The media that surrounds hyped new technology, follows a well-defined playbook. Take Blockchain, there was a period when it seemed like every day we were reading about the next great new use-case. NFT’s have been going that way, and now low/no-code is too.
The issue is not whether the technology could be applied to this use-case or that, it’s whether it should be. In many cases there is a much less radical (and less exciting perhaps) solution to the problem that is overlooked.
The referenced article is just one example of another use-case for low/no-code but there are 100’s of others. The problem is stated as:
… “80% of development needs remained unfulfilled” …
… “Most upper management and middle management executives believe that 40% or more of requests to IT are backlogged due to conflicting priorities and constraints” …
… “Most of the managers of midsized firms stating 60% or more of their departments requests to IT remain unfulfilled due to time budget and other constraints” …
The solution stated is low/no-code, which is implying that the development teams are 100% efficient and we are out of ideas, so the only cause of action is to introduce a completely new approach using citizen developers, trained on expensive new tools.
Looking more closely there are at least 4 possible root causes to the problem:
1: The development teams are inefficient, 2: The development teams are understaffed, 3: Not everything on the book of work is actually needed, 4: All of the above are false (as the article implies).
If we listen to Occam (of Razor fame), you are not going to pick #4.
#2, if true is tough to solve given global staff shortages and competition for tech talent and #3 is the thorniest of organizational issues, cross – stakeholder prioritization.
But what about #1? Developer productivity is notoriously hard to measure but based on circumstantial evidence alone, you would be hard pressed to argue that the speed of software development over the last 20 years has been any other than underwhelming. Surely this is the most obvious stone to turn next.
Low/no-code, like other tech innovations that have gone before it, absolutely has its place (which is why it’s hyped about) but putting it on a pedestal and trying to use it where it shouldn’t be, will do neither problem nor solution any favors.
Link to the original article here.