What are your non-technical staffers working on? The Intuit-sponsored 2015 “State of Citizen Development Report” found workers are creating their own apps to gain efficiency, to get it done more quickly, and actually consider creating apps as part of their jobs.
“True citizen development is here now,” said Jeff Prus, director of product management for Intuit QuickBase. “The way people work is changing. Gone are the days where employees will sit back and wait for IT to help them develop a solution. Instead, they want to do it themselves. What that means is individuals without any formal coding skills are actively building apps on their own. According to the research, 68% of respondents consider developing apps part of their day job, yet only 8% of respondents have a traditional coding skill set.”
Citizen development often scares developers, though, because they fear work—and perhaps their jobs—will be taken away from them. Prus dismissed this. “That’s not to say IT is left out of the picture. In fact, we found that 75% of IT builders developed the foundation of their company’s apps, leaving the last mile of the apps to the citizen developers,” said Prus. “This allows each person to play to their strengths. IT serves as a strategic advisor for the business to ensure the apps created are scalable, secure and compliant, while business users can focus on solving the challenges at hand and customizing the app to fit their business processes exactly.”
Citizen Development transcends simply utilizing a platform to create Web and mobile apps to save time. It’s about inviting non-coders outside of IT to take a bit of the work off your shoulders—especially the last mile where challenges and requirements are unique to their jobs and skills.
