The term "Citizen Developer" has become increasingly popular in the world of no-code and low-code platforms. While it’s meant to empower non-technical users, I believe it unintentionally conveys a lack of control. It suggests that anyone can create anything, without guardrails, leading to the risk of sprawl and ungoverned applications. I much prefer using the "Distributed Developer" terminology, to reinforce the control when distributing specific tasks!
Successful no-code and low-code adoption requires careful governance, control and structure. This approach ensures that developers, whether internal business users or specialists, can contribute without compromising on quality or security. It’s about enabling the right people to the right tools for their skills so they can focus on the right tasks.
Why "Distributed Developer"?
"Distributed Developer" reflects this philosophy perfectly, highlighting the need for a deliberate and balanced approach to no-code and low-code development:
- Focusing Expertise: While business users handle the day-to-day maintenance of forms, workflows, or playbooks, specialists can concentrate on high-value tasks and complex solutions.
- Accelerating Improvement: Empowering business teams to manage smaller, iterative improvements keeps innovation moving without bottlenecks.
- Enabling Fusion Teams: Collaborative teams combining business and IT expertise foster shared ownership, bridging gaps and aligning goals.
This isn’t about decentralizing control; it’s about distributing responsibility within a robust framework. And that framework is governance.
Governance: The Cornerstone of Success
Governance is the secret sauce that makes the distributed developer model effective. It provides the guardrails to ensure security, quality, and alignment with business goals. In a ServiceNow context, governance spans the entire development lifecycle:
- Intake Governance: Making sure new requests are aligned with strategic objectives, as well as preventing duplicates.
- Onboarding Governance: Ensures distributed developers are trained and equipped with the right tools.
- Development Governance: Standardizes development guidelines and enforces best practices.
- Testing Governance: Validates changes in controlled environments to minimize risk, relying on automated testing as much as possible.
- Release Governance: Control deployment to prevent disruptions.
- Integrated CMDB: Applications must be fully aligned with the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), ensuring seamless alignment with IT processes such as Change Management.
A Simple Analogy: Cars
Think of distributed development like owning a car.
- The owner (business user) handles daily tasks like topping up fluids, cleaning the car or adding roof racks.
- The expert mechanic (ServiceNow team) takes care of complex repairs and annual maintenance.
- The user manual and dashboard (governance framework) ensures everyone knows their roles and responsibilities.
- Plugging in your phone (AI and templates) extends the car’s capabilities, just as ServiceNow’s tools supercharge distributed development.
A well-defined segregation of responsibilities is essential for sustaining and optimizing operations over the long term.
We can’t keep up with demand
Many organizations experience tremendous success with the platform but wish they could innovate faster. How many times have I heard from my customers that they love the platform but wish they could double or triple the size of their ServiceNow team to cope with the business demand...
Distributed development addresses this challenge by bringing the business into the development process. It’s not about reducing IT’s role—it’s about maximizing its impact by offloading repetitive, low-value tasks to distributed developers who are closer to the business problem while keeping full control over their developments.
Ownership: The Real Key to Success
Ownership transforms how teams work with ServiceNow. When business users can maintain their self-service forms, update triage rules, or tweak playbooks, they:
- Take pride in the platform’s success.
- Feel more connected to their processes.
- Free up IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives.
- Bring back reactivity to their critical business applications.
This ownership doesn’t happen by accident: it requires careful onboarding, ongoing collaboration, and tools that make it intuitive.
Accelerating Development with AI
Let’s consider a common scenario: building a catalog item. Even with great tools, this process can require back-and-forth communication between IT and the business, making it lengthy for the business user. What if the business users could build most of the catalog items themselves, guided by templates and AI? Leaving ServiceNow experts to step in only to fine-tune configurations and final deployments.
This approach drastically reduces development time while maintaining quality and consistency. It’s a win-win for everyone.
The Power of ServiceNow's No/Low-Code Tools
ServiceNow's comprehensive suite of tools allows to make distributed development a reality:
- No-Code Tools: Creator Studio, Catalog Builder and more.
- Low-Code Tools: App Engine Studio and ServiceNow Studio.
- Governance Tools: App Engine Management Center (AEMC), enabling end-to-end seamless collaboration between the Center of Excellence (CoE) and distributed developers.
Low-code platforms do not prevent you from transitioning to pro-code tools later on when your simple app requires more sophistication. An app is an app; low-code, no-code, and pro-code are simply different tools for development. You can switch between them at any time or even have two teams working in parallel, using the tools that best match their skills.
These tools aren’t just theoretical—they’re available today, and they work!
One More Thing: Accelerating MVPs
Imagine how digital transformation conversations could be accelerated if, instead of long new needs conversations could be replaced by lightning prototyping: using AI in a sandbox allows you to prototype Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) in seconds, allowing the business users to understand what their business need could look like, accelerating the feedback loop and bringing value to the business faster than ever.
Conclusion
The ServiceNow ecosystem has an incredible opportunity to embrace distributed development, by empowering business users while maintaining robust governance, to finally:
- Increase innovation without sacrificing control.
- Foster ownership and alignment between IT and the business.
- Reduce bottlenecks and accelerate time-to-value.
Accelerate your distributed development journey today with ServiceNow!
Want to know more?
Read my next article: The Art of Distributing ServiceNow Administration: Catalogue Administration
https://www.servicenow.com/solutions/creator-workflows/citizen-development-program.html
Unleash the power of distributed developers with ServiceNow. Build apps quickly with IT oversight, guardrails, and governance for all skill levels.
ServiceNow assets:
- App Engine Management Center: Distributed development control tower, embedding all capabilities from intake to monitoring, including the CMDB integration as well as Automated testing and Collaboration.
- Now Assist for Creator: AI-powered assistance for ServiceNow development.
- Creator Studio: Interface for No-Code app development.
- App Engine Studio: Interface for Low-Code app development.
- Mobile App Builder: Interface for mobile-first app development.
- ServiceNow Studio: Interface for low-code and pro-code app development.
- Flow Designer: Automates business processes into digital workflows across apps.
- CMDB: Manages applications as native Application Services, integrating Change Management into the publishing process.
- Automated Testing Framework: Enables automated testing for workflows, UI components, and integrations.
Published by Sylvain Hauser.
From his internship at ServiceNow in 2007 to his certification as a Technical Architect (CTA), Sylvain has spent most of his professional life leading innovation with ServiceNow.
