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Code-free Maverick is a publication that focuses on promoting "Citizen Development" through No-Code/Low-Code platforms to deliver value in building products or services with the lens of software development, design and product management.

#14 - When Should I use No-Code/Low-Code for this Project?

Upskillcycle

Mar 9, 2023

Introduction

A professional makes everything seem easy. So the million-dollar question should you use low-code/no-code tools? The answer depends on the situation. We got to understand the use of low-code/no-code tools as well as technology, in general, has to provide business value. By reading the various studies or ways to apply low-code/no-code.

We can take appropriate actions on what we should look for. We can learn to make judgement calls on areas that make sense to use low-code/no-code platforms.

This allows us to divide our time and resources into relevant projects that we can free up our development team to focus on higher value projects that require their deep technical knowledge and expertise that makes business sense.

Is the Project Complex?

For most non-tech-trained individuals or people from the business domain, I find that they may assume that a particular feature or tech is easy to implement and create with enthusiasm because we are technical. Some may even think that a Low-code/No-code platform is a silver bullet in their application development woes.

I blame this on myself and other tech instructors for emphasising technical training. Instead, we should look at the importance of storytelling or presentation to explain technical issues in a way that is easy or digestible for non-technical & business people to understand.

Therefore i would advise that you bring a developer on board for the low-code/no-code team as an advisor or part of the team member to break down the requirements and make a judgement call.

They could also be able to become a champion for reducing the project scope for low-code/no-code platforms. Here are some questions that can reduce a project from becoming complex:

Does this project require extensive integration of existing tools used in the organisation?
Are there multiple moving parts for this project?
Does the project require more than a team of 3-4 individuals or above to implement it?
Is there a need for specialised individuals with skillsets for software developers to build the software?
Can we think of a way in reducing the complexity, time and scope of work?

Is there a Need to Reinvent the Wheel?

I believe are tons of developers who will share that they dislike reinventing the wheel. They prefer to focus on solving difficult problems than reinventing the wheel. Therefore if your project is reinventing the wheel, I would suggest the use of a low-code/no-code platform before having your software development team on speed dial to build a piece of software.

If you do not know the project you are in is reinventing the wheel. You can ask a developer in software development with some experience in using low-code/no-code tools in their belt to figure out if this makes sense for them to work on it.

If you get the answer that this feels like grunt work and they can just use another low-code/no-code to get the job done. I would strongly advise you to consider that approach unless it makes sense for stakeholders and the development team to build it in-house.

What are the Budget and Resouces Available For the Project?

Part of the reason you might want to go for low-code/no-code tools is that you are looking at prototyping a specific feature for a new product/service.

With that in mind, the focus will always be on gathering feedback and rapidly creating a prototype in a manner that is thrown away with another different version after each feedback session.

When the prototype reaches a mature stage through constant feedback and multiple prototypes. The next phase will be the use of additional resources to create software that can last for 1 to 2 years that fulfil the current and future needs of the user in that particular time horizon.

Conclusion

In summary, I would suggest using low-code/no-code tools as part of your toolbox to build software. Instead of avoiding treating every project as a hammer's job when your only trained with a hammer.

Always bring a software developer who had some experience using low-code/no-code solutions to give you a rough answer if using low-code/no-code platforms makes sense.

Always never seek to reinvent the wheel instead look at case studies or other companies in the industry who had used low-code/no-code platforms to create software projects. This will better prepare your team for creating a software project using low-code/no-code platforms.