According to Mckinsey’s research on Developer Velocity, “best-in-class tools are the primary driver of Developer Velocity”. One of the ways that leading companies tend to increase Developer Velocity is by using low-code and no-code platforms, which empowers citizen developers to create applications via simple drag and drop without having any software development experience.

The survey by Mckinsey found that companies using low- and no-code platforms “score 33 percent higher on innovation compared with bottom-quartile companies”.

An enterprise-grade low-code/no-code platform caters to the needs of both professional and citizen developers.

Who Are Citizen Developers?

Citizen developers are non-IT professionals capable of building applications without coding knowledge. They are able to help their companies quickly build line-of-business, web-based, data-oriented, and process-oriented applications using no-code development, sometimes even within one day.

Citizen developers are a business’s secret weapon, still an untapped army of business-intelligent and tech-savvy individuals.

AgilePoint v8.0 helped us achieve the corporate goals we set out for

Looking back at the defining moments that we believe helped us secure this recognition, we’d like to highlight the release of AgilePoint v8.0, which allowed our customers and their fusion teams to build digital processes, applications, and business portals in record time.

“The new release of the AgilePoint platform was the culmination of everything that we’ve been working toward since we founded AgilePoint: Scalable business automation for all, regardless of skill level. Organizations everywhere can use our platform to create composable enterprise environments that can stand the test of time and technology, even in the harshest economic conditions” Jesse Shiah | CEO and Co-Founder of AgilePoint

A citizen developer might be working in finance, marketing, or project management areas of a business and using low-code/no-code tools to automate processes and workflows and even build custom reporting dashboards and apps.

Citizen developers are a business’s secret weapon, as they are an untapped army of business-intelligent individuals capable of automating all enterprise processes and workflows. After all, no one knows a business better than its own end-users.

The Benefits of Citizen Developers



1. Shorter Application Development Lifecycles

Agility at scale enables a company to innovate faster and provide superior customer and partner experiences. Results of a recent McKinsey Global Survey across industries and geographies revealed that:

“Only 10 percent of the entire sample companies have embraced agility at scale to create and capture value instead of treating agile as team-level experiments in discrete departments. This means reimagining the entire organization as a network of high-performing teams, each going after clear, end-to-end business-oriented outcomes, and possessing all of the skills needed to deliver, such as a bank boosting the performance of customer journeys; a retailer analyzing turns and earns of product categories; a mining company reviewing production- and safety-process steps; an oil and gas company planning wells; a machinery player undertaking full product management, from R&D to go-to-market; or a teleoperator simplifying products”.

Thus, citizen developers make it possible for business units to create minimum viable products at astronomical speeds without IT’s involvement.

2. Reduced Demand for IT

IT faces a dilemma in the form of an ever-expanding list of requests from business units, customers, and partner firms while budgets remain stagnant. Besides, the upkeep of IT infrastructure and the need to handle cyber-security issues stay the same, or worse, increase over time.

According to an estimate by QuickBase “IT backlogs have risen by 29% during the past 18 months”. This results in tension between IT and the business. The problem spills over in the form of projects getting stuck at the departmental or team level due to a lack of the right talent or software to get it done.

Citizen developers and business analysts are closer to the business problem they are trying to solve, and have more intimate knowledge about the requirements. Therefore, they can help cut your IT backlog by creating highly customized applications in just days or weeks.

“Citizen Development frees up strained IT professionals, allowing them to focus on innovation and other vital and high-code projects”, Salesforce.

3. Savings on IT Resources

Many studies, including one conducted by McKinsey, show that IT is the second-largest department with a skills gap. Lack of IT skills results in an above-average increase in the salaries of professional developers ($100K a year is the average salary in the US for a skillful professional developer whereas the base pay average for pro developers is 78K/yr.).

It massively surges the cost for IT and business leaders to develop as many apps as they need to grow the business and increase productivity. According to Glassdoor, the base pay average for citizen developers is $57K-$62K a year.

Citizen developers help tackle this problem as they handle a significant portion of application development needs which reduces the number of pro developers a business needs to hire.

Key Takeaways

Enterprises are increasingly trying to become better at developing software to gain a competitive edge. An important part of becoming better at software development is increasing the developer velocity, a concept that means taping into the full power and creativity of citizen developers to drive transformative business performance.

Mckinsey says that “leading companies use tools to unleash Developer Velocity by investing in low-code and no-code platforms. These platforms enable the average business user to develop applications without any software experience, freeing up seasoned developers to focus on the most challenging tasks”.

IT and business leaders can reap quantifiable benefits by delegating a portion of their app development and process automation needs to citizen developers, such as:

1. Shorter Application Development Lifecycles
2. Reduced Demand for IT
3. Savings on IT Resources

Learn More:
Citizen Developer and Citizen Development: What's the difference?

What is Citizen Development?

For businesses of any size, AgilePoint provides a complete business automation platform that can build applications and workflows to optimize resources, improve performance—and maximize efficiency. Start with AgilePoint by getting your free trial today.