John O’Connell, Director of Software Engineering Solutions, Expleo
In part one of this three-part blog series, I looked at the current state of play in the Generative AI arena, with a particular focus on how AI deployments can improve developer productivity. I also examined the implications of the projected shortage of four million developers by 2025, otherwise termed the ‘app gap’.
The Power of Low-code / No-code
Among thought leaders and developer productivity experts within the tech community, the use of low-code/ no-code has been heralded as a silver bullet solution to this talent shortage – enabling rapid application development without extensive coding knowledge (they can be operated by anyone, apparently). Low-code/no-code allows users to build applications or automate processes without writing traditional code, using visual interfaces and pre-built components instead. From my correspondence with clients, low-code/ no-code is very much perceived as a timely solution to some of the most pressing hiring challenges they’re facing.
Expleo’s Business Transformation Index (BTI) 2023 report provides timely insights into how firms are addressing these challenges. For example, 81% of Irish respondents said organisations need to be more embracing of low-code and no-code approaches to plug skills gaps (compared to 73% of global respondents.) Our research also found that 37% of Irish organisations intend to use low-code/no-code development platforms to broaden the number of staff involved in developing applications. In tandem with the low-code/ no-code movement, the AI community has given us chatbots that write code on behalf of developers, thus freeing up their time to do more interesting things.
My opinion on these tech breakthroughs is straightforward – they’ll make an impact as they mature. However, given the increasingly competitive developer labour market, I think that it’s fair to say that they haven’t fixed the problem yet. And perhaps they never will. At Expleo, we believe that there isn’t always a technology solution for technology problems, Agile ways of working can be an enterprise’s superpower when it comes to tackling implementation challenges and achieving engineering excellence. Let’s look at an example.
Agile Delivery Yields Tangible Gains
Expleo worked with a client who was struggling to get an application into production their team of developers had spent 12 months on the project and the app hadn’t launched. An Expleo team of developer productivity experts was tasked with building an app of comparable complexity for a similar user base. Our app went into production four months after the project initiated with our client. Was this because we used AI or no-code technology? We did, but that wasn’t the reason.
Our client’s dev team had been previously burned by an app that they built and launched into production but was widely roundly rejected by users who preferred to use their own ‘manual’ process instead. This time around, the dev team were determined not to fall at the same hurdle, so insisted on sign-off from user representatives before release to production. Every time the sign-off was requested by the dev team, the user reps suggested a change, this led to an ongoing cycle of negotiations without a resolution.
On the other hand, as developer productivity experts, our team couldn’t afford such caution. After three months, we put our ideas into production and then showed the users how we could respond to their change requests relatively quickly as the app was in use. After a month or so, the client began to see the feasibility of this approach. Agile delivery is about small increments and fast feedback loops – the benefits of which became clear to the client. What looked on the surface like a developer productivity issue was really a problem relating to the fear of change, and the solution was to use an approach that dealt with that. This ‘AI apprehension’ is quite common, and sometimes it takes a measured, methodical roll-out for clients to get on board.
At Expleo, we actively promote the use of best-in-class tooling such as AI assistants, no-code platforms and appropriate software frameworks as a way of increasing productivity and setting a new standard for engineering excellence. Based on our real-life experience in the field, we also believe that productivity will be increased by:
- Promoting best practice engineering approaches, using data to drive constant improvement and Design Thinking to increase empathy with client challenges.
- Maintaining a positive team culture (including improving team diversity).
- Ensuring developers have the required infrastructure to build, test and run their code. This means intelligent use of Cloud-based architectures.
Closing the ‘app gap’ requires the right mix of all of the above and finding the right balance isn’t easy. As developer productivity experts, Expleo has the domain expertise and deep level experience to support your business in this effort. We also offer Agile coaching, helping clients embrace a more productive and scalable developer culture internally. We firmly believe that if you get the ways of working right, a new culture of agility can emerge, leaving enterprises in a much more self-dependent state.
If you’d like to learn more about our consistent methods for testing, integration, and technology roll-out,
From Hype to Reality: Navigating the AI & Hyperautomation Era
Join live online or onsite at the Microsoft Office, Dublin
09 May 2024 l 10:00 AM, GMT+1
