Pros and Cons of Citizen Developer Movement in Digital Transformation

Erika Magpili February 18, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the tides to many organizational processes. And if you’ve been to tech conferences, you might have been pretty much convinced that digital transformation is the way forward for all businesses. As the term suggests, digital transformation replaces manual operations with more simplified digital systems to improve overall user experience and maximize performance outcomes.

The question is, what more can be done to facilitate these changes and succeed quickly? The answer lies in the citizen developer movement.

But what is a citizen developer movement, and how can it benefit organizations?

The Rise of Citizen Development Movement

The citizen development movement allows organizations to be more flexible in their IT approach. The idea of citizen development movement is to help companies create a self-service solution to satisfy their business needs.

Citizen Developers create business applications and services using software development solutions such as visual integrated development environment (IDE). By using no-code or low-code options, citizen developers can build business applications with little to no IT knowledge. There’s no need for companies to hire expensive developers to build enterprise programs.

Pros and Cons of Citizen Development Movement

The surge in digital transformation has sparked a sudden rise in citizen developers. Although the trend is taking enterprises by storm, citizen development movement has received criticisms, one of which is the so-called 'Shadow-IT'. Shadow-IT is a software developed without proper knowledge in the IT department, potentially becoming a threat to the business's software systems.

Despite the doubts of many, the pros far outweigh the cons. To help you understand and assess the scope of these initiatives, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of citizen development movement:

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