Why Internal IT Should Avoid Over-Engineering Simple Apps with Traditional Devlopment

I heard from a CIO friend of mine about a situation that is all too familiar.

Marketing needed a simple tool to track content approval workflows. Three approvers, basic notifications, and a dashboard to see what's pending. Straightforward stuff.

IT's initial estimate? Four months and two full-time developers.

The marketing director almost fell out of her chair. "It's just an approval form," she said.

"Well," the IT lead explained, "we need to set up the development environment, design the database schema, build the API layer, create the front-end framework, implement authentication, set up testing protocols, document everything, and plan for maintenance."

He wasn't wrong. That's exactly what traditional development requires.

He also wasn't right. Because that's a ridiculous amount of work for what amounts to a digital version of passing a piece of paper around for signatures.

This happens constantly in IT departments. And it's slowly strangling your organization's agility.

The reflexive reach for custom code

Here's what I've noticed about internal IT teams: they're really good at building things. That's their job. That's what they trained for. That's what they take pride in.

So when someone asks for an app, the reflexive response is: "Let's build it properly."

And "properly" means custom code. Because that's what real developers do, right?

The problem is that "properly" has become synonymous with "comprehensively." Every project gets treated like it needs to scale to millions of users, integrate with every system imaginable, and stand the test of time.

Even when it absolutely doesn't need any of that.

Your procurement team's vendor evaluation scorecard app does not need the same architectural rigor as your customer-facing e-commerce platform. But IT approaches both the same way.

According to a study by McKinsey, organizations lose significant productivity when development practices designed for complex systems get applied to simple use cases. The overhead doesn't just slow things down. It actually reduces quality because teams spend more time on infrastructure than on solving the actual business problem.

The hidden costs nobody talks about

When IT builds a simple app using traditional development, you're not just paying for the initial build. You're signing up for a long-term commitment that most people don't fully understand.

The development overhead that makes no sense

Let's break down what happens when you custom-code a basic workflow.

Your developers need to set up a development environment. Choose a tech stack. Design database schemas. Build API endpoints. Create authentication logic. Develop the front-end. Write tests. Set up deployment pipelines. Create documentation.

For a complex system? Absolutely necessary. For a simple approval workflow? You're using a sledgehammer to hang a picture.

One of my former colleagues calculated that about 70 percent of the time his team spent building simple internal apps went to scaffolding and infrastructure that had nothing to do with the actual business logic. They were building the plumbing when the business just needed water.

The technical debt you're creating

Every line of custom code is a future liability. It needs to be maintained. Updated when dependencies change. Secured when vulnerabilities are discovered. Modified when requirements evolve.

Simple apps built with custom code accumulate technical debt surprisingly fast. What vendor scorecard app marketing need? Six months later, a library gets deprecated. Someone needs to refactor the code. But the developer who built it has moved to another project. The new developer needs time to understand the codebase.

Before long, you're spending more time maintaining these simple apps than they're worth.

Research from Stripe found that developers spend over 40 percent of their time dealing with maintenance issues and technical debt rather than building new capabilities. A lot of that time goes to maintaining simple internal tools that shouldn't require ongoing engineering attention.

The opportunity cost that's killing you

This is the one that really hurts. Every hour your skilled developers spend building and maintaining simple apps is an hour they're not available for work that actually requires their expertise.

Your team should be modernizing your core systems. Building capabilities that differentiate your business. Solving complex technical challenges. Instead, they're building expense approval workflows that look suspiciously like the other five expense approval workflows they've built for different departments.

I spoke with a CTO last year who discovered that 40 percent of his development capacity was being allocated to simple internal tools. When he actually calculated the value those tools created versus the cost of the developer time, the ROI was terrible.

"We were using master carpenters to assemble IKEA furniture," he told me.

The architecture creep problem

IT teams don't over-engineer because they're trying to waste time. They over-engineer because they're trying to do good work.

They've been trained to think about scalability, security, maintainability, and extensibility. These are good instincts for complex systems. But they become counterproductive when applied universally.

When "best practices" become worst practices

I once reviewed the architecture for an internal training request form. A simple form that allows employees to request training courses and managers to approve them.

The IT team had designed it with a microservices architecture. Three separate services. Message queues for inter-service communication. A full CI/CD pipeline. Comprehensive logging and monitoring.

"Why?" I asked.

"Best practices," the lead developer said. "What if it needs to scale? What if we need to integrate it with other systems later?"

These were valid questions for some systems. For a form that maybe 50 people would use a few times a month? Absurd overkill.

The "what if" thinking is the trap. What if we need to scale? What if requirements change? What if we need to integrate with that other system someday?

For complex, strategic systems, thinking through these scenarios makes sense. For simple workflow apps, it's speculative over-engineering based on features that will probably never arrive.

The framework fatigue

Every few years, a new development framework becomes the hot thing. React. Angular. Vue. Next.js. Whatever's next.

For your core applications, keeping up with modern frameworks makes sense. You need to attract talent. You want maintainable code. You benefit from active communities and good tooling.

But for simple internal apps? By the time you've migrated your expense tracker to the latest framework, that framework is already on its way out.

I've seen IT departments with internal tools built on five different technology stacks because they were developed at different times using whatever was current at the time. Now you need developers familiar with all five stacks just to maintain your internal tools portfolio.

It's exhausting and expensive.

What simple apps actually need

Let's be honest about what most internal business apps actually require.

They need to collect information through forms. Route that information to the right people. Send notifications. Provide basic reporting. I suggest integrating with one or two other systems.

