen developers from accidentally stepping on a landmine. Finally, you must educate citizen developers on the approved tools (and what tools are not approved), the process for approving tools, how to get support, and your policies regarding solution deployment, testing, and data governance. Fostering a productive environment for a citizen developer is a healthy balance between giving them the freedom to creatively solve problems while having the oversight to prevent them from destroying something important.

A Cultural Shift: The Lines Between Business and IT Are Blurring

When citizen developers are aptly empowered, they become an integral part of any company’s success. Citizen developers can help design new features, build minimal viable products (MVP), ensure documentation is clear and written for the correct target audience, and help with testing. Low/no-code environments are tearing down barriers previously hindering their productivity while reducing software development and application testing time. Citizen developer programs promote collaboration earlier between developers and business users, increasing the likelihood of a successful outcome with fewer iterations between the first iteration and the final solution. Their unique insight and real-world use cases help engineers realize the importance of their work, prioritize future enhancements, and can provide a fresh perspective to solving problems plaguing existing projects. If we have learned one thing, we should no longer fear the citizen developer, rather embrace them. The sooner they are working with IT to solve common problems the sooner your company will realize its full potential.

Key Takeaways

Being successful with citizen development forces you to think about:

• Breaking cultural barriers between business and IT
• Federated execution with central governance when entering production
• Fast-tracking experimentation cycles to validate hypothesis before IT delivery starts
• Setting expectations for leadership around the differences between prototyping and being able to scale in production

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to all that contributed to this blog post:

Authors: Paul Casillo
Managing Editor: Ralph Kootker
Reviewers: Phani Adusumilli, Charles Papagiannoloulos