Citizen Development: What’s It About?

With digital transformation spreading just about everywhere, it enables us to simplify and automate many monotonous tasks without spending a fortune on independent developers or entire IT departments. Introducing this concept to your business allows you to kill two birds with one stone – transform each employee into a citizen developer and save business operating costs.

Citizen developer definition

It's no secret that modern companies tend to provide services online. However, having a simple website isn't enough to make your business successful. Customers want your website to be convenient, your application to be user-friendly, your chatbot to be advanced, and your support to be available to reach 24/7.

All these things require constant maintenance and development and incur high expenditures. Unfortunately, not every small or medium-sized business can afford to cover such expenses, but it's not the reason to give up on aspirations of becoming an industry leader in your segment. There is a way out in case you want to provide a top-notch digital experience for your customers and it implies introducing citizen development to your business.

Finding a clear citizen development definition may be challenging since the trend is relatively new. Here is the most detailed explanation of what this concept stands for: citizen development is the process of creating, updating, and deploying digital solutions using intuitive interfaces instead of strings of code made by people who are not well-versed in software engineering. Let's be honest, not everyone can simply start building applications using professional coding tools.

On the contrary, introducing your employees to the concept and transforming them into citizen developers allows them to utilize specialized no-code or low-code services to enhance business processes without having any specific coding knowledge. Usually, citizen development is treated as a business-oriented strategy required to bring innovation and automation to the routine tasks of a company, simplify or improve existing work processes, and increase profits.

Why the citizen development model is beneficial

The ability to create your own software for improving business operations sounds nice on its own, but let's take a look at more benefits that citizen development can bring to the table:

• Acceleration of growth. Digital solutions help to deal with tasks faster and more efficiently. Companies can focus on reaching strategic goals instead of optimizing organizational monotony or spending additional costs on marketing instead of hiring more people to handle existing tasks.
• Improvement of business capacities. It's not enough to build software; you need to test and update it according to the latest compliance policies, implement more features, etc. Citizen developers remove the burden of IT and development bottlenecks; they can adapt to new business conditions in no time. Plus, you'll spend fewer costs on operational requirements.
• Enhancement of process visibility. Most citizen development tools have advanced dashboards with multiple widgets showing current work statuses, the number of performed actions, and other features that improve collaboration between the teams, identify bottlenecks, and help find room for other improvements.
• Eliminating the burden for development and IT staff. Many companies can give their IT departments room to breathe or even avoid the need of having such departments.

Citizen developers can solve most small and medium-sized business issues. However, we need to mention that having a citizen developer on board must not be treated as a remedy for all possible technology issues. Many enterprise-level solutions still need to be managed by specialized IT-related departments.

How you can become a citizen developer

Almost anyone can become a citizen coder. The only thing you need is a will to learn. Unfortunately, there are not too many vendors offering training and courses in this sphere. Luckily, there is one wonderful platform that can provide you with access to the knowledge base that is needed to become a citizen developer totally free of charge – the airSlate Academy.

The airSlate Academy courses may have an essential productivity impact on all business employees regardless of their level of seniority. There you can find certification programs not only for citizen development but also for digital transformation, workflow automation, business process management, and many others.

Enrolling in airSlate Academy courses is pretty simple:

1. Return to the top of the page and click Enroll.
2. Register an account by entering your email address and creating a password.
3. Select the course, advance through the learning process and pass the tests.
4. Establish competencies and put your newly acquired skills into practice.

What does the airSlate Academy teach citizen developers?

The airSlate Academy's main specialization is workflow automation. It teaches people to streamline and accelerate work processes using airSlate WorkFlow – one of the most significant instruments of the no-code revolution. Using this holistic tool can help you automate repetitive tasks and document management. The service is cloud-based, so you can operate it at the convenience of your browser with no additional software downloads required. Eventually, by utilizing airSlate WorkFlow, you'll become able to get free from paper mess, manual procedures, and human errors with the help of robotic process automation (RPA) and its specialized software robots (bots) that the service offers.

Ready to transform your life and business? Join the no-code revolution, learn business automation, and become a citizen coder with the airSlate Academy now!