1 Enable
Start by selecting workers with in-depth knowledge of business processes who are enthusiastic, energetic and passionate about learning a new skill and improving the processes for which they are responsible – a degree of technical acumen remains a key success factor.
To encourage these employees, use a variety of methods to raise awareness such as roadshows, lunch-and-learns, stretch assignments and other talent-building opportunities. Once workers have been selected, construct training programs to provide the right level of technical skills and an understanding of internal processes and best practices. This is best done with a combination of out-of-the-box and customized in-house training. Leverage the implementation partner and in-house training teams to create repeatable, scalable training programs that meet specific needs.
A citizen development operating model can benefit from a community of practice that provides on-going mentorship and a forum for citizen developers to ask questions and share experiences. A community of practice also reinforces that while this is a citizen developer-driven effort, the program is supported by expert mentors from the RPA team.
Once the stage is set, it’s important to be patient. We have seen it take six to nine months for a citizen developer to become proficient and deliver meaningful automations at speed. The community of practice can help with on-going engagement and retention, as skilled citizen developers will be in high regard internally and at risk for poaching by competitors.
2 Govern
To successfully implement citizen development, it is important to establish clear governance and boundaries. As with any program, it’s vital to set goals, establish best practices, and track and manage outcomes. Some key considerations:
- Set guidelines on process suitability related to citizen developer skill sets. Some processes will be too complex and some applications too difficult for a basic citizen developer or even a power user to automate.
- Establish goals. Citizen developers are volunteering for an effort that adds to their regular workload, so their participation creates additional responsibility. Make the most of the investment in infrastructure, licensing and training by requiring participants to create a minimum number of automations per year. This will help citizen developers keep their skills sharp and ensure the program stays on track.
- Review and harden. Have a process and team in place to review and “harden” citizen developed automations for tasks, so they are production ready, maintainable and re-useable. A global agricultural services company that lacked such a hardening process found its citizen developed automations had a 78% success rate for schedule adherence and a 57% success rate on task completion. Once a hardening process was implemented, schedule adherence improved to 100% and task completion to 97%.
- Capture outcomes. Always be ready to share the captured value of citizen development efforts. This can include the additional bandwidth created as well as more subtle benefits such as employee satisfaction.
- Environment. Don’t forget the nuts and bolts of managing infrastructure and licenses. For example, instate process to govern bot IDs to manage total cost of ownership and maximize license utilization.
While the automation team is accountable for ensuring standards are followed; monitoring training and levels of adoption; and understanding outcomes and overall benefits, enabling a community of practice can provide significant support for these areas and lighten the load on the core automation team.
3 Sustain
- A central support team should collect and maintain reusable assets that can be made available to citizen developers through an asset store. The more citizen developers can plug and play, the more they can deliver value at speed – and the heartier their code.
- Ensure there is a process in place to review automation ideas so reusable assets are leveraged and documented.
- Review processes with production support teams so that once automations are in production, proper support can be provided.
Final thoughts
Citizen development is an opportunity to create business value by putting the power of automation in the hands of those who best know the processes they use. With the right mix of human and digital intelligence, employees can direct their time toward work that drives business results. Recognizing the value employees can bring and empowering them to help dictate how they do their work improves their productivity, keeps them engaged in the business and increases their confidence in RPA and other intelligent process automation solutions. Engagement spurs them to promote the integration of intelligent automation solutions into their own and other’s work across the organization.
While still an evolving capability, citizen development is part of the next evolution of Intelligent Automation, and we’re seeing a high demand from potential citizen developers. As more companies adopt the concept and put the power of automation in the hands of people, those that actively educate potential citizen developers about the benefits and capabilities of low-code and no-code applications will differentiate themselves as innovators, driving efficiency and enabling them to attract and retain valuable talent.
For more information, visit the IPA section of our website or contact us.
