The first Low-Code Day Berlin is over. Here’s what we learned.

On October 24th the first Low-Code conference in Germany took place. As a partner, sponsor and keynote speaker, it was a pleasure teaming up with the team at SIBB for this event.

In the following article, I’d like to share key takeaways and learnings from Low-Code Berlin 2019.

Low-Code – it is a thing.

The entire day was dominated by one common pattern. Low-Code arrived in Germany and it is definitely a big topic that CIOs, CTOs, CEOs and developers alike think about. About 100 to 150 people attended Low Code Day Berlin to share and discuss the current state in Low-Code development.

John Rymer: How Low-Code drives business innovation

One of the main reasons we were stoked about Low-Code Day Berlin was John Rymer.

To give you some perspective: John Rymer is one of the people who coined the term “Low-Code” in the past decade. Therefore, he is a big influential factor for the entire Low-Code market.

John leads Forrester’s AD&D (Application Development & Delivery) research on cloud as well as Low-Code development platforms. In his keynote talk, he delivered some great insights on the entire Low-Code industry and how it’s moving forward.

As a Low-Code development platform ourselves, it was great to see a big overlap in his understanding of Low-Code with our vision of building a Low-Code platform.

One of the big learnings from John Rymer’s keynote talk:

• Half of all IT teams are now using or plan to use Low-Code platforms
• While the adoption of Low-Code in Germany is slower, 33% of teams plan to implement Low-Code platforms within the next 12 months.
• Low-Code brings “Shadow-IT” into the light. Instead of unmanaged tools, citizen and business developers can rely on managed platforms.

Business developers are key to digital strategies

John Rymer also argued that the future of Low-Code will be mostly driven by business developers. Why?

Simply because the number of applications built by business developers is ever-growing. Those applications are aimed to optimize customer journeys and drive digital transformation.

Instead, IT teams can only create a very limited number of apps that are controlled by them.

Major Low-Code segmentation: Platforms for AD&D pros vs business developers

The following segmentation of Low-Code platforms provided some insights into how Forrester sees the current market of Low-Code development platforms.

• Low-Code platforms for AD&D pros (application development and delivery)
• Low-Code platforms for business developers

Depending on which segment you – as a Low-Code platform – operate in, you will find a different audience with different pain points, use cases, goals, and features.

Low-Code platforms for AD&D pros are mostly focused on:

• Goal: Make pro developers more productive
• Designed for expressive power & control
• Use cases: many
• Target audience: AD&D leaders

Low-Code platforms for business developers are focused on:

• Goal: Let business experts deliver applications
• Designed for simplicity
• Use Cases: Typically a few
• Target audience: Business leaders

Overall, it can be stated that utilizing a Low-Code platform will boost collaboration between IT and business as well as accelerate the time developing applications.

The reality of Low-Code

Honored to participate in the first Low-Code Day Berlin as a keynote speaker, my talk focused on authentic insights on the current state of Low-Code as well as a short outlook on what’s ahead.

Roland Hörmann, CEO und Co-Founder @sibvisions, referiert über die Wahrheit und Zukunft von #LowCode pic.twitter.com/zjfM7iG3xd

— Berlin Low-Code Day (@berlin_low_code) October 24, 2019

One of the main outcomes of my session: Building applications the Low-Code way can have some big benefits for…

• Business and citizen developers: 
  • can implement user interfaces and data models on their own.
  • Regular check-ins with IT ensure that the application meets tech quality standards.
  • In addition, more complex features can be implemented as citizen developers lack pro knowledge.
• Experienced software developers:
  • Software developers usually don’t want to develop with Low-Code as they have certain prejudices. Most of those can be invalidated as Low-Code platforms usually meet those standards.
  • Low-Code platforms – such as VisionX – that allow full code access gain credence among software developers.
  • As experienced software developers are needed to develop more complex features and data models, those components will afterward be provided to citizen developers for their usage.
• Development processes with Low-Code:
  • Instead of click dummies, Low-Code platforms allow fast application prototyping. These prototypes can be tested by business teams iteratively.
  • Therefore, the collaboration between business- and IT-teams is strengthened and kept effective.
  • In addition, the requirements engineering phase is purposeful and fast.
  • All in all, we’ve seen applications being built 2 to 5 times faster with Low-Code instead of traditional software development (e.g. with SpringBoot or Angular)

 

To put it simply: Building applications the Low-Code way works. And it’s the future of software development. Especially since companies lack the development resources needed for traditional software development.

Do you want all slides from my presentation? Simply send me an email at roland.hoermann@sibvisions.com and I’ll send you the entire presentation.

Live Coding Session: How to build an invoicing application in 20 minutes

One of my personal highlights has been the live coding session on how to build an invoicing application within 20 minutes. In this short session, I’ve shown the participants how a Low-Code development platform allows you to build an invoice app. Within those 20 minutes, VisionX as my Low-Code platform allowed me to…

• build the user interface
• create a data model (invoices, articles)
• Create a feature that allows you to calculate fees
• Create a feature to create invoices (as a document)

 

@Gut was los hier. @sibvisions hält gerade den Fachvortrag: „Mit #LowCode eine Rechnungsapplikation in 20min live erstellen“ pic.twitter.com/aLlGQnInT7

— Berlin Low-Code Day (@berlin_low_code) October 24, 2019

Summary

All in all, we are looking back to a well-organized, highly interesting first Low Code Day in Berlin. The organizers managed to bring together Low-Code experts, business deciders as well as tech practitioners from Germany as well as Central and Western Europe to discuss the current state of Low-Code.

PS: In a couple of weeks, on November 6th, we are participating at the Low-Code No-Code congress in Rotterdam. If you are around, say hi.