Low-Code No-Code - How to Evaluate
The Measure of Intelligence is the ABILITY TO CHANGE
This white paper is more of an evaluation guide which can help you evaluate a low-code no-code platform before you jump. Simple user stories have been provided to help you understand better. If you are planning to implement a low-code no-code solution in your business, then this white paper can add value. I have taken a 360 degree approach from all directions to ensure that you don’t hit a wall sooner or later after implementing a low-code no-code platform. You can reach out to me at shajee.l@perazim.io if you have any questions.
We live in an ever changing world. Nothing is permanent in this world other than change itself. Things evolve and there are changes that happen to accommodate the evolution. So is the case with technology. Technology gives people a platform to innovate and to realize their creative being. However, technology by itself has not stopped changing, they evolve day by day and we are forced to catch up without any choice. One such evolution of technology of late has been the much hyped low-code no-code.
What is Low-Code
There are different views, opinions and explanations given to low-code and no-code. Some even argue that low-code has been there for decades. The simple explanation for a low-code is that - in order to bring up your application to a usability point, you will have to write some (low) codes - these codes could be for anything - business functions, database persistence, microservices, service provisioning etc. - and it all depends upon the vendor. Inevitably therefore, you will need developers to do this job for you.
What is No-Code
As opposed to low-code, in no-code, you don’t write any code to bring up your application to a usability point. The platform offers capabilities for you to easily build business functions. You are required to write only excel-like formulas for your expressions and rules. Therefore, you do not need pure developers to do the job - rather, you deploy the end business users who are experts in the domain, or the citizen developers to build applications. The citizen-developers are not programmers - they are all-rounders with good common sense. This has a huge benefit because the business can get the application done exactly the way they want it without the involvement of any highly paid middlemen, and the noise that goes inside the entire ceremony.
To Code or Not To Code
The answer to whether to code your application or to bootstrap your application with low-code, no-code entirely depends upon the type of application you are building. Even with low-code no-code, there will always be edge cases where you need to hand write the codes for a very narrowed down functionality - and you need developers to do this job. This function however should be integrated with your low-code no-code platform through api’s. Bottom line is, if you choose low-code, you will need a team of developers, and if you choose no-code, you will need non-programmers to do the majority of the work and a couple of developers to write the narrowed down function.
Marketing Hype
The word low-code no-code has got too much hype today. When Gartner research indicated that by 2024, 65% of applications will adopt low-code no-code, everyone started (mis) using this jargon for their marketing. A company which does mere form automation calls them low-code no-code. There were companies which were doing workflow automation in the past and with the arrival of this new buzzword, they changed their marketing tag line to low-code no-code platforms.
Today when you search for no-code low-code, you see many of them. Extensive marketing tactics are being adopted to propagate their tool to the world around the low-code no-code tagline. The question is whether the product really solves your problems. Therefore, one shouldn’t be swayed by the marketing picture, and rather deep dive, analyze and ensure whether the tool can really solve the potential problems you have in hand - that too in the longer run. If you do not deep dive, you will definitely hit the wall someday because, there will be no alternative. You will be compelled either to live with it, or to alter your business based upon the tool.
LCNC Tool Vs LCNC Platform
While the crux of low-code no-code could be applied in pieces - for example form building, workflow automation, integration etc, what benefits you most is a complete platform. A platform is an abstraction over all the tools and functions that you need to build something to a usability point. A low-code no-code platform is a self-sufficient tool by itself to support you to build, operate and maintain your applications. It’s a wrapper around the grand scheme of things that you need to build.
More often, people find it hard to differentiate between a low-code no-code tool and a low-code no-code platform. The tool is just to solve a small piece of the puzzle - UI or form building for example. And, whereas, a platform is for solving your entire problem. Moreover, the build-publish methodology can work only for trivial or small scale apps. If you are building a fairly complex and large application, then the build-publish model will not help you in the longer run. You will soon run into many problems. There has to be a development process, someone responsible and in-charge, someone driving and directing the build process. All of these functionalities are the core functions that are expected out of a low-code no-code platform.
What Should You Expect From an Ideal Platform?
In order to be hyper productive, the capability to ‘just build-publish’ alone would not suffice. As mentioned earlier, the just build-publish methodology is only good for a trivial and simple app. For serious business applications, there is a lot that the platform should offer - as it should be a layer of abstraction around all the functions that is needed to build an application.
The typical process of software development begins with the story telling, the gathering of requirements, analysis and understanding of the problem at depth. Sometimes POC’s are required to be done just to ensure the viability of the idea. The design and the architecture of the application is made considering the end usability of the application . A plan and a timeline is put together in place, milestones, stories and tasks are made and allocated to people. Moving on, a team of people start doing the build, with someone taking the lead role and the responsibility. People often meet, discuss and learn during the course of the engagement. Lot of things get documented at various levels. The developers start to cook and then the requirements undergo changes, a lot of things which are done undergo an undo, and then a redo. Finally, after multiple iterations the product evolves. This has been the typical evolution theory in building software applications since ages and this will never change.
