3.1 What is Low-Code?
PEO BES PMOs building custom-coded applications from scratch are faced with many challenges where developers are unable to keep pace with user demand for new capability which leads to increasing technical debt and poor application usability. Adding traditional “hand-coding” developers to overcome this technical debt dilemma creates competition for scarce and expensive developer talent which makes it difficult for BES PMO application development teams to surge staff to address capability backlogs. Thus, BES PMOs are caught in a vicious cycle:
The sheer demand for digital business services from industry and government organizations has outgrown the capability of conventional hand-coding platforms to meet the industries competitive environment and defense organizations business and mission needs. Low-code platform vendor offerings, which initially came about due to the explosion of mobile device Apps and the resulting change in consumer and (even) employee expectations, is the answer to the need to accelerate application development. BES PMOs care deeply about solving their digital business challenges with technology and fielding the right solutions to the warfighters.
Increasing demand for more software Applications (Apps) ever more quickly is the big driver of low-code acceptance by organizations. Gartner and Forrester Research assessments of leading low-code platforms reveals vendors overcoming previous limitations on organizations acceptance of low-code platform solutions by supporting hand-coding to meet customer Integration, Reporting and Business Intelligence (BI) analytical needs. Several low-code vendors have incorporated no-code functionality and tools designed for business SMEs which allow them to contribute to development projects. Their contributions range from screen and workflow prototypes to complete portions of projects.
Low-code development is defined as the ability to build apps quickly by reducing the need to hand-code. This is made possible by low-code application development platforms which a Forrester Research assessment states: “...enable rapid application delivery with minimal hand-coding; minimum upfront investment in setup, configuration, and training; and faster App deployment.”
With a low-code development platform, developers don’t hand-code an application line-by-line, they draw it visually — like a flowchart. Developers draw the business app logic, interfaces, rules, integrations, data import and all the other components that comprise running an application. This makes developing of new applications quick and intuitive. With low-code, BES PMO IT and business app users, stakeholders and app development contractors can work together - collaboratively. BES PMO Business Functional SMEs specify their idea (or need) for a new application by working with low-code developers to draw the flow chart, clicking, configuring, dragging and dropping. The low-code platform then takes that idea — the intention behind the new business app — and translates it instantly into working software.
As a low-code platform translates from intention to application, the translation process becomes an opportunity for developers to layer on extra features, automatically. For example, the application could be translated to run natively on every Apple iOS and Android mobile device. It could offer easy portability across different clouds. It could automatically incorporate best-of-breed security control features, to enable compliance with the latest and most stringent security standards. It could be engineered to run with bulletproof availability or translated with features that enable it to upgrade itself automatically and always integrate easily to other enterprise systems—making it immune to technical debt.
A strong low-code translation layer delivers all these extra features—free—for every application. With traditional development, building in these features comes with extra cost—more developers spending more time on a project. In many cases, BES PMO organizations forego the added features because the development cost is too high. In hand-coded apps, the quality of the application is a function of developer skills and time spent. With low-code, software quality is a function of the sophistication of the low-code platform selected by the BES PMO. Low-code app development and deployment is not only faster, but it results in an application that’s demonstrably more feature rich with a better user experience than one simply built with lines of code.
Delivering Apps with low-code is different from traditional hand-coding, therefore, a different process is needed to help the project team focused on doing the right things at the right time. In Section 4 - Low-Code Project Guidance, we describe how a low-code project’s process flow is optimized for delivering operational apps. Tasks and activities are described with who is responsible for: (1) product owner and stakeholder collaboration on tasks, (2) who is responsible for the work effort to complete the task, and (3) who has the final accountability for the task completion.