Due to new technologies and changing demands, it is becoming increasingly difficult for IT companies to find the right employees and to successfully implement projects on a team. Terms like DevOps, IoT, Design Thinking, and agile teams are on everyone’s lips. But how are these terms implemented in everyday life and perhaps more importantly: How are teams that work according to these principles assembled? Advanced methods such as Low-Code technology do provide the technical basis, but of course the software applications must then be optimally implemented.

The goal is professional software development, but usually without specifications. Due to budget requirements or time restrictions, there is often hardly any project lead time and programs sometimes have to be implemented within weeks, instead of months or years. The Low-Code method helps companies as a whole to become much faster, more flexible, and more efficient. The software stack of a company’s specialist departments must constantly ‘learn’ and become more and more efficient. Because today’s computers are not yet self-learning enough for this, people who can keep improving the software are needed. And these people are the Low-Code developers working in these departments.

What can a Low-Code developer do?

Low-Code developers, and fortunately increasingly female Low-Code developers, are usually not developers in the classic sense. He or she does not necessarily have to be able to program and is nevertheless a professional developer who builds professional and demanding applications with the help of the software platform.In addition to basic IT skills, a variety of soft skills are required. Since Low-Code projects are implemented much faster and with less man-power, flexibility, adaptability, and teamwork are required. They work directly with the users of the software, so openness and multi-tasking are also of great advantage. Low-Code developers ultimately fulfill several functions simultaneously: They are their own project managers, requirements engineers, and front and back-end developers.

What is the make-up of a Low-Code team?

Independent Low-Code teams are responsible for the rapid implementation of digitalization ideas in the specialist areas. They are either located in the specialist departments or directly in IT, but clearly separated from the IT core systems in that case. Low-Code teams are recruited from IT specialists, IT-savvy specialist users, and all sorts of newcomers. A typical grouping has an IT specialist working alongside four non-IT people, i.e. the citizen developer or newcomer.

This ensures that sufficient IT knowledge is available, which is supplemented by numerous other types of qualifications and skills.

Composition of the Low-Code team: 1 IT specialist with effective programming knowledge + 4 non-IT people with diverse qualifications

When establishing a Low-Code team, a few things should be considered. If you’re integrating classic software developers into these teams, you run the risk of insufficient acceptance of the new methods. In the absence of rapid success early on, support for other areas, especially other IT areas, could also start too slowly. It may thus be necessary to get help from real Low-Code experts. This does not mean that the entire project will be outsourced. At least at the beginning, but possibly also in the long term, you should plan on a certain amount of external support.

Mixed teams are of tremendous advantage in every respect, since they offer flexibility in their composition, as well as the possibility of deliberately selecting the expertise and team members: your own employees meet external employees or freelancers, who bring in-depth IT knowledge, technical know-how, or industry expertise along with them.

In any case, attending a training course is not enough. It may only take a single week to learn the key operating functions of a Low-Code platform, but it takes a lot more time to fully understand the mindset that underpins it. And coaches are needed who know how to tackle a task in such a way that Low-Code technology can fully show its strengths. If you just put a few IT people together and hand them the new tools, you are not building lighthouses; instead you’re more likely to run aground because without these lighthouses there’s no one there to show the way.