Ever since organisations started pushing employees to “program” macros into Excel, the idea of “citizen developers” has taken root. On one level, there’s a lot of sense in it – why force software tools and processes onto employees across multiple departments, assuming they all work the same way? Software has always needed tweaking and where possible can be manipulated to be more relevant to certain tasks. As the old saying suggests, there really is no one size fits all when it comes to application development, but that hasn’t stopped the industry from trying.

So, the idea that employees can take some sort of control over the tools and services they use is an interesting one. A lot has already been made of low code/no code application development, or citizen development, but has the hype been misplaced? It is the sort of thing that gets developers rolling their eyes. The suggestion that low code/no code can empower employees to deliver quick apps has some merit but it’s not the full story.