Establish, Grow, and Mature Your API Platform - James Higginbotham, LaunchAny
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A presentation given by James Higginbotham, Executive API Consultant, LaunchAny, at our 2024 Austin API Summit, March 12-13. Session Description: Building and growing an API platform takes more than building and organizing your APIs. It requires understanding the needs of your ecosystem, establishing lightweight processes that drive discoverability, providing the resources for self-service enablement, and delivering a federated API coach program to scale your efforts. This talk will explore the practices and patterns implemented by global organizations that will help your API ecosystem shift from a functional program to a transformational API platform.
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Establish, Grow, and Mature Your API Platform - James Higginbotham, LaunchAny
- 1. Establish, Grow, and Mature Your API Platform James Higginbotham james@launchany.com @launchany Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash
- 2. 2 @launchany Introduction • Founder of LaunchAny, API strategy, process, and coaching • Author, “Principles of Web API Design: Delivering Value with APIs and Microservices” • Corporate and public training • Based in Colorado Springs, CO • Curator of the API Developer Weekly newsletter
- 3. 3 @launchany Establish, Grow, and Mature Your API Platform 1. Establish a focus on the people your API platform will serve 2. Establish processes for your API platform 3. Establish a product mindset for your API platform 4. Grow and mature your API platform 5. Scale your API platform
- 4. 4 @launchany 1. Establish a focus on the people your API platform will serve
- 5. 5 @launchany What is an API platform?
- 6. 6 @launchany “An API platform is a comprehensive suite of tools and services that facilitate the development, deployment, and management of APIs.” According to ChatGPT…
- 7. 7 @launchany “An API platform is a software system with integrated tools and processes that allow teams to effectively build, manage, publish, and consume APIs.” A tool vendor says…
- 8. 8 @launchany Things are shifting back to the business. No more expansive rewrites and modernization. We had years to get that done. Time to deliver value to business and customers. APIs are at the center of this. Source: https://bit.ly/api-program-trends-2024 API Program and Governance Trends Demand More From the API Platform
- 9. 9 @launchany Given the current demand on APIs to deliver value, not just technology… We must expand the role of the ”API Platform” to include all participants, not just process and tools.
- 10. 10 @launchany An API platform is an ecosystem of intentionally designed APIs that delight and empower your workforce, partners, and customers to deliver desired outcomes..
- 11. 11 @launchany IT capabilities (systems and data-centric) API Platform (human-centric outcomes) Business capabilities (market-centric) Shared technology Data sources Legacy systems Business processes Business capabilities Business objectives Market needs Platform capabilities (platform APIs) Market and channel solutions Desired outcomes (market-driven) Desirable outcomes (innovation-driven) Business processes (reactive) Highest value: Where the platform meets needs to produce digital outcomes Lowest value: API consumers must build their own outcomes Shifting from Data to Delivering Outcomes
- 12. 12 @launchany A successful API platform starts with a focus on the people: Consume first. Build when necessary.
- 13. “Start with a Platform, and Then Use it for Everything.” - Steve Yegge
- 14. 14 @launchany Summary: Establish a focus on the people your API platform will serve •Understand the needs of the participants of your API platform •Shift to a “consume first, build when necessary” culture •Leverage the API platform for everything by consuming, not just building
- 15. 15 @launchany 2. Establish people-centric processes for your API platform
- 16. 16 @launchany Individual teams are required to define their API standards and practices every time a new API was required, resulting in slower delivery and unpredictable results for API consumers.
- 17. 17 @launchany Establish a Formal API Center for Enablement (API C4E) A group representing business, product, and technology Passionate about growing the API practice Steward standards and practices Dedicated team is better than a fractional team
- 18. 18 @launchany An API Center for Enablement has one goal: Advocate for API consumers while enabling API producers.