Keeping the above process in mind, a good platform should wrap around all the functions listed above and facilitate the process. This will give enormous benefits to the organization in terms of cost, time and hyper productivity. The implementation of changes will be so easy and it could be done within days. There won’t be any need for experienced and costly developers to build the application. The business users or people with common sense will be able to write large scale applications with ease.
What Problems Should A Low-Code No-Code Platform Solve
A low-code no-code platform should technically solve all the problems that you could do with codes. It should also bring in innovative ways of solving the other aspects that go around the technology. When you build software applications, it’s not just codes and technology you deal with. You need project management facilities, efficient documentation capabilities, collaboration, automation of testing, command and control over the process, transparency, avoiding shadow-IT, microservice based development and deployment, abstraction layer around the variety of databases that we have today, capability to measure the output of the developers, instrumentation capabilities etc. There is a lot of scope and room to innovate.
Pros and of Low-Code No-Code
Limitations of Low-Code No-Code
The low-code no-code market is evolving and many people have started to solve it in some or other way. But there are limitations with the low-code no-code tools available today. If you do a google search on the limitations of low-code no-code, you will see many articles written. Of the many limitations mentioned, lack of ability to customize the app you are building is something which we need to be very careful about. Vendor lock-in is another issue being highlighted. However, if the platform gives you the liberty to build the applications without any limitations, the way you want to, then this lock-in becomes a life saver for you in many ways.
When you take low-code no-code, you need to look beyond and analyze what happens down the line. Your business and its functions will undergo changes and that is for sure. How well is the tool going to help you in the future? - this needs to be carefully analyzed and understood before you decide. This is very important because, if you hit a wall, there is nobody who can help you, you will have to re-create your application from scratch either by codes or with another low-code no-code provider - which could again repeat the same history.
If you are planning to use no-code low-code just for solving a piece of a puzzle, it may not be most rewarding to you. It becomes just like any other library for you and you need to have a separate team to work on it. Also, finding suitable replacement to work on the same tool is going to be very tough. If for any reason you are thinking of replacing developers with a low-code no-code just to keep the cost low - please think twice. If the tool leads you to the wall, then the loss is going to be much more than what you would have paid to the developers to get it hand written.
With a low-code platform, if you need developers to do the job, how well can low-code work over a SaaS model? It’s not simple and straightforward. There are challenges involved if the offering has to run as a service in the cloud. If you are a B2B, B2C and B2B2C service provider, a low-code may not efficiently solve your or your customers/consumers' entire business problem - just because you need to write codes to bring up your application to a usable state.
With no-code, there are implementations available today that come with pre-built interfaces and functions. All you have to do is drag and drop them - although these are focused towards a specific use case, however, from a generic platform perspective, they are limitations. If the user has to do something more on the pre-built function provided, or, if he wants to alter it in some way to suit him best - it’s a challenge. It is very important that no-code platforms get around this problem and solve it in a way best suited for ever changing requirements.
Benifits of Low-Code No-Code
Low-code no-code is still an emerging technology. With an efficient no-code platform, you can save more, you can become hyper productive and it will help you to alter your processes and tools very quickly. Your investment in technology and expert techies will come down. Above all, your operations will be smooth.
Low-code no-code will be the future of development. Down the line, it is quite possible that the standards for low-code no-code platforms get formalized and vendors can bring in their implementation confirming to the standards. It then becomes easy to switch vendors. Although this might not seem to happen in the near future, the possibility of such standards coming up cannot be ruled out given the advantages these platforms are potentially capable of offering.
With total abstraction, you can treat every artifact as first class citizens. Your user interfaces, the data models, the processes, the testing capabilities - all of them could be abstracted and promoted as first class citizens in development.
The cloud based Lambda functions are very helpful for developing narrowed down functionalities. You can invoke a lambda function in response to events in your applications. With the integration capabilities of the low-code no-code platforms, the lambda functions can blend well with the whole equation.
How to choose right Low-Code No-Code Platform
As a business owner, I should be able to build my applications composed of microservices as I want to scale, keep services independent and benefit from all the architectural benefits of microservices. I want all the elements of the microservice to be independent - including the database.
As a business owner, as I build my applications with a variety of database(s), I should have the capability to talk to all the databases in one simple, common way - without having to know about the different query languages or the internals of the database.
As a business owner, I want to store a few super super secrets of my company inside one of my microservice and I want that service and the database to sit inside my office where nobody else can have access to it - so that I can guard my sensitive data from someone accidentally accessing it in the cloud.
As a project owner, I want proper release management so that I can plan the services, milestones, stories and tasks for that release.
As a project owner, I need my application to run in different environments like dev, test, stage and prod. I should be able to access these environments through the tool.
As a project owner, I need the capability to create roles in the application so that I can assign the roles to the people who would use the application.
As a business owner, I need the capability to create features so that I can pack them inside a release and publish.
As a project owner, I want the access privilege at the feature, page down till the component level so that I can configure them against the roles and assign the roles to users.