How to estimate UiPath development effort accurately
This was a live presentation given as part of the UiPath Solutions Architect Training.
0:00 Estimation Guidelines
4:10 Example 1
8:11 Example 2
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In its initial iteration, software automation was reserved for competent coders that could build programs from scratch.
More than a decade later, a lot has changed.
No- and low-code development tools have made it easier than ever for employees without a technical background to build their own automations. These citizen developers are making bigger and bigger impacts within their companies, and enabling outcomes like better customer interactions, more value-added work, and higher profits.
So, why initiate a citizen developer program anyway?
A recent IDC study that focused on this question defined the goal as creating “development skills among workers in business units, enabling them to automate where they see opportunities.”
IT and citizen developers are partners in these types of programs, working together to make an organization’s automation capability as strong as possible.
Nobody understands how tedious certain tasks can be better than the employees who do them every day. But until recently, they tended to assume that these monotonous tasks were a necessary part of their jobs.
Enabling employees to create automations themselves changes that mindset. I’ve seen a shocking shift in the way employees think about their work after they’re trained on how to create their own software robots. Instead of dealing with repetitive tasks on a daily basis, they start to think about how they can automate them and focus on higher value-added work.
As this mindset spreads throughout a company, the entire organization enjoys greater leverage from their workforce. Instead of one unit in, one unit out, companies can realize much greater output from the same number of employees as they delegate their rote tasks to robots.
Despite these benefits, citizen development has been a heated debate within companies. According to Fleming, when the term first surfaced about a decade ago, IT teams had to deal with buggy programs and less user-friendly platforms.
But, thanks to platforms that are easier to use and a more tech-literate workforce, those issues have declined dramatically. By combining subject matter expertise with development know-how, citizen developers are making significant impacts at their companies.
An IDC study found that citizen development’s bottom-up approach, combined with the top-down nature of an automation CoE, impacted 39% more employees than those with a CoE-only approach.
The findings from the IDC report, along with my own experience, suggest that combining the benefits of a CoE with those from a well-planned citizen development program provides the best results.
While the specific setup of a citizen development program depends on a company’s unique traits, there are standard practices that tend to be effective across the board.
The CoE should be in charge of quality and govern the automations that citizens create. After a user has created an automation, it should be sent to the CoE to review that it aligns with company policies, and is free of bugs that could impact company systems.
UiPath is “productizing” quality assurance mechanisms that help companies shorten the time from automation creation to go-live. Instead of needing to review each citizen-created automation to ensure its compliance, companies can implement controls ahead of time that ensure these programs abide by their rules and regulations.
Prior to COVID, in-person hackathons were a great way to help employees new to automation get comfortable with the technology. These programs dropped off during the pandemic, but are now making a resurgence.
Other than hackathons, training is necessary to get employees up to speed.
Citizen developers that show a knack for creating automations should be encouraged to help train others, and even take on more development-focused roles within their company.
Stronger technical muscles and happier employees are real benefits of a citizen developer program, but managers and investors often look for more quantitative measurements to assess returns.
While specific productivity improvements tend to be one of the first things managers look for after implementing this kind of program, Fleming mentioned that quality measures should be the focus initially. High quality automations lead to productivity improvements over time.
Customer satisfaction wasn’t a main focus of the IDC study, but Fleming also noted that it can be a key benefit of citizen developer programs as well.
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