The rise of NoCode is one of the strongest technology trends of 2019, beginning to transform the way Web and mobile applications are built and enabling anyone to become a Builder. On July 6, 2020, Amazon AWS launched its Own NoCode platform, Amazon Honeycode service. This article begins the NoCode warm-up series by discussing the problems NoCode solves, the context in which it was created, and common areas of application.
The current new puzzle: Lean but not thin enough
In 2011, Eric Ries published The Lean Startup, based on his experience working at several Silicon Valley start-ups. The idea is to invest a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in the market, then rapidly iterate on the Product through continuous learning and valuable user feedback, in order to adapt to the market early and reduce risk, avoiding the huge amount of money needed for early planning.
Lean methods have been widely used in product building and startup medicine for the past decade, but what hasn’t changed so far is the nature of the software product team, because new products require people with specific skills to design, develop, and land. In reality, almost every product team is made up of product managers, project managers/business analysts, designers, and development teams. Even the simplest viable product (MVP) can often take weeks to months to get into the hands of customers, with multiple people working in different roles. Moreover, there are additional personnel costs and time frames associated with finding and getting those specific skills up and running quickly, or outsourcing the necessary steps, and the market demand is fleeting and may not be there by the time the MVP comes out.
Lean’s emphasis on “testing business assumptions with experiments” requires us to remain open and focused on the best way to solve our customers’ problems. Therefore, “Lean leaner” has become the new mantra, which is to efficiently experiment with a continuous stream of new ideas by shortening the time from conception to MVP landing. So we need a new approach that breaks the last hurdle of lean practice. Yet it’s common to hear the phrase “We can build the next unicorn startup if we just get some development resources.” The reality is that the shortage of development talent isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Due to the continued demand for applications and the shortage of skilled developers, there is a need to democratize development skills to make it easier for ordinary people to develop custom applications. NoCode is a game-changing new model and a prime example of “Anyone can be a Builder”.
The birth of a “new way” is confirmed in history
Older IT friends often have this feeling that many new things can always be found in the past IT development history. Let’s take a quick look at the history of software to see how this “new way” is coming.
The software industry is still relatively young, about 60 years old. Initial programs focused on military and scientific needs, with commercial software appearing around 1960. To sum up, there have been roughly four software waves since 1960.
The first wave of writing your own software (1960 — 1980)
In the 1960s, almost all software users were programmers. This was the golden age of true hackers. Want a new game? Write one yourself. Need a new programming language? Create your own.
NoCode didn’t make any sense in the first wave. Why is that? Hackers can quickly write code and do all the work they need. This is not a good time to use the NoCode tool.
Second wave of Personal desktop Software (1980-2000)
Business software took off, and these hackers became entrepreneurs and started companies. Games, productivity software and development tools are booming.
NoCode tools did emerge during this period, such as spreadsheets, which were very popular. The NoCode tool made significant progress in the second wave, but did not gain huge traction. Why is that? Because then the third wave of the Internet started.
The third wave of Web Collaboration Software (2000-2015)
The Internet has changed everything, and more and more traditional businesses have gradually moved to the web, to the cloud. The emergence of the cloud gives entrepreneurs more freedom to focus on the business itself. Salesforce was founded in 1999, JIRA emerged in 2002, and Google Docs launched in 2006. Teams can document together, create business models together, develop work plans and design interfaces together. Internet-driven collaborative software is starting to replace personal desktop software.
During this time, NoCode tools have evolved, such as spreadsheets that have moved online. However, Web development is still not mature enough. We gradually learned how to use Javascript, invented React, and began to gradually use the Web to implement personal desktop software functions that support collaborative working mode. At this point, NoCode still needs to grow technically and is not yet ready to be officially rolled out to users.
Fourth wave to create their own NoCode software (2015-present)
With the development of Web, Web applications with complex expressive functions have become a reality. The resulting NoCode tools and platform dramatically reduces the time it takes to turn an idea into an MVP, eliminating the need to be a programmer before building a product, and enabling new innovations from different industries and backgrounds.
Throughout these four waves of software industry, the Internet plays an important role. With the emergence of personal desktop software, the emergence of mobile Internet, the birth of cloud services, the endless emergence of collaborative software and the vigorous development of Web technology, a solid foundation has been laid for the arrival of NoCode era.
Get to know NoCode and its common scenarios
NoCode has emerged to enable non-technical people to use resources, capture data, and build workflows to solve real-world user problems. As mentioned earlier, NoCode is not a completely new concept, but it reflects the future trend of democratizing development skills, where anyone can be a Builder. As Charlie Bell, a senior vice president at AWS, has said, “If everyone innovates quickly and efficiently, and things run smoothly, the world will be a better place. There’s no doubt about it.”
If a marketer can create and update a website, he can iterate and try out his ideas more quickly. If a consultant can automate his unique process as a tool in a matter of hours, he can solve a client’s problems more quickly and demonstrate the value of his efforts. If small business owners can build applications based on their own needs, automation can improve business efficiency and save valuable time to scale new businesses.
The emergence of NoCode, relying on the agility of mobile Internet and cloud services, with the help of gradually improving the expression of complex functions on the Web, and with easy-to-use visual interface, realizes users’ mobile and collaborative needs. Everyone can become A Builder, making Lean leaner and MVP closer to users faster, realizing rapid trial and error and continuous iteration.
NoCode can provide seamlessly integrated Web workflows and data-driven application rules for any business. Here are five common applications of NoCode in real life:
- BI reporting and dashboards
With NoCode, BI analysts or developers can access data in real time and transform it into insightful data grids, visualizations, and key metrics. Whether you’re working with sales data or project management data, you can use real-time analytics to make informed decisions.
- Migrate an older application
Moving from traditional applications to modern systems can be a daunting experience for programmers and managers alike. The NoCode platform can mitigate migration issues and reduce costs without the need to purchase ERP development and consulting services. The NoCode platform can make UX modern and more efficient. The entire migration process, from configuration to de-coding, from testing to deployment, is easier than ever.
- Improve operational efficiency
Since business users can handle application development themselves and apply their skills to custom applications based on their industry and job functions, this can improve overall business operation efficiency, including supply chain management, invoice management, equipment tracking and order management, and more.
- Data management applications
You can connect data sources to any database, such as MS SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc., and have the ability to edit, insert, delete and update data. Business users can quickly and efficiently build their own database applications. Information is also easier to collect, store, share and collaborate with.
- Business process application
Managers often spend a lot of time creating work business processes. With its quick and intuitive drag-and-drop capabilities, NoCode has become the best tool for modeling business workflow.
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This author
Huang Shuai
Amazon AWS Professional Service team cloud architecture consultant. Responsible for cloud architecture design and optimization of enterprise clients, DevOps organization consulting and technical implementation. I have years of experience in architecture design, operation and maintenance, and team management in the field of software research and development, and have in-depth research and enthusiasm for DevOps, cloud native microservice governance framework, container platform operation and maintenance, chaos engineering practice, etc.