The only thing you need to assess a software project is to ask whoever is proposing it “who are the users?” and “have you talked to the users?” and you’ll have 80% of the information you need to know whether it will succeed.
The other 20% is primarily technical but is pretty easy to sass out:
- Is there version control?
- Are there automated tests?
- Is there code review (or pair programming)?
- Is there an issue tracking system?
- How long does it take to deploy to production?
The reason low-code and no-code platforms fail or break things is they do not meet needs 1, 2 and 3. AirTable, Google Sheets, etc. are easy to start projects with but quickly fail when you require something to be reliable.
Finally if you’re managing software developers and want to see some quick ROI make sure your developers are running the fastest dev machines you can give them and ask them how long their app build/setup process is. Nothing destroys focus like waiting more than a few minutes for something to run.