Mythbusters: three tested truths about low-code as a driver of digitalization in public administration

#1 Low-code isn’t just for the IT Department

Low-code solutions are not just tools for the IT department. They enable business experts to actively participate in the design process and even act as independent “citizen developers. Experts without deep technical knowledge can use pre-built software components to create and modify applications and automations on their own, thereby speeding up the development of their daily tools. Meanwhile, IT is responsible for managing citizen developer and development practices and developing broader and more complex low-code solutions.  

In step-by-step development, where users play an active role alongside IT, new innovations also emerge. As business experts’ understanding grows, they often identify ways to improve the system’s usability and functionality, as well as entirely unexpected opportunities, such as automating manual data entry or other repetitive tasks.  

A great automation innovation was developed for one of our clients, whose old and rigid product management system was replaced with a low-code solution. The goal was to provide corporate-level access to product data spread across various systems within the organization. We built the data model and designed the user interfaces to be flexible, aligning with the client’s brand identity and the logic of the old system. This allowed end users to leverage their expertise from the previous solution and lowered the adoption threshold. Low-code tools were particularly satisfying by automating data maintenance: a stack of regularly manually updated Excel sheets was replaced with automated data management enabled by the low-code platform, freeing employees from a significant amount of manual data transfer work. 

#2 Low-code tools aren’t a one-size-fits-all approach 

We have observed with satisfaction that in some wellbeing areas, for instance, low-code applications and automations built for internal use have become commonplace. The most advanced players in other areas of the Finnish public administration are proactively seeking external assistance to support their officials in low-code development. However, progress is still unnecessarily slow and fragmented. 

The capabilities of low-code platforms, particularly Microsoft’s Power Platform, go far beyond simple citizen developer applications. These platforms offer an excellent opportunity to modernize bottlenecks in even the most critical processes and simplify the user experience of legacy systems — potentially replacing them altogether. 

At Nortal, our customers’ low-code projects typically begin by addressing a specific operational challenge. However, forward-thinking organizations soon realize, especially as the first solutions are completed, that the same logic or other features of the platform can be applied much more broadly across processes — either by deepening a specific task or by expanding it across various stages of the employee journey. 

For instance, starting from a relatively simple hospital room reservation application, we expanded the solution to consider not only the reception rooms but also the equipment, tools, and personnel required for patient visits. This approach shifts the focus in application development from just the facilities to the overall patient encounter, enabling the delivery of even better service. Alternatively, the perspective of room reservations could also be expanded to encompass the entire service journey of the employee — in this case, the healthcare professional: how to digitalize and simplify tasks before the patient’s visit and the related reservation, and how to proceed with subsequent actions such as symptom assessments, treatment plans, and follow-up appointment scheduling. 

Solutions built on low-code platforms can thus expand to cover extensive, business-critical processes. The key word, however, is incremental progression: starting with the optimization of a single individual, unit, or service encounter, and then expanding the implementations target by target to meet the needs of the entire process or organization. 

#3 Low-code is just another tool

Public sector actors face immense pressure from citizens, political stakeholders, and local and international regulations, so the requirements for systems can change rapidly. Providing quality and efficient services requires solutions and development projects to respond to changes almost in real time, all while cost pressures continue to rise. In traditional software development methods and the “waterfall model,” massive development projects were pushed forward based on frozen plans and definitions made in advance. If the direction was off, months or even years of work could effectively go to waste. 

Modern low-code platforms like Microsoft Power Platform revolutionize the foundations of digitalization development. With the platform’s visual interfaces and pre-built components, new solutions can be created and implemented within weeks, even days, enabling a new level of development agility. Changes tailored to business needs — such as creating and fine-tuning application business rules — can be done with low-code even in the client’s presence during meetings. Tasks that previously consumed time and resources for negotiation and approval in projects typically included designing forms and interfaces, establishing naming conventions, managing users, and reviewing new features of the platform. Now, doing these tasks collaboratively accelerates the process and fosters shared understanding and ongoing communication between clients and consultants.  However, it’s important to note that agile low-code design does not abandon fundamental principles of software development, such as lifecycle and version management or documentation. 

The second wave of agile development also involves the business side

The rapid digitalization development in public administration and our entire society over the past few decades has shifted the reins from true customer-facing experts to IT organizations. Low-code solutions, with their new agility, provide an excellent opportunity to involve business experts in creating essential tools for daily work — even allowing them to build these tools independently. 

In our view, low-code development will play a key role in creating a more flexible and efficient public administration in Finland. It is now high time for public administration business units to familiarize themselves with the true potential of low-code tools.