- 19. 19 @launchany The API C4E Enables the API Consumer Journey Consumption Phase Purpose / Goal Onboarding Register for portal and API access Discovery Identify API capabilities Mapping Map solution to Platform API capabilities using docs and guides Exploration Prototype consumption (“Try-it-out”) Integration Consume via code Consumer Go-Live Obtain approval for production API access Usage Monitoring Production access monitoring and throttling for compliance Platform Improvement Request platform API enhancements to meet the needs of the solution Platform Updates Update notifications for new API endpoints, enhancements, case studies
- 20. 20 @launchany The API C4E Enables the API Producer Journey Producer Phase Purpose / Goal Align Align on the needs of the API consumers Define Define the API capabilities required Design Design the API capabilities using the preferred API style/ protocol Refine Incorporate design feedback from consumers prior to development Deliver Incrementally deliver the API capabilities Publish Publish the API to the internal API catalog / API portal Manage Monitor and manage the API Improve Incorporate new capabilities based on continuous product discovery Sunset Deprecate and sunset the API when it reaches end-of-life
- 21. 21 @launchany The API C4E Offers a Clear Engagement Model Link: https://bit.ly/api-c4e-engagement-models
- 22. 22 @launchany Summary: Establish people-centric processes for your API platform •Define a formal API Center for Enablement to steward the API platform and processes •Set clear expectations of the API lifecycle for API consumers and producers •Establish an engagement model for teams that need assistance
- 23. 23 @launchany 3. Establish a product mindset for your API platform
- 24. 24 @launchany APIs are no longer just for developers. Product leaders and executives must incorporate APIs into their day-to-day execution.
- 25. 25 @launchany Develop a Digital Product Mindset A digital product mindset is a way of delivering on the needs of the market by productizing digital assets that deliver desired outcomes, resulting in customer delight and an empowered workforce.
- 26. 26 @launchany Develop a Digital Product Mindset A digital product mindset is a way of delivering on the needs of the market by productizing digital assets that deliver desired outcomes, resulting in customer delight and an empowered workforce.
- 27. 27 @launchany Develop a Digital Product Mindset A digital product mindset is a way of delivering on the needs of the market by productizing digital assets that deliver desired outcomes, resulting in customer delight and an empowered workforce.
- 28. 28 @launchany Develop a Digital Product Mindset A digital product mindset is a way of delivering on the needs of the market by productizing digital assets that deliver desired outcomes, resulting in customer delight and an empowered workforce.
- 29. 29 @launchany APIs are a Conversation: Machine-to-Machine GET /projects Accept: application/json POST /projects { "projectName":"My Project", … } GET /projects/12345 Accept: application/json 200 OK Content-Type: application/json [ { "projectId":"12344", … }, … ] 201 Created Content-Type: application/json Location: /projects/12345 200 OK Content-Type: application/json [ { "projectId":"12345", … }, … ]
- 30. 30 @launchany APIs are a Conversation: Developer-to-Developer Examples and Guides Reference Docs
- 31. 31 @launchany APIs are a Conversation: Human-to-Human Policy Holder: “Can I see my recently submitted claim so that I can track the status as I get back to whole?” Adjuster: “Sure, I can provide you with that information”
- 32. 32 @launchany What are Job Stories? Alan Klement wrote about Job Stories in 2013: ● A technique for capturing the job to be done ● A simple, consistent model for each task ● Aimed at making it hard to "leave something out”
- 33. 33 @launchany WHEN I WANT TO SO I CAN the reason the customer desires an outcome the action the customer needs to be taken the result of applying the capability at the trigger even (the trigger event) (the job/capability) (the outcome) Components of a Job Story
- 34. 34 @launchany Map outcomes to processes ● Map the activity steps required to go from the situation/problem (WHEN..) to the outcome (SO I CAN…) ● These steps comprise the job to be done ● Each step is something you may need to automate
- 35. 35 @launchany “Align-Define-Design-Refine” ADDR Collaborative API Design Process Link: https://bit.ly/rest-api-design-workshop
- 36. 36 @launchany Summary: Establish a product mindset for your API platform •Develop a digital product mindset to prevent building fit- for-purpose APIs •Leverage job stories to focus on delivering outcome-based APIs •Incorporate an API design-first process that focuses on an outside-in approach
