The 7 must-see Mendix World 2.0 videos.

This year, I took part (virtually) in the world’s biggest Low-Code event: Mendix World 2.0, wearing both my IT governance consultant and TOCnDix Product Manager hats.

The online conference was instructive and inspiring in many ways. Allow me to share with you here my seven valuable lessons learned from Mendix’s latest large-scale online event.

Our perspective on Mendix World 2020 – version 2.0

The conference was attended remotely by almost 4,000 participants, including software engineers, business and innovation leaders, CIOs, IT managers, digital transformation consultants, and many others. Whether you’re curious about the hype around Low-Code and Multi-Experience Development Platforms (MXDPs) – as presented by Gartner here, or you’re asking yourself simple questions such as:

• • Am I missing something by not using low code?
  • Are my competitors gaining a competitive advantage by adopting low code in their IT strategy?
  • Is low code the right tool for accelerating innovation and digital transformation, and optimizing data integration and user experience? How can I use it to grow my business?
  • How fast does low-code application development really go?
  • What are the best practices for ensuring that you maximize your return on investment in low-code adoption?
  • Do I really need to provide professional training for my citizen developers?

I invite you to spend a few hours looking at this reading list, focused on best practices, governance and the return on investment of low code in large companies. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or if you’re looking for advice on rapid application development!

1

Let’s start with a simple and clear presentation of Low-Code.

Through a few case studies presented by Nick Ford, Vice President of Product Marketing and Solutions at Mendix, explore the multiple implications that low-code could have on your business: from improving user experience to data integration strategy.

2

Digitization and governance models for citizen developers

I really enjoyed this wonderful talk by John Bratincevic, principal analyst for application development and delivery at Forrester. It puts into perspective the role of citizen developers in the company’s workforce. You’ll discover the challenges and impact of promoting a collaborative development process on organizational culture. If you’re in a hurry, watch at least the first ten minutes and discover why citizen developers are essential to support continuous learning and adapt to a rapidly changing world.

3

How to perform your own Low-Code maturity assessment

Next, I recommend this self-assessment to assess your level of maturity and the extent to which your organization is ready to take the low-code plunge. You’ll also learn how to choose the right project to start with.

Mike Tarentino, Director of Strategic Consulting at Mendix, will guide you through the steps involved in carrying out a low-code maturity assessment, from adopting the agile methodology to the best ways of measuring success. It will explain how to assess your current organization according to the 4 Ps – people, process, portfolio and platform – to identify gaps in your application development process and appropriately measure your work as an organization with fewer than ten applications in production. It will address the areas where improvements are needed to start accelerating your digitization.

4

Application plant frame

At this stage, you should be aware of the need to link the adoption of low-code technology to a strong and clear governance strategy, in order to get the most out of the platform. How to align your technology architectures with your organizational guidelines, what’s the best onboarding process for new team members, and how to stay consistent are among the critical questions that need to be addressed to ensure maximum ROI as you move towards an application factory. Mendix presents a very interesting application factory framework to support efficient scaling.

5

Cloud strategy

Of course, you also need to determine your best storage options so that you can align your cloud strategy with your organizational goals and IT capabilities. This summary is certainly a perfect introduction to the various options offered by Mendix.

6

Understand and communicate the value of your portfolio in low-code.

Mendix’s marketing experts and storytellers stress the importance of not neglecting your company’s internal communications strategy. Decision-makers will need solid arguments, reliable ROI predictions and precise ways to track the progress of your applications and measure the impact of low-code adoption. Similarly, to increase team involvement and maintain stakeholder enthusiasm, it’s crucial to launch internal low-code awareness campaigns to promote the values and objectives of this technology and, of course, to celebrate achievements with teams and end-users.

7

Mendix federated center of excellence

Last but not least, I’d like to share the experience of a Mendix customer, Trane Technologies, to understand how they could have saved valuable time and avoided mistakes. The choice of a competent and experienced technical partner was essential to the success of their development project. The lesson we should draw from their experience is that, to build a Mendix Federated Center of Excellence within a company, it’s crucial to choose a digital transformation partner capable of assisting the organization’s continuous learning and providing support for Low-Code adoption.

This ally has the ability to determine the best allocation of resources for your development projects. Drawing on its know-how, it will offer the most effective services: either expert development services, or support services for citizen developers. In this way, the organization is able to keep strategic knowledge in-house, while remaining agile and delivering the right digital products to drive business growth.