Citizen Development Insights

This post is the fourth in a series introducing you to elements on the PMI Citizen Development Canvas (see image below). These posts are designed to inspire you, share tips and insight, and further your knowledge and experience. I welcome your questions and encourage you to share your own stories.

In the last post, I introduced you to Business Analysis and Design. In this post, I will introduce you to Enterprise Risk Requirements. 

Enterprise Risk Requirements is the component in the PMI Citizen Development Canvas that refers to functional and non-functional requirements within citizen development projects. It is also the area where the Citizen Developer identifies and manages other inherent project risks including stakeholder and communication risks. 

In this blog, I am going to focus on stakeholder risk and the importance of identifying, engaging, and communicating with them to improve the success rate of your project. 

Stakeholders - who are they and what role do they play?

A stakeholder is a person, group, or organization that has an interest in, or will be affected by, the application being developed. Stakeholders play a key role in the citizen development process. They help the Citizen Developer capture requirements and they provide valuable feedback. Stakeholders can be huge champions, or they can stop a project in its track.

Understanding who the stakeholders are, their influence, and how they perceive the project is critical, so one of the first steps in mitigating stakeholder risk is to create a stakeholder directory. 

Stakeholder Directories

Stakeholder directories come in all shapes and sizes, but in general, the directory lists the stakeholders, their roles, their influence, and their level of support for the project. This directory is used by the Citizen Developer and squad as a reference tool as they engage with the stakeholders throughout the project. 

Stakeholder Engagement Plan

In the course of creating the stakeholder directory, Citizen Developers will also be creating a stakeholder engagement plan. This will encompass how hands-on the stakeholders will be in the project, how and when they will receive status updates, and their expectations. Some stakeholders will be heavily involved in the build and by engaging them early on, it will encourage collaboration and feedback, create a stronger solution, and help reduce the potential for miscommunication. 

Capturing Requirements from Stakeholders.

Now that the stakeholders have been identified and an engagement plan has been created, stakeholder requirements can be gathered. Stakeholders help to identify app requirements and why they’re important. These requirements are typically functional requirements pertaining to the user experience or workflows. The requirement list provides direction and focus throughout the app development and it also acts as a checklist to make sure that the requirements have been met.

In my past blogs, I have shared situations where an app was created and the problem solved and they lived happily ever after, but the following situation is about a missed opportunity and a lesson learned.

What happens when a stakeholder stops it all.

Situation: A fast-growing urban non-profit was sinking in a swamp of details they couldn’t manage anymore. The organization was led by a small executive team and run by volunteers.  There were four lines of service, each led by a volunteer.

Before: The quality of service and communication was showing signs of stress. Volunteers were working extra hours to keep up with inefficient methods.

Process: A Citizen Developer who was familiar with the organization saw the situation and believed an app could solve the chaos and help scale the organization efficiently. He presented the idea of a low-code/no-code (LCNC) app to the executive team (Enterprise Stakeholders). They liked the idea of an app and introduced the Citizen Developer to the volunteer leaders of the four lines of service. He met with each one to demonstrate a prototype and to discuss how the app could save them time and improve their service.

Three of the four volunteer leaders saw the app as a solution, but the fourth felt the expense was unnecessary. She was happy to work the extra hours to save money. She would not budge from her position and even though the executive team felt the expense was worth the saving, they bent to her wishes.

After: The Citizen Developer dropped the project. The organization and its volunteers continued to struggle and count on volunteer overtime to succeed.

Missed opportunity and lesson learned:

While the non-profit was still in its infancy and developing its structure, it had an opportunity to quickly and cost-effectively solve an operational issue that was only going to get worse. The organizational structure had no real leader which made it difficult when the solution was presented. They missed a huge opportunity. 

The Citizen Developer learned a valuable lesson. He skipped a few steps and dove right into solving the problem before fully understanding the stakeholders, their roles, and their influence. Had he spent a little more time engaging the stakeholders and listening to their concerns and pain points, he may have been able to alleviate the cost concerns with the resistant stakeholder. This was a valuable lesson to learn.

Some tips from my experience:

1. Identify the stakeholders quickly and engage them as soon as you can.
2. Communicate with stakeholders. Find out what their expectations and requirements are.
3. Listen and ask questions. Find out the stakeholder's pain points, needs, and perspective, not just about the solution, but the project in general. 

Stakeholders are crucial to the build and the ongoing success of the project. If the stakeholders aren’t supportive, you’re in for a steep climb that may not be worth the risk.

