The 2016 election cycle might be the dominant topic of conversation for nearly everyone in Washington, D.C., except for IT professionals – they’re abuzz with chatter about digital government.  From White House mandates to CIO-driven implementation, federal agencies are figuring out the ways in which digital tools can help them deliver on the mission more effectively and efficiently.

However, when agencies embrace the apps and services they need to make sure that their behind the scenes operational dynamics are able to keep pace with the promise of digital transformation.  A recent article by the team at Appian, took a close look at what capabilities complex organizations, like federal agencies, need in order to operate at digital speed.

One of the top capabilities on their list is the ability create and upgrade apps at digital speed.  But this goal is largely out of synch with legacy coding practices and methodologies, which relies on an agency having access to developers with a strong command of specific platforms.  As we all know, developers are in high demand and short supply, so being able to find the human resources to code, let alone the budget and time to support a long development cycle

But what can agencies do to cross this digital divide?  The answer offered in the article is “by simplifying [the] app creation process [using] low-code technology [to drive] this functionality.”  Low-code solutions “provide pre-built packages of code that allow users to quickly customize apps without having to write any code themselves.”  This means that app development can be assigned to non-technical teams and agencies can “keep up with the blistering pace” of digital government transformation.

Curious as to what this means in practice?  In a recent webinar, Clay Richardson, Principal Analyst with Forrester, shared that for the document compliance infrastructure that needed to be built to support applications for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act it would have taken 100 person months to build the infrastructure using traditional coding practices, but in actuality, because the Department of Health and Human Services opted to use low-code, it took just 5 person months to complete, test and deliver the project.

To learn even more about how low-code tools can drive the mission forward at digital speed, you can download this new eBook.