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Low-Code: Power to the Citizen Developer. Power to the People.

Kamna Talwar
September 6, 2016

Low-Code: Power to the Citizen Developer. Power to the People.

What the heck is a citizen developer?

Leading IT research and advisory company Gartner defines it this way:

"A citizen developer is a user who creates new business applications for consumption by others using development and run-time environments sanctioned by corporate IT."

Essentially, a citizen developer is any non-IT staff member with little to no background in computer science, but an understanding of how their business processes work who uses this knowledge to create business applications...and, they are changing the traditional structure of organizations, blurring the line between business and IT.

The rise of citizen developers is transformational for those organizations that embrace them, creatinga newfound ability to focus efforts on real innovation and respond faster to shifting business needs withoutgetting in line forIT's help in custom app development.

So what's the secret? How are these business users able to create enterprise applications without any advanced technical expertise?

Enter low-code.

Low-code platforms enable rapid application development and delivery with minimal coding. By using the simple user interface and deep functionality of modern low-code technology platforms, citizen developers can create powerful enterprise applications faster than ever and without much (if any) help from IT.

This is monumental, and it's no surprise that the citizen developer revolution has gained so much momentum. What's more? The rise of citizen developers has influenced the software industry as a whole, demanding technology be simple and intuitive for all users...not just IT.

Gartner addressed this revolution in their most recent Magic Quadrant for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites (iBPMS) report, stating that

"...to adapt to changing business needs more quickly, there is an even greater focus on making the technologies easier to use so that the citizen developer (business users and business analysts) can author solutions with minimal involvement from IT."

Further, Gartner added a new use case to the report called "citizen developer application composition," which "...focuses on the ability of the citizen developer (business users and business analysts) to build process-centric applications with minimal involvement from IT development staff."

According to Gartner, Appian which placed in the Leaders quadrant of the iBPMS report for the ninth consecutive time "...enables IT and citizen developers to construct process-centric and case-centric applications, continually improve processes, support intelligent business processes and dynamically alter processes in response to digital business moments."

Access the full report andlearn moreabout the technologies that empower the citizen developer.

Power to the citizen developer. Power to the people.

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Kamna Talwar