What did this post spark in you? Are you new to no-code/low-code app creation? Have you used a suitability assessment in your company? Please post your questions, comments, and stories below.

Want to learn more? Grab your copy of the newly released book Citizen Development: The Handbook for Creators and Change Makers.

Welcome to the world of citizen development.

Hello. I am glad you’re here.

Amazing things happen here in the world of citizen development. If you’ve been in it a while, you already know how incredible it is to watch an idea go from spark to screen in record time, sometimes in days or even hours. If you’re new to citizen development, get ready for a fascinating new reality.

This post is the fourth in a series, introducing you to elements on the PMI Citizen Development Canvas (see the graphic below). These posts are designed to inspire you, share tips and insight, and further your knowledge and experience. I welcome your questions and encourage you to share your own stories.

In the last post, I introduced you to the Suitability Assessment: Suitability Assessments- what are they and why are they important. In this post, I will introduce you to Business Analysis and Design.

You can learn more about the Citizen Development Canvas and its various components in the book Citizen Development: The Handbook for Creators and Change Makers.

Business Analysis and Design - what it is and why it is important

Business Analysis and Design gives you, the Citizen Developer, a crucial understanding of how potential applications will work within an organization.

With this understanding in mind, you can develop applications that are less likely to interfere with other parts of the organization. Insight into the broader impact of citizen development will also increase the likelihood of building an application that attracts organization-wide buy-in and wider adoption.

This involves the identification of stakeholders across all departments who are currently involved in the workflow and asking them relevant questions. It also involves reviewing documentation, understanding departmental dependencies, and gathering currently used documents, forms, and spreadsheets.

In some cases, processes have never been officially documented, they’ve just been handed down. In other instances, your questions and discoveries may reveal glitches or possibilities that were previously unknown.

When your app shifts the way something is done in one department, other departments can be affected, too, like it or not. Consider this ripple effect. You want your end-users to adopt the solution, so take the time to ask the right questions and gather the information you need to really understand the way work is done, by whom, and when. Giving thoughtful consideration to the wider impact of the proposed solution is at the heart of Business Analysis and Design.

Common questions in this process include:

• What are the current workflows?
• What systems (technology or otherwise) are currently used in the workflow/process?
• How has this workflow been managed in the past?
• What actions are being taken and by whom?
• Who and what will be impacted by this proposed solution?
• What are the relationships or dependencies between departments?
• Who is involved in the current workflow/process?
• What documents are being used or generated?

The answers to these questions will give you insight into the ripple effect your app will have throughout the organization. By analyzing all this information, you are better equipped to design an app that caters to the organization’s needs. 

Let’s take a look at how one company used Business Analysis and Design and the results.

Situation: A design company wanted to create an app to support and upgrade their workflow process as it pertained to ordering, proofing, and tracking signage for its clients.

The company offered full design services for onsite events. The internal departments involved were creative services, customer success managers, event managers, shipping and delivery, onsite production, and accounting.

The Citizen Developer had already gathered information on goals and pain points but realized some critical information was missing. She wanted an even deeper understanding of what each department needed and what “workarounds” had been created to meet those needs. To gain that understanding, she began by asking questions to relevant stakeholders and gathering documentation.

Before: The Citizen Developer quickly learned that the files being created and managed were large with many tabs, all containing complicated formulas and instructions. The team members were consistently modifying the spreadsheets to meet their needs and then copying and pasting data between the original and their version. This resulted in broken formulas, inaccurate data, and missing information. In addition, documents were being shared without adequate security protocols, requests, update tracking was inconsistent, and the teams spent enormous amounts of time verifying all the data and tracking the versions.

Process: The Citizen Developer collected what was considered the “original” spreadsheet template, plus many of the “modified” versions created by the different departments. Sample project timelines, forms for submitting signage requests, email and document templates (both internal and external), checklists, image samples, task lists, and various types of reports were also gathered during this process.

By collecting these documents, the Citizen Developer:

• Identified additional data points to include in the app
• Gained further perspective of user types and their needs
• Clarified proofing and approval process
• Revealed data security issues
• Clarified cross-functional workflows and dependencies
• Revealed shadow IT systems
• Uncovered outdated processes and workflows
• Identified additional stakeholders

After: As a result of this analysis, the Citizen Developer was able to design a user-friendly signage management app that exceeded the expectations and requests of the team. It became the single source of truth for all stakeholders, provided the change-tracking that was needed, and offered the appropriate user views and security. The app improved the accuracy and consistency of data entry, was mobile-friendly, and provided real-time updates. It was an end-to-end solution that was quickly adopted by all teams because the Citizen Developer took the time to listen, explore, and implement based on the findings.

