Training the Citizen Developer for Organizational Success

Citizen developers are employees with little or no IT skills who create online applications and mobile apps using approved point-and-click app builder tools. According to Gartner's (an IT consulting firm) research, by 2025, over 70% of organizations will use citizen-developed applications. According to Mendix's (another IT consulting firm) 2021 survey of 2,025 IT professionals in six countries, in organizations that use no-code/low-code platforms, 56% of employees use citizen-developed apps. Thirty-three percent of organizations surveyed use citizen-developed apps for mission-critical operations. In addition, No-code/low-code projects reduce software application costs by 53% while delivering the applications 56% faster than traditional software projects.|

Many citizen developers are skilled in business analysis, marketing, or business strategy. They have excellent critical thinking skills and analytical skills. However, citizen developers can be more effective if they acquire design thinking, agile project management, and product development/management, collaboration, customer education, and stakeholder management skills. My presentation will describe how to build a capabilities academy focused on essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes to help citizen developers create and deliver valuable no-code/low-code digital applications.

Learning outcomes:

Participants will be able to explain why a formal training program is necessary for the organization’s citizen developers.
Participants will describe the key knowledge and skills the citizen development training program will give citizen developers.
Participants will demonstrate how to build a Citizen Development Capabilities Academy for their organization.