This article was originally written by Avanade alum Dalibor Kresnik.

With IT departments under mounting pressure and developer talent increasingly hard to come by, business leaders are on the lookout for fast and effective solutions. Low code technologies promise to enable business users to build their own technologies to solve their own business challenges. It’s no wonder they sound like the golden ticket.

Take Microsoft Power Platform for example. It has been designed to empower non-IT teams and individuals to build and use custom business apps – PowerApps – without the time or expense of custom software development. Whilst there’s no denying that Power Platform enables organisations to innovate faster at significantly reduced time and cost, without the appropriate governance, unleashing the technology may come at a price.

All hail the citizen developer
Low-code technologies offer the promise of effective “citizen development’. The idea is that non-technical business users can produce apps at speed with little or no intervention for IT. With such intuitive tools at their fingertips some businesses make the mistake of thinking that all they need to do is give their business users time for exploration and practice – after all they’re the experts in their role and in solving their own business challenges.

There’s no denying that the democratisation of technology development has its advantages, but that does not mean that all control can or should be relinquished. Developing Power Apps using Power Platform requires access to and the integration of data (and potentially very sensitive data) from across the organisation. When you consider that Power Platform can integrate with 400+ other services, including social media feeds, without the proper security, guidance and governance in place, letting citizen developers loose too soon can pose an obvious security risk.

That’s why it’s imperative for organisations to implement a strong data governance strategy. It’s essential to ensure that data is secure and the tools are being used appropriately and responsibly. Without proper governance you also run the risk of users duplicating effort by recreating the same solution multiple times. Lack of governance and control can also lead to poor design, which in turn leads to performance problems. You also run the risk of large numbers of apps being created and not properly monitored or supported.

The Centre of Excellence approach
Getting the most out of such a powerful platform requires a structured approach – one that’s not just focused on the technology. There are many questions and potential issues that the technology alone does not address. Questions such as, who can create apps? What training will they require? What is the process for building and approving them? How will apps be decommissioned? What’s the process for storing and sharing code? How will you manage licences? How will apps be monitored and supported? Who has access to what data and what policies and permissions will be put in place to protect the data?

With proper governance and guardrails in place, all these questions and challenges can be reduced or eliminated entirely – leaving the business able to focus on innovating, whilst protecting its data.

To ensure the highest quality output, Avanade partners with enterprises along their Power Platform journey, from ideation to the establishment of a Centre of Excellence (CoE). Establishing a CoE and applying innovation governance is a critical step that results in effective design, efficiency, business value and user adoption.

Our range of advisory and implementation services includes training, templates, best practices for design, maintenance models, and more, to help organisations establish a Power Platform CoE. Working together we help organisations to secure, streamline and eventually scale their use of Power Platform, so that users have the ability to build solutions safely and in a compliant manner.

As one of the most trusted Microsoft implementation services providers in the world, we bring years of experience helping clients to transform by using and connecting technology across their ecosystem. Thanks to our unique heritage and strong alliance with Microsoft, we maintain a strong partnership with Microsoft’s product team. This helps us better understand technologies like Power Platform and gives us an inside track into innovations and product development – so that we can deliver more value to our clients.

Are you ready to begin your citizen development journey? Get in touch to find out how we can help you develop your Centre of Excellence journey today.