Business Analysis and Design Tips:

As a Citizen Developer, I rely on the Business Analysis and Design process to discover how workflows are really working and what the team needs to do their job. This process also minimizes misunderstandings and builds user adoption.

Some tips from my experience:

• More information is better because you can always rule out what’s unnecessary. If this is a brand new process, there may not be much documentation.
• As the Citizen Developer, you will get to flush it out. Lean on the relevant stakeholders to get you what you need.
• Talk to as many people who are involved in the process as possible.
• Gather historical data to see what’s been tried in the past.

Business Analysis and Design can provide huge insights for the Citizen Developer and will prove extremely helpful when building the app.

What did this post spark in you? Are you new to no-code/low-code app creation? Have you used a suitability assessment in your company? Please post your questions, comments, and stories below.

Want to learn more? Grab your copy of the newly released book Citizen Development: The Handbook for Creators and Change Makers.

Welcome to the world of citizen development.

Amazing things happen here in the world of citizen development. If you’ve been in it a while, you already know how incredible it is to watch an idea go from spark to screen in days or even hours. If you’re new to citizen development, get ready for a fascinating new reality.

This post is the third in a series that will introduce you to elements on the PMI Citizen Development Canvas (see below). These blogs are designed to inspire you, share tips and insight, and further your knowledge and experience. I welcome your questions and encourage you to share your own stories in the comments.

I am glad you’re here.

Last month I introduced you to Ideation 2.0. This month, I will introduce you to Suitability Assessments.

Suitability Assessments - what are they and why are they important?

Is a project you’re considering suitable for a low-code/no-code (LCNC) solution? There’s an easy way to find out before you begin.

The term “suitability assessment” sounds long and drawn out, but in the LCNC world, it is a simple series of questions that can be quickly answered and rated by Citizen Developers. The questions spring from two sets of criteria:

1. Is the citizen development process the right fit for the proposed solution?
2. Does the company have the skills, tools, capacity, and buy-in to support the proposed solution?

Let’s take a look at how one company performed its suitability assessment and the final results.

Situation: A manufacturing company needed a new way to manage its vendor relationships.  A team was assembled from each of the following departments: Partner Management, Accounting, Legal, Sales, and Operations. Through Ideation 2.0, the team identified the need for a solution to track communications, interactions, jobs, invoices, legal documentation, pricing, and general services on each of their vendors. The team favored the idea of a LCNC app, but the Citizen Developer wisely decided to conduct a suitability assessment to ensure it is a good fit for the project and the company.

Before: The vendor list within the manufacturing company is growing exponentially, and each department has cobbled together workflows specific to their department. Each department stored key data about vendors without visibility across all departments, creating unnecessary silos and miscommunication. There was no single source of truth.

Process: The team performed a suitability assessment in less than 20 minutes by using two tools found in the Citizen Development: The Handbook for Creators and Change Makers. 

The first tool they used was the Suitability Assessment Scorecard. The scorecard helped the squad determine if the proposed solution was appropriate for a citizen development project. The simple scoring method was:

        YES (the statement is true): 2 points

        NO (the statement is not true): 0 points

        Neither YES or NO (somewhere in the middle): 1 point

In general, the higher the score, the better the fit for a LCNC project.

Suitability Assessment Scorecard

With a score of 13 out of 14, the Citizen Developer classified the project as one which would be suitable for a citizen development solution.

The second tool the squad used was the Environmental Check. This tool helped them assess the suitability of citizen development from a corporate perspective. These questions weren’t scored but were discussed among the team.

Environmental Check

After: The big ah-ha for the team was the answer to the question, “Is there a tool within your organization that satisfies the requirements for this solution?” Until that moment, the squad hadn’t realized their existing CRM included a module to support what they each needed. By activating the vendor module and increasing the license count for the existing tool, the team was able to efficiently meet their stated goals. With the solution already in existence, it made more sense in this situation to use the existing CRM rather than create a new app. 

Suitability assessment tips:

As a Citizen Developer, I see the opportunity to develop solutions around every corner, yet LCNC tools aren’t always the answer. My overriding passion is to equip teams with the tools to help them work more efficiently, and that’s why I run each citizen development project through basic suitability assessments before launching into development.

Experience has taught me to:

• Keep an open mind about possible solutions. 
• Ask lots of questions - how, why, when, who, what, where? Go deep!
• Understand the corporate landscape and the capacity of the LCNC tool I am using

Suitability assessments are your friend. They make sure that the projects you are working on are appropriate for the citizen development app and will fit within the organization.

