Stadtwerke München GmbH

By distributing many small-scale improvements among a large number of people, the digitization of an extensive organization can be advanced in large steps. Citizen development works according to this principle: employees without IT expertise are empowered to program simple IT tools themselves and maintain them independently. Classic “digitalization drivers” in this context are also the shortage of skilled workers and the demographic change.

A corresponding project at Stadtwerke München (SWM) illustrates how this “self-help for digitalization” is launched, actively managed and successfully developed via a “Citizen Development Community”. Within three years, the public utility company has built up such a community with around 800 members (approx. 8% of the workforce), so that the topic is widely perceived and used within the organization.

SWM implements the Citizen Development approach with a team of permanently employed, professional software coaches. They organize the community and offer individual support, training and events. At the time of receiving the INDUSTRIE 4.0 AWARD, the community comprised around 800 citizen developers, with at least one community member in half of all Group departments.

Thanks to the company-wide introduction of MS Teams, all employees can use Microsoft’s low-code tools. These support the (partial) automation of work processes such as scheduling or documentation. However, the programmed software solutions are limited exclusively to MS Office 365.

The IT department is thus relieved of the burden of digitizing simple work processes in which only non-critical data is used. Ideas that are easy to implement therefore do not have to go through a time-consuming and cost-intensive development process or software launch.

The winner of the INDUSTRIE 4.0 AWARD is primarily aiming for “digital enablement” with the project and the work of the software coaches. The “citizen developers” are specifically introduced to low-code development. They learn to look at processes from an IT perspective, to recognize digitalization potential – and to use it proactively and independently.

“Low-hanging fruits” of digitalization are solved by the employees themselves with little help, for example by digitalizing physical documents or approval workflows, reducing errors when filling out forms and creating automated reminders. At the same time, employees are further developing their IT skills.

Citizen Developers work for the winner of the INDUSTRIE 4.0 AWARD in all parts of the organization, from the management back office to plant maintenance. After a “whispering” phase, the community is now communicated internally in a targeted manner, in particular via event formats such as “brown bag sessions” (presentation of a use case) and “hackathons”. At the same time, the internal networking of Citizen Developers strengthens cross-divisional collaboration – and success stories from the community can be used for employer branding.