Sustaining Citizen Development beyond the Hype

Demystifying Enterprise Innovation

Key Takeaways

Process Improvement & Matt Hubbard's Intro 00:00—06:06

• “Never automate a crappy process, unless it’s your goal to produce crap faster.”
• It can be tempting to jump straight to the tech without first considering the process.
• Matt's Background (03:09)
• If the process and technology aren’t harmonized to support each other, the results can be poor
• I Love Lucy: Chocolate Factory (Example) (04:03)

Citizen Development 07:05—08:27

• TrackVia is a platform for building apps.
• Using an LCNC platform at scale can be a competitive advantage, but it must be approached in a wise fashion
• The Citizen Development framework and best practices allow customers to grow with LCNC safely and effectively
• Citizen Development is like a box of Legos

Matt's Citizen Development Journey 09:32—19:30

• Matt's problem-solving nature
• The failed software project
• Matt's first experience with LCNC

Citizen Development at Scale 21:37—34:18

• How to move from enjoying pockets of success to creating sustainable cultures of CD innovation?
• “Dabbling is easy, scaling is hard” – Dave Garrett, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, PMI (22:11)
• Hired by TrackVia to bring process excellence and CD to our customers
• Started to design my own CD program for operating at a scale
• Discovered PMI’s CD framework and went all-in with PMI (25:17)
• PMI's Maturity Model of Citizen Development (32:01)

Advice to Get Started with Citizen Development 35:08—42:17

• Advice for those who want to start a CD program at their company (35:58)
• Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast (37:03)
• Begin with “Discovery”
• Don’t overthink it --- do it, experiment, learn
• My approach with my CD students (40:10)

Quotes

So I often preach, never automate a crappy process unless it's your goal to produce crap faster.

As Benjamin Franklin said, Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.

It's important to think through processes before flipping the automation switch.

Citizen Developers are, they are problem solvers. If you are one who is okay with the way things are today, you like coming in, doing your job, checking the box, and going home, then I would probably say Citizen Development is not for you.

I thought, why can't we do that with business applications? Why can't we have a platform that already exists, like the home console for Atari?

Process problems and system problems are kind of ubiquitous. They kind of exist at every company. And, this app-building platform, which would later be categorized as low code, no code was back in play. And to make a long story short, I started learning the platform and building my own apps. I'm not a coder; I'm a process person.

I think one of the reasons why it didn't scale for me is that I didn't approach Citizen Development in partnership with IT and executive leaders.

I have a mantra that I followed when I ran my consulting business and I adhere to it today, and it's called Think Big, Start Small Scale Fast.