- 37. 37 @launchany 4. Grow and mature your API platform
- 38. 38 @launchany Modeling Your API Platform Helps to Understand the People and Processes API Platform Modeling identifies: • The business operating model • Workflows across business units • Areas of collaboration • Dependencies across segments
- 39. 40 @launchany Domain API Taxonomy with Product Managers Underwriting Shop and Quote API Product Catalog Request Quote View Quote Policy Management API Customer Account API Create Policy Update Policy List Policies Register Account Change Password Update Account Lisa Sanjay Michael Samantha
- 40. API Platform API Platform Ownership is Required to Scale any API Platform
- 41. 42 @launchany Summary: Grow and mature your API platform •Use API Platform Modeling to identify the people and processes •Identify domain/subdomain boundaries to unify on understanding and terminology •Implement API platform taxonomy and ownership to scale your API efforts and to drive business value
- 42. 43 @launchany 5. Scale your API platform
- 43. 44 @launchany Centralized API C4E ● A single, centralized API C4E team handles all team needs ● Responsible for delivering all developer and API platforms ● Often sufficient for smaller organizations ● Limited scale for larger organizations API C4E Dev team Dev team Dev team Dev team Dev team Dev team
- 44. 45 @launchany What do you do when your API program grows from a few developers to 100s, 1000s, 10k participants? One of our clients has 10000+ developers.
- 45. 46 @launchany What do you do when the number of APIs grows from a few APIs to 100s…1000s or more? One of our clients has 6000+ APIs.
- 46. 47 @launchany API platforms at scale without mature ownership and processes will result in confusion and chaos.
- 47. 48 @launchany Federated Coach Model ● Blends centralized and distributed topologies for sharing resources and infrastructure at scale ● Maintains a centralized authority while supporting scale beyond the central platform team ● Great for scaling + efficiency API C4E Dev team Federated coach Federated coach Federated coach Federated coach Dev team Dev team Dev team Dev team Dev team
- 48. 49 @launchany The role of an API coach Maintain and support the API program and processes Assist teams to design reusable APIs within and across the domain Apply API standards, conventions, guidelines locally Facilitate API design sessions and office hours Responsibilities of an API Coach
- 49. 50 @launchany The Path to API Coach Certification Link: https://bit.ly/api-platform-training
- 50. 51 @launchany 1. Become an API coach for your organization. 2. Invest in growing future API coaches.
- 51. https://bit.ly/apicoach What will it include? • Individual courses • Certifications Who is it for? • Devs, architects • Product leaders • Technical writers
- 52. 53 @launchany Summary: Mature your API platform •Establish self-service training to scale up the knowledge and skills of your teams •Develop a federated API coach program to support facilitated guidance at scale
- 53. 54 @launchany Summary: Establish, Grow, and Mature Your API Platform 1. Establish a focus on people – understand the needs of all platform participants 2. Establish people-centric processes –API C4E with clear engagement models 3. Establish a product mindset – Design for outcomes, not for data 4. Grow and mature – Implement an API platform taxonomy with proper owners 5. Scale your API platform – Train and support teams with federated API coaches
Editor's Notes
- Thank you. Today, I want to share some insights into how are companies are building out their API platforms, what is working and what isn’t, and how YOU can get started or get your API program or platform back on track.
- I’m James Higginbotham. I’m an executive API consultant, which is a fancy way of saying that I live and breathe APIs and API programs. While I have a software development and enterprise architecture background, I spend most of my time partnering with organizations to establish, grow, and mature their API program. Across multiple verticals: Commercial Insurance, Healthcare, Hospitality, Finance and Banking, Travel, Airline Recently wrote a book… City elevation: 6,035ft / 1,839 meters Pike’s Peak elevation: 14114,17ft / 4,302 meters Home elevation: 8800ft / 2682 meters
- Today, we are going to look at all three aspects of your API platform. We are going to look at how to establish a strategy, establish essential processes, establish an ownership of your API platform, then we will look at how to grow, mature, and scale your platform. This talk will share some insights from our recent engagements and outline some actions you can take to help establish, grow, and mature your API program to ensure it delivers value to business and customers.
