How to Cultivate a Citizen Developer?
Original article: https://cli.im/article/detail/2070
Over recent weeks, I've noticed numerous articles in trade publications about the growing demand for citizen developer positions. Moreover, corporate websites and recruitment platforms are flooded with related job postings, creating the impression that every organization wants to hire a citizen developer.
This puzzles me.
Frankly, I have many questions when discussing hiring external candidates for citizen developer roles. What specific skills should this position require? What capabilities define a qualified candidate? Does this role demand a four-year college education, or could someone complete six months of training instead?
By definition, citizen developers are individuals who understand business processes and can leverage tools to solve problems. Regardless of their department, they should possess deep knowledge of internal team workflows. This constitutes their core value: they know how processes should function and how to optimize them.
So how can organizations hire external candidates with this specialized operational knowledge? Citizen developers should emerge from within an organization's existing workforce, not be recruited externally.
Logically, citizen developers always originate internally. External candidates cannot possibly possess the profound understanding of an organization's unique operations. Therefore, the first challenge for managers is identifying potential citizen developers – specifically, finding employees who are both process experts and enthusiastic about improving workflows through digital tools.
Some employees may simply meet daily requirements and clock out without deeper engagement. These individuals typically lack the imagination and drive to become citizen developers. Suitable candidates will demonstrate initiative, constantly proposing process improvements. When asked if they'd like to use no-code platforms to build solutions for their ideas, they'll respond with enthusiastic agreement.
Citizen Developers Can't Be Poached
Over time, you'll identify ideal citizen developer candidates within your organization.
When dealing with network engineers or programmers, we worry about talent poaching because competitors might target these high-value employees. However, citizen developers are immune to this threat. Unless another company operates identically to yours, the applications they develop won't transfer to other organizations. You can confidently invest in citizen developer training, knowing they'll keep enhancing their capabilities.
How Do We Cultivate Citizen Developers?
Once identified, you can develop citizen developers through multiple approaches:
Process Optimization Training: Focus on system analysis and business process improvement. Help them understand organizational workflows, optimization strategies, and the relationships between inputs, processes, and outputs. Essentially, cultivate experts who can design and implement optimized processes.
Platform Selection: Choose an appropriate no-code/low-code platform (domestic options include Tencent WeDa, Mingdao Cloud, and CaoLiao QR Code). This decision typically falls to IT managers rather than citizen developers themselves.
Platform Training: Train selected developers on the chosen platform. Most no-code platforms use intuitive graphical interfaces requiring no coding – simple drag-and-drop operations suffice. This allows citizen developers to focus on business logic rather than technical complexities.
Time Investment: Dedicate time to discuss business requirements with citizen developers. Listen actively to their insights. As they begin implementing solutions, you'll quickly see returns through time savings and efficiency gains – benefits that will compound over years.
About the Author
Howard M. Cohen is an IT technologist, content creator, and senior results-driven professional with over 40 years in information systems. Having held executive positions at top channel partner organizations, he currently contributes to multiple IT publications.