What did this post spark in you? Are you new to no-code/low-code app creation? Have you used a suitability assessment in your company? Please post your questions, comments, and stories below.

Want to learn more? Grab your copy of the newly released book Citizen Development: The Handbook for Creators and Change Makers.

Welcome to the world of citizen development.

Amazing things happen here in the world of citizen development. If you’ve been in it a while, you already know how incredible it is to watch an idea go from spark to screen in days or even hours. If you’re new to citizen development, get ready for a fascinating new reality.

This post is the second in a series that will introduce you to elements on the PMI CD Canvas (see graphic below).  These posts are designed to inspire you, share tips and insight, and further your knowledge and experience. I welcome your questions and encourage you to share your own stories.

I am glad you’re here. Last month I introduced you to Hyper-Agile SDLC. This month, I will introduce you to Ideation 2.0. 

What is Ideation 2.0?

Ideation is as old as humanity itself. You know how it goes: A group gathers to come up with ideas to solve a problem or invent something new. Ideators love it; implementers get restless.

Ideation 2.0 lets the genius of both groups shine simultaneously. Ideators get to perpetually ideate and implementers get to perpetually implement. It’s a synergetic union, but how is it possible? 

It’s possible because of low-code / no-code / (LCNC) app creation. Your team spots an inefficiency and decides an app can fix it, then builds the app (often within a few days), launches the app, and continuously improves it with little or no delay, based on user feedback and more ideas.

The key differentiator of Ideation 2.0 is the real-time development of LCNC apps (built by non-IT personnel) and rapid iterations based on user feedback and requests, allowing ideas to quickly take shape and launch throughout the entire development process.

Case Story: Ideation 2.0 in Action

Situation: A security company needed to improve and secure data sharing between their dispatch and event security teams and determined a LCNC app could be the solution.

Before: The dispatcher team handled incoming requests, security issues, and scheduling security officers. The security team were stationed at various locations and provided security support at events, for VIPs, and small groups. The two teams had no efficient way of securely communicating the constantly changing incoming and outgoing information in real-time. They relied on unsecured texts, emails, and radio messages to relay updates, and each day the security team would download a PDF doc of the day’s info, which was quickly outdated.

Process: A core team of dispatchers and security officers was formed to design a secure app for data sharing between teams. Ideation 2.0 kicked off with a team idea gathering session to create a product vision board. Once that was completed, a prototype was built to specifications in 5 days using the hyper-agile SDLC process, then tested, and released to the core team for a beta test. Ideation 2.0 continued as the core team quickly returned with additional ideas, feature requests, modifications, and adjustments. The requests were implemented according to the change request process and the tool was deployed for a two-week trial for user testing in the field.   

After: The teams were trained on how to navigate and use the tool and quickly began sharing additional ideas (continued ideation 2.0) based on their team’s needs. The core team remained in close contact with user teams and saw that some of the functionality originally requested by the core team wasn’t proving helpful after all. The citizen developer updated the tool and pushed it out to the end-users quickly and efficiently. Additional ideas and features outside of the original ones were added, such as the ability to upload photos, complete required incident forms, and time tracking. This further increased the value of the tool in the eyes of the whole team.

Ideation 2.0 was part of every step starting with the core team’s initial ideas, beta-testing, two-week trial, and final survey questions. Ideators, implementers, and end-users were key to the creation and continual improvement of the app which exceeded the initial requirements and expectations.

Applying Ideation 2.0 in Your Organization

In the world of citizen development, Ideation 2.0 is not a one-time thing, it is a continuous flow of idea generation and implementation throughout development. There are many ways to gather initial ideas for an LCNC app from your team. Some are detailed on this portal and others can be found in the Citizen Development Body of Knowledge.

In the meantime, here are four suggestions as to how you would apply Ideation 2.0 to your next project:

1. Identify your stakeholders. This is critical. These are the people on the frontlines who will be most impacted by the app and will offer the best feedback and ideas.
2. Create a quick and easy way to collect feedback and ideas from your stakeholders all the way through the development process. If it is too hard, they may clam up.
3. Implement a change request that prioritizes requests, so all stakeholders feel heard.
4. Incorporate the updates and feedback as quickly as possible and notify stakeholders of the updates along with any necessary training to assist in the user adoption.

What did this post spark in you? Are you new to no-code/low-code app creation? Have you used Ideation 2.0 in your company? Please post your questions, comments, and stories below.

Welcome to the world of citizen development.

