Long story short
Imagine a worker in a big business corporation. Let’s call him Martin.
There is a lot of business to do and the schedules are demanding. Martin is in a team of seven people and he is the leader. His goal is to make their work more practical and automated. So, Martin gets his creative juices flowing.
In the corporation, employees have access to low-code platforms, cloud services, and other tools that can be used to create an app. Our Martin jumps on the platform and starts developing.
He uses simple methods for an app construction:
- drag-and-drop techniques
- configuration
- little to no code
You can imagine the result as a flow chart. In less than two weeks Martin has made a working software solution for the business. Of course, during this time he has done all the business as usual tasks and assignments he had.
Now many of his co-workers’ use the new app. What is special about Martin? Nothing… But we can call him a citizen developer.
What is that?
A citizen developer is an employee /a person/ who is not an IT-pro or programmer but still develops apps using available platforms and tools. With the provided data he then creates a solution to a business problem. What is that solution? An application.
The citizen developer requires a basic understanding of:
- how the platform works
- the business sector
- the needs of the company
- creative/ strategic thinking
He is a designer who uses what is built and fit it into the unique (and ever-changing) needs of current or future businesses.
In the bonus material, you will find out how organizations like Autoglass, Heathrow, G&J Pepsi, Standard Bank and many more, have promoted the citizen development concept in their company.