In the Gartner Glossary, Citizen Developers are qualified has users “who creates new business applications for consumption by others using development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT”.
This definition describes a new job that has grown rapidly in the last past years, at the crossroad of business users and IT department in companies. But thanks to the multiplication of no-code and SaaS platforms, building its own custom apps becomes more accessible to anyone and I bet it will become natural for the coming new generation of workers.
This article highlights 3 skills that qualify the know-how of Citizen Developers.
Thrilled to help users
Do you look like those happy emojies 😃 😍 anytime a user tells your solution has made him save a tons of time or simplified its activities? Do you like taking user requirements into account to suggest new creative ways to do things?
These are clues that you have something to do with Citizen Development. The ability to understand needs, the proximity with field problems and the pleasure to ease users’ daily work are real strengths that Citizen Developers own. Their motivation is nested in the satisfaction of solving problems.
Workflow translator
According to the Gartner survey, the three main use cases for Citizen Development apps are:
- Creating new forms or data-collection apps
- Orchestring business processes and workflow within apps
- Replacing paper, email or spreadsheets
Any of these cases are closely linked to the ability to undersand existing processes and redesign them. So when a user explains its issues, if you can’t help but sketch a flow diagram, you probably have another essential skill: being able to translate a use case into differents steps that follow one another. This is essential to be able to implement flows in low code plateforms.
Then, once the flow is defined, mixing and matching solutions become a child’s play, provided you have an appopriate app toolbox.
Fond of looking for relevant SaaS platforms
What really make of you a good Citizen Developer is your love for teaching oneself new things and the ability to find relevant platforms to combine.
Whatever task you want to perform or automate, it is necessary to answer the 4 following questions:
- How do you want to collect data or interact with users?
- Do you need to process data before storing it?
- Where do you want to store data?
- What do you want to do with data?
Each answer will guide you through the jungle of possibilities offered by software marketplaces. Keeping a toolbox up to date with your favorite SaaS platforms is a way towards coming up with tailored and crafty solutions.
For example, building a time tracking app requires to find ways to start and stop timers before counting spent hours. You can choose to use native features of you project management tool (as timer columns in monday.com for examples) or to connect it to a solution such as Toggl (to start and stop from your browser) or Ubiqod (for check-in and check-out by scanning QR codes), or combine the two applications to benefit from the advantages of both. It depends on the use case!
Are you a Citizen Developer?
Actually, even if part of your day-to-day work consists in Citizen Development, it doesn’t matter if you are a true Citizen Developer or not. However, if you have such skills, remember that they are valuable:
- Being able to build Low-code No-code applications can be an asset in companies that seek to improve their process efficiency and innovate. The ability to understand end users and quickly resolve issues without coding can make a big difference on your resume.
- There is also a significant probability that the issue you have encountered and resolved is actually faced by many other users in many other activities. What about sharing and maybe monetizing your solution!
