We’re All Programmers Now

Citizen development, if executed aggressively and carefully, could change the relationship between employees and organizations. Information technology has historically involved builders (IT professionals) and users (all other employees), with users being relatively powerless operators of the technology. That has often led to a struggle by IT professionals to meet users’ needs in a timely fashion and has created communication problems among technical experts, business leaders, and application users. Citizen development has sparked a new era in which employees not only improve or streamline their own processes and tasks but automate them entirely.