Understanding the Foundational Elements
The following foundational elements have been successfully used by enterprises that have created Citizen Developer Centers of Excellence within their organizations:
Adopting a low-code platform
Most citizen developers have limited experience working with code so it is important to give them no- and low-code tools they can use to create their applications. Ideally, you’ll want to focus your citizen developer efforts on the low-code tools.
Many enterprises may have more than one low-code platform, some may have as many as four or five. Focusing your Citizen Developer program on one or two low-code platforms is recommended to foster a community and take advantage of scale.
App Engine provides both no-code and low-code tools that citizen developers can leverage to create applications. The collaboration features in App Engine Studio make it easy for creators to work together while also improving citizen developer governance and scale.
Embracing the journey
Successful Citizen Developer programs evolve over time as the company learns from their successes and failures. Best practice is to pilot with a limited number of citizen developers, a lighter set of standards, and largely manual processes.
You can use the lessons learned from the pilot to expand to a somewhat larger group of citizen developers, refine your standards, and begin to introduce process automation. Continue to refine your tools, standards, and process on an ongoing, continual, and regular basis.
Marketing your success
As your Citizen Developer program demonstrates success, it’s important to promote that success for awareness across the enterprise.
Socializing the success internally also helps justify the investment in the citizen development program and attract additional citizen developers. The visibility provided by internal marketing will also help you provide recognition to the citizen developers.
