“I love time-consuming, manual tasks,” said no employee ever. Why? Because they drain employee productivity and morale.
When you’re in a war for talent, it’s more important than ever to give people efficient digital experiences that automate their daily work. But most IT departments don't have the staff, the budget, the time - nor, often, the mandate - to create custom apps that streamline an individual department’s work processes.
To fill this “app gap,” companies are increasingly enlisting non-developers to build low-code applications using platforms like ServiceNow's App Engine. But just as a hammer isn't always the right tool, some business processes are more suited to low-code automation than others.
Here are several ways to identify categories and specific applications that your company's citizen developers can - and should - be creating.
Start simple
The most basic level of a low-code app might involve automating service requests that typically come via email, chat, Zoom sessions, and other venues. As an example, Gregg Aldana, global senior director of Creator Workflows solution consulting at ServiceNow, shared how a collegiate PR intern named Madison DaValle became a “surprise” citizen developer.
When she started, Madison quickly discovered how slow and manual the intake process for PR requests was. She knew there was a better way to sort and manage employee suggestions and requests for new press releases. With the encouragement of her manager, she took it upon herself to become a citizen developer. After less than six hours of interactive training, DaValle began developing her app - and three weeks later her low-code solution was completed and deployed for use in the PR department.
At the next level, says Aldana, are more complex and sophisticated manual processes and tasks being done via email or spreadsheets that require the integration of legacy systems. These processes are ripe for citizen developers to quickly automate as custom apps.
"Contract approvals is a typical type of task that I'm seeing citizen developers solve using low-code in multiple industries including healthcare and defense logistics,” he says. “It involves emailing documents and links, which somebody reviews and then sends to the next person, who edits it and sends it on.”
Look for the low-hanging fruit
One easy way to rev up your low-code program is to sic your citizen developers on obvious tasks they are eager to automate.
"One CIO I talked with started by looking around the Office of the CIO and selecting out thirty to forty time-consuming tasks they dreaded performing every week. These were laborious and inefficient processes his team wasted hours on each week managing with email and tracking status manually in spreadsheets," says Aldana.
Another CIO, Aldana recalls, began by inspecting the hundreds-deep backlog of requests for applications that didn't have high IT priority or require sophisticated developer skills, such as marketing campaign requests or lunch menu publishing applications. "These were a good match to put citizen developers to work on."
Aldana also recommends looking for existing processes that have single points of failure or can't scale as is. "If people have been requesting information or actions, particularly across departments, by making phone calls or sending email, these tasks can be automated with low-code."
Yet another low-code category, suggests Aldana, "automating existing but aging legacy processes and applications that have been using email, SharePoint and other legacy technologies. Often IT developers are asked to interface with these legacy technologies as a Band-Aid but it turns out not to be a wise investment in the long term.”
By swapping legacy functions for more efficient digital processes implemented via new low-code apps, companies find themselves with less technical debt and more efficient processes long term.
The demand for business apps isn’t slowing down anytime soon - just ask any professional developer. So when organizations match the right low-code platform with the right people and processes, it’s a game-changer for employees, IT, and the business as a whole.
