Plan your citizen development program
Align with your existing ServiceNow® practices, app dev methodology, and digital transformation objectives.
Use these steps to guide your plans
Create your vision and roadmap
Determine your objectives and plan your milestones. Citizen development should be managed as a program that starts with a pilot and scales over time.
Identify program owners
Select a leader for your program. Program managers will organize the community, facilitate training, share best practices, and secure IT service delivery.
Secure buy-in
Appoint a sponsor to champion the program to leadership and the org. Ensure they promote a clear vision of how citizen development brings value and the support you need from them.
Identify ideal use cases
Turn ideas into apps. Define and document the kinds of applications that are the right fit for citizen development and align with your platform strategy.
Plan your pilot
Create training plans, for both your internal policies and the Now Platform®, then identify the candidates who will participate in the pilot.
Use these steps to guide your plans
Create your vision and roadmap
Determine your objectives and plan your milestones. Citizen development should be managed as a program that starts with a pilot and scales over time.
Identify program owners
Select a leader for your program. Program managers will organize the community, facilitate training, share best practices, and secure IT service delivery.
Secure buy-in
Appoint a sponsor to champion the program to leadership and the org. Ensure they promote a clear vision of how citizen development brings value and the support you need from them.
Identify ideal use cases
Turn ideas into apps. Define and document the kinds of applications that are the right fit for citizen development and align with your platform strategy.
Plan your pilot
Create training plans, for both your internal policies and the Now Platform®, then identify the candidates who will participate in the pilot.
Plan your program
With effective training and management in place, your citizen development program can be a game changer. Citizen developers can help IT reduce backlogs and increase innovation. With their program participation, citizen developers gain valuable, transferable skills and can enhance their career path.
Good citizen developer candidates will have:
- Deep organizational understanding
- Process expertise
- Collaboration skills
- Desire to learn
Find potential program participants based on the characteristics and skills your program manager and IT admins define.
Find the most suitable candidates from one team or business unit or opt to invite participation from your entire organization. Plan to collaborate with your internal communications teams to socialize your program via various internal channels.
Set criteria for your pilot. Ideal candidates for citizen developers understand how an app works and can add value to the business.
They should be willing to invest in the app creation and continuous improvement over time and agree to:
- Build and maintain their skills
- Comply with IT-approved development practices
- Attend at least 75% of program meetings
- Participate in the communities of practice
Citizen developers lack the technical knowledge to fit into your existing development processes. IT admins who understand your internal policies and processes need to decide if and how modifications can be made to accommodate citizen developers. Training in internal IT policies, security procedures, and for ServiceNow apps, should be part of your overall enablement process.
Inspire and engage your citizen developers with:
- Orientation and on-boarding activities
- Education on the Now Platform
- Learning opportunities
- Recognition
Set up a learning program to teach skills and establish standards that will let your citizen developers be active contributors to the program and add to their professional experience.
Offer:
- Official learning and certifications
- How-to reference library
- Practice environments
- Assessments
Plan for the growth of your program. While IT developers will continue their focus on your enterprise projects, your citizen developers will still need support.
Provide them with:
- Hands-on training for beginners
- Access to ServiceNow training content
- A community for knowledge sharing
- Mentors or coaches
PLAN
Governance planning
Governance is a decision-making framework that defines how ServiceNow strategy, portfolio, and technical decisions are made and who has the authority to make them.
3X increase in dev capacity
Learn how Jabil is realizing significant business value. With nearly 5K work hours saved, Jabil embraced citizen development as a service on the Now Platform.
Excel at excellence
Improve velocity and manage risk with a ServiceNow Center of Excellence and Innovation (CoEI).
Resources
Talk with an expert
Success starts here. Build your citizen development program with help from ServiceNow.