3 ways of making no-code work for enterprise
Many of the enthusiastic stories about no-code platforms are about people building a single solution for a start-up or a smaller organisation. Making no-code work in an enterprise environment however, is not as easy as building a no-code app. The potential benefits of being able to build solutions faster and empowering business users to create apps, often fail to be realised fully.
The typical challenges of larger organisations around integration, governance, security and processes impede much of the expected outcomes. With the proper approach to no-code your process automation can be implemented a lot faster against significantly lower costs.
A centre of enablement for no-code and well designed operating model can help you make a good start. But how should those be set up? To answer that question, you need to decide first on what kind of no-code implementation you need.
We’ve experienced that there are three distinct approaches that can be followed, that each have their own benefits and drawbacks.
- No-code factory
- Citizen developership
- Citizen developer factories
Although the models above can be combined, the choice you make will not only determine how you must set up your operating model, but also which no-code platform is appropriate for you.
Let’s have a look at the models first.
No-code factory
In the factory model design, development and maintenance is all executed by a separate team of developers. Similar to regular software development, the team can be an external resource form a an IT supplier. The only difference is that solutions are being built with no-code tools. There are of course the benefits of much faster development and deployment. And, because most no-code platforms are fairly easy to learn, recruiting developers is much easier.
All the difficulties of regular software development are still there however: limited understanding of the use case in the team, limited understanding of technical constraints by the sponsors, overflowing backlogs… all the friction that is the result of the gap between development and business. And without proper governance and (data) integration patterns you still risk to end up with even more complexity in your IT landscape. With the factory model you keep a lot of control, but usually without large scale acceleration, and it will not take pressure away from your IT.
Citizen developership
On the other end of the scale from a separate factory we have citizen developership. This model is what is usually envisioned when talking about no-code. Business users automating their own processes with easy to-use no code platforms. The core idea for enterprise, is that you see no-code as a standard capability of your employees. Empowering them to solve issues as they arise. Everyone is allowed to acquire the necessary skills and, providing that they work according to guidelines, can create business applications.
Because your business users are also the ones that build the solutions, this generally gets the right solutions for the most pressing challenges. This approach works well if a few conditions are met:
- Clear boundaries and guidelines are in place
- Training and support is provided
- Data sources are easily accessible and well managed
- Ownership is clear
- The complexity of the solutions is low
Of course the first four these conditions are a good thing for any software development team, but when you have dozens or even hundreds of active citizen developers, they become an absolute necessity. Citizen developership can help you accelerate your digitalisation, but without a functioning centre of enablement for no-code, it may well end up in a mess.
Citizen developer factories
With this model you still work with citizen developers, who develop apps in addition to their regular tasks. The difference is that instead of enabling everyone, you set up small citizen developer teams for each department. This allows you exercise more control over the nature and the quality of the apps that are being created. At the same time you still have have the benefits of close integration of use and creation of the solutions that are being made.
These citizen developers need to have a designated amount of time for development though, and on top of that they should be trained and supported by professionals.
Making no-code work in an enterprise environment however, is not as easy as building a no-code app. The potential benefits of being able to build solutions faster and empowering business users to create apps, often fail to be realised fully.
Picking a model
Each of these models could work well for you, depending on your goals and circumstances. Combinations of each of the approaches can also be successful. For instance letting your more complex apps built by an external factory and simple ones by citizen developers.
Whichever model you choose, we see that having a good operating model, clear boundaries, strong governance and support structures are the prerequisites for success.
If you’d like to learn more about no-code implementation or how to set up your centre of enablement, feel free to reach out to us.
