Why the Citizen Developer Role Is Fundamental

Did you know that the citizen developer role will soon outnumber professional coders? According to Gartner, the number of employees taking on citizen development responsibilities will quickly be 4 to 1. 

The pandemic has made companies look for ways to speed up their digital transformation. Common goals are improving processes, the workplace environment, and revenue streams. Leveraging the knowledge of technically inclined employees is opening up new opportunities in these areas. 

In this article, we talked with Brian Torres, automation engineer and OpenBots Studio evangelist, about the role of citizen development in digital transformation, some challenges, and the best ways to get started.  

Watch Inside the Bot Episode: Why Citizen Development Is Fundamental to Digital Transformation 

What Is a Citizen Developer? 

Citizen development is the trend of using employees to take on RPA development projects, like automating routine office tasks that involve desktop apps and websites.    

Citizen developers are professionals with business acumen and are technically inclined.  

They’re interested in the latest gadgets and gizmos and don’t necessarily have a development background. In general, they are folks excited about what technology can do.   

Because of their personality type and interests, they want to learn new tools. This combination makes them great candidates for becoming RPA citizen developers. 

Why Citizen Developers Are Important for Business 

Development teams and citizen developers are finding ways to work together to improve business growth.  

Professional developers have years of coding experience and usually have a degree in computer science and other certifications. But, despite their skills, it doesn’t mean that they still don’t need help.   

Developers are busy building software or making new releases, which is where citizen developers can add tremendous value.   

There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that developers don’t have time to prioritize.   

Citizen developers can assist by automating simple tasks like pulling PDFs from an email or retrieving customer data on the fly from multiple applications.  

Processes like this are standard and can be automated easily using OpenBots Studio.   

Automation Software Is Easier to Use 

Not long ago, you had to have a background in hard coding, and everything was manual. Now it’s much easier to build bots with integrated development environments with low code/no code like Studio. 

Anyone who has a basic understanding of some technical concepts can get going quickly. A background in C# development is no longer a prerequisite (although it is helpful to customize commands).   

This is excellent news for a business—they don’t have to rely on a professional developer (and they may not have one available), which makes the rate of ROI much faster.   

Uncovering Inefficient Processes  

The faster adoption is also helping businesses look at their processes from the inside out.   

Citizen developers are on the ground floor and can spot inefficiencies with processes because they deal with them regularly.   

When they start mapping out a possible process to automate, they may uncover issues that affect the business or customer experience.   

Developers are more distanced from everyday processes and interact less with customers and sales teams.   

Using OpenBots Discovery will help plan out automations and uncover opportunities to improve core processes. 

Citizen Developer Challenges 

Finding the right people is key to success with citizen development.   

Automation technology is getting easier to use with low code, no code, but there is still a learning curve.  

Getting excited about using new tools is understandable. A mistake leaders make is mandating their employees to learn them without considering if they’re the right fit for it.  

Related Read: Citizen Developer RPA Challenges and Benefits  

A citizen development must have the interest and willingness to learn new technology. If they don’t have that basic desire to learn, they’re not going to do the necessary homework.  

In Studio, chaining commands together to build an automation can be straightforward. What takes the most time is understanding how to get the commands to work correctly.   

There are concepts and terminology they’re going to have to know—variables, parameters, inputs, and outputs—these kinds of things. If they’re not interested, then they’re going to get stuck.   

What Should Citizen Developers Automate? 

With automation, you can automate pretty much any task. This is exciting, but it’s also daunting. The best way is to start small.  

Simple automations involve desktop apps you use every day, like Microsoft Office Word and Excel. You can also consider web pages and other web-based applications. 

Check the RPA Academy to get more ideas. 

When you fire up Studio for the first time, you’ll spend more time familiarizing yourself with the interface than building a complex bot. 

Watch Video: How to Manage Attended vs. Unattended Bots 

Building a bot from our tutorial will ensure you are up-to-speed with the dev concepts you’ll need for more advanced automations.  

We can use automation to link and make lots of applications work together. But it’s best not to take on too much right out the gates.  

Simple and valuable should be your gauge for where to start.  

How to Become a Citizen Developer 

There are two ways to become a citizen developer.  

You can take the self-paced learning approach by watching videos at the RPA Academy. Creating a free OpenBots account gives you access to tons of tutorials and courses to help you become certified on the platform.   

If you’re looking for hands-on training with an RPA expert, the Citizen Developer Jumpstart is the best option.   

There are two paths—if you have individual goals or are a startup, Solo Jumpstart is best. If you’re a larger company and want to have your team work together, Team Jumpstart is best.   

Either option will help you get up and running with effective citizen development.   

It will take a few weeks to get started with building bots.  

The first step is mastering essential development terminology. Next is understanding how to use the core OpenBots platform—Studio and Cloud Server.  

Next is figuring out your business’s needs and what you want to automate.   

Why You Should Become a Citizen Developer 

There are many opportunities to fill the gaps in your digital transformation strategy with citizen development.   

Individuals who desire to learn about automation combined with the OpenBots zero-bot licensing platform make a perfect pair!  

Business users have the knowledge and skills to see which processes can be improved and which can be eliminated for greater efficiency and revenue.   

If you’re interested in becoming an RPA citizen developer, get started for free with an OpenBots account. If you’re looking for expert RPA training, enroll in the Citizen Developers Jumpstart!