After reading this article, you’ll know the following:

Citizen development is a game-changer in today's fast-paced business environment. Enabling business users to manage their workflow and solve problems independently, citizen development enhances agility and collaboration between different personas in each phase - from ideation and maintenance. In this article, we delve into the concept of citizen development, its key characteristics, benefits, and the roles and skills required for success, specifically within the context of Betty Blocks.

At its core, citizen development refers to the practice of allowing non-technical users to create applications or automate processes using intuitive, user-friendly platforms. The concept is rooted in democratizing application development, shifting the power from centralized IT departments to individual business units.

Imagine creating applications that streamline your daily tasks and automate repetitive processes – that’s the power citizen development offers. It frees up valuable IT resources from routine application creation, allowing them to focus on complex projects.

Another key benefit of citizen development is ultimately faster development. Where traditional development methods often struggle to keep up with the dynamic nature of modern business requirements, citizen development enables a business to quickly build and deploy applications without wasting valuable time.

Successful citizen development initiatives rely on well-defined roles and the cultivation of specific skills among participants. These roles can be seen as levels of expertise that can aid in defining them within a specific project.

In the Betty Blocks platform context, three primary application development roles are:

Citizen developer

Having a basic understanding of how applications function and how to navigate the Betty Blocks platform, a citizen developer addresses immediate business needs, using the platform's intuitive features to streamline workflows and automate tasks.

These business-driven users are responsible for configuring and making small updates in applications. Citizen developer uses templates from the platform or colleagues-developers to configure such application settings as assigning application admins, choosing the right color scheme, setting mail addresses, etc. Although they can create web pages occasionally, their main purpose is managing and configuring rather than building.

Business technologist

Acting as a bridge between business users and IT departments, business technologists possess a strong understanding of both business needs and technical requirements. They play an important role in leading mid-level application development as they are more aware of how application layers work, and therefore can use the majority of Betty Blocks features to assist citizen developers.

A business technologist has a solid knowledge of programming and can participate in various activities that include building, testing, or debugging, but all their expertise rarely includes custom software development solutions.

Low-code developer

This role is proficient in applying the advanced features of Betty Blocks to build more complex applications. With expertise in coding principles and an in-depth understanding of the platform's capabilities, they provide guidance and support to both citizen developers and business technologists, helping them tackle more challenging projects and navigate technical complexities.

Platform admin

Admin's role is pretty straightforward - they ensure that the right people have access to various features: from creating/building applications to using/managing them. This role demands high organizational skills and knowledge of the My Betty Blocks environment where roles and permissions can be found. Additionally, the admin always keeps an eye on the application's alignment with company policies and usage costs.

One might ask: "Theoretically it's clear, but what about real examples?"

Indeed, citizen development isn’t just a theoretical concept - it’s a practical approach that can deliver tangible results across various business domains. Let’s see how citizen development translates into action.

Example: Marketing team: Internal campaign management application

The marketing team is building an internal application to manage all their campaigns from ideation to launch.

Business technologist (John) leads the design and development of the internal campaign management application with Betty Blocks. Using the platform's visual development tools, he creates pages with various forms and dashboards, expands action flows, and builds the relations between data models according to the team's requirements. He also configures webuser (employee) roles and permissions within the platform for secure access.

Citizen developer (Sarah): Marketing team member with campaign management expertise, translates the team's needs into technical requirements for John. She validates John's proposed solutions with stakeholders and ensures the app fulfills the team's specific workflows. Additionally, Sarah prettifies the application's front-end view, ensuring the right color scheme and appropriate icon choices.

Low-code developer (Jane): Jane provides technical support to Sarah. She helps implement advanced functionalities like automated email triggers based on campaign progress or custom dashboards to visualize key metrics. Jane may also integrate third-party marketing automation tools to enhance campaign execution.

Platform admin (Michel): They ensure the chosen platform aligns with the security and legal standards of the company and provides private access to the business technologist, citizen developer, and low-code developer to build and optimize the application.

The marketing team collaborates closely with the development participants throughout the project lifecycle, providing feedback, iterating on prototypes, and testing the application before deployment.

So, what benefits do citizen development and low/no-code offer us? Let's sum it up in this section.

Empowering business users

Enable business users to solve problems and automate tasks independently, without relying on IT departments only. This quickens the development process and frees up IT resources for more complex projects.

Agility

Respond swiftly to evolving business demands by building and deploying applications at a faster pace. With the ability to swiftly create and iterate applications, organizations can adapt to market trends, customer preferences, and internal requirements more effectively.

Collaboration

Bridge the gap between business users and IT by encouraging closer interaction throughout the development process. Stakeholders from both sides can collaborate throughout the development process, ensuring that the resulting applications align closely with business objectives and technical requirements.

Innovation

By encouraging employees to experiment and explore new solutions, citizen development raises a whole new culture of innovators! Business users, armed with domain knowledge and firsthand insights, can develop creative solutions to address specific challenges or seize emerging opportunities.

Faster development

With the advent of low-code/no-code platforms like Betty Blocks, citizen developers can create applications more quickly and efficiently. Betty Blocks offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, pre-built templates, and visual development tools that require minimal to no coding knowledge.

Ready to dive deeper? Explore Betty Blocks' resources and tutorials to start your citizen development journey and become a valuable asset to your organization.