That's it. No machine learning. No real-time data processing. No complex algorithms. Just basic workflow automation.

The business teams using these apps care about three things: Does it work? Can I use it without training? Can we change it when our process changes?

They don't care what framework it's built on. They don't care about your database architecture. They definitely don't care about your microservices strategy.

They just want their work to flow more smoothly.

Where low-code actually makes sense

I'm not suggesting you build your entire enterprise on low-code platforms. Your core systems probably need custom development. Your customer-facing applications might need it too.

But for simple internal workflow apps? Low-code changes the entire equation.

Speed that actually matters

Remember that content approval workflow I mentioned at the start? Marketing needed it in a few weeks, not four months.

With a low-code platform, they could have had it running in a few days. Not because low-code is magic, but because you're not building all the infrastructure that custom development requires.

You're configuring, not coding. The platform provides the plumbing. You just define the workflow.

Forrester research shows that low-code development is typically 5-10x faster than traditional development for simple applications. That's not marketing hype. That's because you're not reinventing the wheel every time.

Maintenance that doesn't consume your team

When you build a simple app on a low-code platform, you're not creating new technical debt. The platform vendor handles security patches, framework updates, and infrastructure maintenance.

Your IT team sets the governance boundaries and monitors what's being built. But they're not maintaining code.

That content approval workflow? When someone needs to add another approval step or change the notification logic, the business user can do it themselves. IT doesn't need to be involved unless it touches something that requires their oversight.

Your developers can focus on work that actually requires their expertise.

The cost structure that makes sense

Let's talk about the actual economics.

Four months of two developers for that content approval workflow? Even at conservative estimates, you're looking at $80,000-$120,000 depending on your location and salary levels. Plus ongoing maintenance costs.

Building it on a low-code platform? A few days of configuration time. Platform costs that are probably already covered by your existing license. Minimal ongoing maintenance because the business team manages their own changes.

The ROI isn't even close. And that's just one app. Multiply this across the dozens of simple internal tools most organizations need, and the numbers become staggering.

The governance question IT worries about

Every time I suggest low-code for internal apps, I hear the same concerns from IT leaders.

"If business users can build apps, won't we end up with chaos? Shadow IT? Security problems?"

Valid concerns. Here's the thing: those problems exist today. Business users are already building tools in Excel, Google Sheets, and random SaaS apps they sign up for with corporate credit cards.

The question isn't whether business users will build tools. They will, because they need them and IT can't keep up with demand. The question is whether you're going to provide them with a governed platform or force them into ungoverned alternatives.

Modern low-code platforms give IT the controls they need. You can set policies about data access, integration boundaries, security requirements, and approval workflows. You can monitor what's being built and audit how it's being used.

It's not ungoverned chaos. It's structured enablement.

You're moving from "IT must build everything" to "IT provides the platform and governance for others to build." That's not less control. It's smarter control.

The cultural shift that's hard but necessary

The biggest obstacle to this approach isn't technical. It's cultural.

IT teams often see their value in building things. Suggesting that business users should build their own simple apps can feel like a threat. "Are we not needed anymore?"

That's exactly the wrong way to think about it.

When IT stops spending time building simple workflow apps, they become more valuable, not less. They can focus on the complex technical challenges that actually require their expertise. They can be strategic partners rather than order-takers in the backlog.

One CTO I work with reframed it for his team this way: "We're moving from being the builders of everything to being the architects of the possible. We create the platform and governance that enables the entire organization to move faster."

His team's satisfaction actually increased after the shift. They were working on more interesting problems. They were less overwhelmed by the backlog. Business partners were happier because they got solutions faster.

Everyone won.

The practical path forward

If you're an IT leader realizing you might be over-engineering your simple apps, here's how to start changing that.

Audit your current portfolio. Look at the internal apps your team built in the last two years. How many were genuinely complex and required custom development? How many were basically workflow automation that got the full engineering treatment?

Create clear criteria. Define what characteristics make an app a candidate for low-code versus custom development. User count, integration complexity, performance requirements, data sensitivity. Be specific.

Start with new projects. Don't try to migrate everything at once. As new requests come in, route the simple ones to a low-code platform and reserve your developers for complex work.

Enable, don't abdicate. Give business users the tools to build simple apps, but maintain governance. Set security policies. Define integration boundaries. Monitor what's being built. Provide support and guidance.

Measure the impact. Track how much development time you're reclaiming. Monitor how quickly business needs are getting met. Calculate the actual ROI.

You'll probably be surprised by how much capacity you unlock.

What this really means

Over-engineering simple apps isn't just inefficient. It's a strategic mistake that compounds over time.

Every simple app you build with custom code is technical debt you're voluntarily taking on. Every hour your developers spend on basic workflow automation is an hour they're not available for work that actually requires their skills. Every month, business teams wait for simple tools is a month they're operating less efficiently than they could be.

The solution isn't to stop building. It's to build smarter. Custom development for complex systems that require it. Low-code platforms for simple workflow automation that doesn't.

Your developers will be happier. Your business partners will be happier. Your CFO will be happier when you show them the cost comparison.

That's not a compromise. That's just a better strategy.

Stop over-engineering. Start enabling.

Kissflow is built for exactly this scenario. Give your business teams the tools to build and manage their own simple workflow apps while maintaining the IT governance and security controls you need.

No more four-month timelines for simple approval workflows. No more technical debt for basic business tools. No more developer capacity consumed by work that doesn't require their expertise.