CGI Federal’s John Owens: Government IT Leaders Should Engage Experts When Selecting the Right Code

John Owens, a vice president with CGI Federal's emerging technologies practice, wrote in an article published Friday on GCN that choosing the right code to meet agencies’ needs calls for government information technology leaders to evaluate the problem and work with experts to help with the assessment and decide on the proper tool to adopt.

Owens said low-code/no-code platforms are “quite agile” and “best suited for cases where repeated functions do not need heavy customization and high performance is not necessary.”

He noted that custom development could have a place in government use cases that require high-speed custom processing to handle large data volumes.

“It gives agencies the flexibility to adjust things down to the most minute detail while providing the greatest flexibility for scalability and performance,” Owens said of custom development.

Owens explained that commercial off-the-shelf software could be used in government applications that “need more power and flexibility than low-code/no-code can provide but do not demand the innovation and unique capabilities of expensive custom development.”

“In government agencies, as in other large organizations, low-code/no-code, COTS and custom development all have a place. I recommend agencies engage experts to help them assess their agency’s needs and select the right solution that balances cost, features, time and performance,” Owens concluded.