Choosing Low Code or Traditional Code for Solutions

Part 3 – The Decision Levers – A top Level Look

In the past two articles (A day in the life of a Decider – Intro to the choices and Low Code/No Code and The Starting Point), we helped set the stage for the decisions by getting an understanding of the main choice of going traditional code vis-à-vis Low Code/No Code and understanding why it matters more now than it did in the past since the latter has been around for a while.  This last part is covered in the last two posts for this series as I talk about the top-level levers and to which I will follow up with some details on one of the key aspects that perhaps all are waiting to get to: Return on Investment or ROI.

Main Lever 1 – Organization Culture towards Low Code

For this area, I usually look for signs as to how the organization would take a solution of any kind, including no code.  Resistance from the heart (the “culture”) can make or break any kind of adoption choice.  Culture is bottom up, top down, all around or not found but certainly important to peer into as it potentially selects even the specific technologies. 

If I see low code usage in place with decent acceptance (yes, that includes heavy use of Excel or MS Access as an example) then it becomes a more easily proposed approach.  Likewise, if it is a Dev Shop that thrives on building the products for Developers, perhaps not so much. 

Difference organizations will have their own flavors and combinations of what is acceptable or not, but organizational culture notwithstanding, the stance of a central IT group in regard to acceptance can override this area instantly which is effectively saying that Governance is a strong enough part of the culture as well.

Resistance from the culture is, technically, a “cost” and something for our final part of the series.

Main Lever 2 – Where the Organization’s Data and Content Live

In our first post, we noted that the tools for Low Code are typically SaaS (Software as a Service) based, unless this is part of a true digital transformation, the choice of tools, frameworks, and platforms are significantly impacted as it will either be a straightforward “use this connector we provided” situation or a “we need to set up the infrastructure” that will need traditional code anyway. 

There still may be Low Code No Code happening but the expectation should be set that there will be some effort to get there.  When data needs to move or be viewed outside of its domain, all the issues from security to compliance to size come into play with any shortcuts considered delicate and vulnerable points with unforgiving consequences. 

There is also potential “resistance” from this aspect as well but as noted in the previous lever, should be counted as a cost and part of the discussion.

Main Lever 3 – Is there ROI?

So truly, at the end of the day, it is, indeed, all about the metrics to which money is just a physical construct of a favorite and well-known measure.  There are volumes of information on how to estimate costs accurately or at least quickly at every level that has practically gone into the realm of quantum powers to calculate with complete assurance. We will not debate those methods here but suffice to say that any normal assessment of a solution should consider the idea of value, specifically the business value of the act of doing the work. 

It can come in the form of a scenario base question such as: “If we take a manual process that takes 10 minutes and makes it 1 minute and this happens 200,000 times a month, how much are we saving?”

The trite example certainly simplifies a calculation but for all the methods out there, the common theme is to eliminate as many variables as one can and reduce problems to their lowest denominator.  Whichever method is chosen, the goal should remain the same.

To that end, the concluding article to the series will delve into some accelerated points to get us to the big decision lever and to conclude our discussion.