Rise of the Citizen Developer

Abstract

A worldwide shortage of developers has made low- and no-code platforms important and necessary. This paper investigates the use of these platforms in organizations, along with the role of workforce automation tools. A survey was conducted to find out how prevalent low- and no-code platforms and workforce automation tools are within companies. These platforms are used by citizen developers, employees who are working outside of the Information Technology (IT) department and are not professional programmers. With low- and no-code platforms citizen developers can create the applications that are needed by their work units or even their entire organizations. These platforms are seen as key to the demands of digital transformation. The results of this study are that companies both large and small are making use of low- and no-code platforms, as well as workforce automation tools. In addition, the majority of organizations have employees outside of the IT department who are creating technology solutions. The broad implication of this research is that citizen developers using low- and no-code platforms to create technology solutions may be the solution to the current shortage of developers. By using low- and no-code platforms, the citizen developer can create the applications that the manager needs for their team. This increases the technology available to the organization while at the same time reducing the pressure on the IT department.