Amazing things happen here in the world of citizen development. If you’ve been in it a while, you already know how incredible it is to watch an idea go from spark to screen in days or even hours. If you’re new to citizen development, get ready for a fascinating new reality.

This post is part of a series that will introduce you to elements on the PMI CD Canvas (see graphic below). These posts are designed to inspire you, share tips and insight, and further your knowledge and experience. I welcome your questions and encourage you to share your own stories.

I am glad you’re here. Let’s begin.

An Introduction to Hyper-Agile SDLC

As citizen developers, we inevitably interact with IT. In my early days of low-code app creation (before I even knew the term “citizen developer”) I encountered resistance from our IT department. They were leery of the process, tools, and security. The resistance eased when I took the time to learn the basic framework of their process so I could do a better job of explaining the one I was proposing.

With your success in mind, I offer you two terms to learn and one case story to consider. 

Term #1: SDLC

Its full name is Software Development Life Cycle. SDLC is a familiar term in the IT world and represents the six-stage process they use to plan, create, test, and deploy an information system. Each stage can take considerable time to complete. The SDLC process is as follows:

1.           Requirement analysis

2.           Design

3.           Development and testing

4.           Implementation

5.           Documentation

6.           Evaluation

IT professionals pretty much live by this process. It’s proven, reliable, and connects all the dots in a way they have come to trust.

Term #2: Hyper-agile SDLC

This is the hyper-agile version of the Software Development Life Cycle. Same processes and same stages, but faster, leaner, and more agile. It is “an end-to-end process for developing and delivering applications by citizen developers using no-code/low-code tools,” per CDBOK.

Case Story: Hyper-Agile SDLC In Action

Situation: A marketing company was planning an in-person VIP event to launch a new product and needed a tool to enable teams to schedule and host private meetings. The existing process was cumbersome, and they wanted to replace it with a no-code app to automate scheduling, improve team communication, and capture critical data in real-time. Key stakeholders included the meeting concierge, room hosts, meeting hosts, and event meeting planners.

Before: In prior events, the planners used an Excel spreadsheet to track and organize all of the meetings. Outlook was used for meeting invites. Confirmation emails containing specific meeting details along with the full spreadsheet showing the next day’s schedule was shared with stakeholders once a day. This caused extra work for stakeholders who had to sort through all of the data to find which events pertained to them. Cutting and pasting sections of the spreadsheet became the norm in an effort to make the information accessible and viewable. The process was not mobile-friendly, and valuable event metrics were difficult to track and gather.

After: With the help of an in-house citizen developer using hyper-agile SDLC, a no-code app was built and deployed in four days. This included gathering requirements, design, basic IT testing, workflow creation, and user training. The hyper-agile SDLC build was possible due to (1) a highly engaged team who communicated clear requirements and workflows, and (2) a no-code platform that enabled the citizen developer to organize, design, and create a live app for the team to use. This platform was intuitive and user-friendly making training much quicker.

The team built the app that efficiently managed all facets of the VIP customer meetings, plus these features:

●           A mobile responsive design

●           Overall view of room availability and configuration

●           Quick search and simplified meeting request form

●           Automated booking email confirmations and notifications

●           Current and accessible master meeting calendar

●           Automatic update notifications to specific team members

●           A notes, comments, and completion confirmation section for room hosts

●           Real-time meeting metrics for the meeting planners to track how many meetings were occurring, for how long, and who was hosting

Customized dashboards were also created so each user type could view data that was relevant to them and their roles. This eliminated the need for any cutting and pasting of data and the meeting planners no longer had to wait until the end of the event to gather the event metrics.

The app was a huge win for the entire team and demonstrates how hyper-agile SDLC can be used to create a solution for a process that was full of manual input, wasted time and money, and prone to human error.

Applying Hyper-Agile SDLC In Your Organisation

If you are looking to implement hyper-agile SDLC for the first time in your company, I recommend you select a workflow that is relatively simple but provides a good win for the team. 

Here are a few other tips:

●           Look for a workflow that involves multiple manual steps that get repeated over and over again

●           Get a good understanding of the actual workflow, the challenges, and the stakeholders

●           Identify three basic requirements to fulfill with the new app and begin the design using the selected no-code/low-code platform.

Begin with a simple and minimally-disruptive workflow so the stakeholders can see the positive impact and engage with the process. This will go a long way in setting the stage for quicker adoption of future, more complex apps.

What did this post spark in you? Are you new to Hyper-Agile SDLC? Have you used it in your company? Please post your questions, comments, and stories below.