We've all heard the buzz around Citizen Development. But what does it mean to you as a digital transformation leader in your industry?

Citizen Development will be essential to your transformation strategy as you move your organization into the digital future. Citizen Development will gain more importance to succeed in a competitive marketplace that demands accomplishing more with less. The skill is helpful for large organizations as IT alone cannot cater to the rising demand for enterprise apps.

Here are five things digital transformation leaders should remember as they approach citizen development initiatives this 2023.

#1. Citizen Development will be a more significant movement than Process Automation or Process Improvement.

According to a study by Gartner, Citizen Automation and Development Platform (CADP), usage will rapidly grow in 2023—with a 30.2% growth forecast for 2023. It means that as more organizations embrace digital transformation and look for ways to streamline their processes, we'll see an uptick in demand for CADP solutions. 

CADP allows users, called citizen developers, to automate workflow management, build web-based forms and reports, bridge data gaps across multiple software applications, and create apps that IT would take too long to prioritize.

With the help of CADP, organizations can take advantage of digital transformation by streamlining their processes, providing customers with a better customer experience, and enabling employees to do their jobs more efficiently. In addition, CADP allows organizations to create digital solutions that they can easily update, making it easier to deliver engaging customer experiences across web, mobile, and hybrid touchpoints.

#2. There will be a greater focus on Citizen Development governance.

You will have access to more governance tools within Citizen Development application platforms as these tools mature over time. Citizen development governance will be a big focus in the next few years because of the growth of the citizen developer community. 

As a result of the proliferation of low-code and no-code tools, organizations across all industries—including government agencies, hospitals, and educational institutions—have implemented them in their daily operations. With more low-code and no-code development tools, customers are looking for enterprise-grade governance capabilities in their development platforms.

Governance ensures that citizen developers can build applications in line with security standards while creating a consistent user experience and implementing best-practice functionality.

When teams build apps or digital solutions, it's essential to ensure they are made from the ground up with guardrails. 

#3. Citizen Development will enable hyper-automation.

The goal of digital transformation is to enable organizations to become more agile, efficient, and profitable. It means that businesses must be able to take advantage of new opportunities and respond quickly to changing conditions.

One way for organizations to achieve this level of agility is through hyper-automation. Hyper-automation is about applying intelligent systems such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) across business processes.

Citizen Development will allow for hyper-automation, making business processes more efficient so that they can do more with less human intervention – such as identifying, vetting, and adopting solutions.

According to Lisa Davis, SVP & CIO of Blue Shield California, "In the year ahead, I will also be looking to see more focus on hyper-automation – where organizations rapidly identify, vet solutions, and automate as many business processes as possible... Cloud technologies must become core to our operations to deliver digital capabilities anywhere and everywhere."

Companies must invest in enterprise architecture to provide scalability and security for hyper-automation.

#4. Citizen Development can support talent development.

Citizen development allows people with a process- or project-management background exposure to coding. However, they might have yet to dabble beyond excel to automate workflows and process data flow. Citizen Development application tools empower them to build applications and platforms and create technical solutions for organizations. Not only does it connect IT and business—but it's also a workforce development tool that helps organizations improve their digital strategies and, at the same time, unlock new opportunities for employee growth.

It's a practical approach to training employees through building skills that encourages them to think critically about their work and leads to more effective outcomes and increased productivity. Moreover, it empowers workers to be part of the innovation process and enables them to develop new connective solutions.

As NTT Executive Vice President Amit Dhingra says, "Looking ahead, it will be exciting to see how organizations develop new connective solutions to replicate the in-office spark of collaboration within a digital environment... All major employee experience processes will be done by combining highly digitized corporate IT and service-delivery platforms."

For example, a citizen development platform would help to achieve a digitally collaborative environment, especially during a recession. As organizations must accommodate the growing number of employees working remotely or on the move, they must also ensure that sensitive company data is secure within a collaborative environment.

#5. Citizen Development can address developer hiring challenges

Traditional recruitment practices have focused on finding developers who can write code. But with low-code adoption, digital transformation leaders are now expanding their talent pool to include citizen developers—those who may not know how to write code but want to learn and can use digital tools like AgilePoint NX. Anyone can learn how to code if willing to put in the effort—and they do not need to have advanced degrees in computer science or IT.

Forrester's 2022 Developer Survey found that 20% of companies now recruit non-degree-bearing candidates, and 24% recruit university grads with non-IT degrees.

It is not just about hiring more quickly or finding developers—it's about building better teams by leveraging new skill sets and perspectives, as citizen developers can come from different industries and bring their skill sets with them.

Key Takeaway

In conclusion, citizen development will not only continue to grow in popularity, but it will also affect how organizations operate. It will enable companies to create new digital solutions, products, and services faster than ever and help them stay ahead of their competition.

AgilePoint offers a full-suite business solution for companies pursuing digital transformation through low-code development. Discover how AgilePoint helps you unleash automation at scale with citizen developer governance by requesting a demo today.