For long-term success with low-code, companies should focus on durability, reusability, scalability and agility.
Low-code/no-code software isn’t just here for the short term. It’s here for the long-haul, a solution to help companies increase productivity and efficiency, reduce costs and improve their bottom lines for years to come.
However, low-code is relatively new, and many companies don’t have experience with it for the long term. And that can lead to serious problems.
If you’re looking for the best way to make it work for years to come, a great place to start is the TechBeacon article, “How to make low code work long term.”
The article starts by pointing out that businesses need to understand low-code isn’t just for citizen developers: “Low code is great for professional developers, too. Armed with good low-code tools, developers can become considerably more productive, producing more applications more quickly and with fewer people.”
Of vital importance, the article says, is that companies focus on durability by recognizing that building apps isn’t just about writing the application itself. It says, “by a conservative estimate, only 10% of the work needed to deliver an application is spent on development. There are countless other critical aspects when it comes to delivering an application: requirements gathering, negotiation, tool selection, design, specifications, debugging, metrics, profiling, auditing, security, maintenance, change management, deployment, documentation, user education, IT education, and a lot more. Applications die quickly if those issues aren't addressed.”
Developers and citizen developers also need to focus on reusability, it says. And that doesn’t just mean code. The article explains, “Reusing patterns, practices, and platforms reduces analysis paralysis. Life is much easier for IT, auditors, and users if they don't have to reinvent the wheel every time a new application emerges. This means they don't have to assess, acquire, and adopt individual infrastructures to bring each new application to life. Relying on reusable tools and rules matters for businesses to be able to deliver multiple, consistent applications that follow common practices.”
Businesses also need to address scalability if low-code is to succeed in the long term. It explains: “A reusable environment is a scalable environment. If you focus on consistency and reusability, you don't have to build everything at once. Pieces of applications can emerge over time and have a truly cumulative effect. Individual activities in an overall business process can be built over time if you understand the process and can rely on the tools/techniques/training. The right planning still allows for lots of quick wins, just not chaotic quick wins.”
Finally, for the long haul, agility matters. The article warns, “Many organizations treat low code the same way they do traditional codebase efforts; namely, they focus on creating a totally perfect application the first time. That's a problem; the whole point of low code is to improve productivity, but if analysis takes just as long and the only thing that's sped up is construction, the gains are minimal.”
The article points out: “The entire DevOps movement is a response to that kind of thinking. It focuses on short development cycles, incremental releases, and continuous improvement. The world of low code should have similar priorities.
“If consistent tools and techniques are in place, it's very possible to release less-than-perfect solutions quickly and enter a continuous cycle of feedback and responsiveness.”
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