- First, let’s talk a bit about API platform strategies, including what works (and what doesn’t)
- I recently wrote an article as part of the APIFutures collaboration, where many vendors and thought leaders shared their insights into what APIs will look like in 2024 and beyond. In my article, I pointed out that we are undergoing a shift in IT back to business. We had years and millions of dollars to rewrite and modernize our systems as part of our digital transformation initiatives. That time is past. Now business is back in the driver’s seat. This means it is time to focus back on value, not just on internal implementation details. I truly believe that APIs are the center of delivering value to business and to your customers.
- Let’s start the talk with a definition of how I see an API platform…
- To get there, we need to bring together our IT capabilities (on the left) and business capabilities (on the right) into a Global Insurance API platform. This platform offers APIs, events, and streams that are sourced from existing systems to deliver digital outcomes.
- To put it another way… In all that you do, build APIs into your culture. APIs should be in your DNA. You can’t consume APIs that don’t exist. So at first, you must build out your APIs. But if you define metrics that are based upon the number of APIs you have – rather than the value and desired outcomes they enable – your chances of delivering a successful API platform are low.
- This, of course, refers to the failure of Google+ compared to Facebook, Amazon. However, the principles are the same. The platform is only as good as the number of participants. https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers/yegge-platform-rant.html The Golden Rule of Platforms, “Eat Your Own Dogfood”, can be rephrased as “Start with a Platform, and Then Use it for Everything.” You can’t just bolt it on later. Certainly not easily at any rate – ask anyone who worked on platformizing MS Office. Or anyone who worked on platformizing Amazon. If you delay it, it’ll be ten times as much work as just doing it correctly up front. You can’t cheat. You can’t have secret back doors for internal apps to get special priority access, not for ANY reason. You need to solve the hard problems up front.
- Let’s now talk about the essential processes that you will need to establish. These aren’t exhaustive but give you an idea of what it will take over time to build up an effective API platform.
- Recently, I’ve been working with organizations in the Device Automation and Healthcare industries. When we first engaged with them, they lacked consistent processes for API design and delivery. This resulted in every development team re-inventing API standards, practices, and patterns. Some often get stuck in the “analysis paralysis” of the many choices available for their API practices. When we see this, we encourage them to unify their standards and practices under a single group to enable teams to deliver APIs faster and with greater confidence.
- This usually involves standing up an API Center for Enablement (API C4E), where representatives from different areas of the organization work together to solve many of the typical day-to-day requirements of delivering APIs. Often, they are passionate about APIs including supporting other teams – not just their own. In some cases they are dedicated staff, which is preferred, but can also be a fractional team helping to bootstrap the process. Also termed: API Center of Excellence, API Guild, API Office, or API Practice
- As we work with these organizations, we try and get them to focus on this one goal….
- Here is an example of an API consumer journey for a world-wide hotel chain we partnered with a few years ago. They had a few specific needs, including approvals for production API access, that some API platforms do not require. No need for fancy diagrams here unless you want to use them
- Likewise, the API producer journey involved a lifecycle that starts from aligning on the needs of the API consumers, to defining, designing, refining, delivering, and overseeing their API throughout its life.
- As the API platform starts to grow, we look for ways to engage both API consumers and producers in the organization. We often start with office hours and coaching sessions to help unblock teams. We then add facilitated design sessions for producing teams and community engagement for anyone looking to use an API.
- Let’s shift our focus to the ownership of your API platform. This is a question I receive often, usually along the lines of “so, WHO exactly owns the API platform?” When I turn the question around and ask them, they often say IT should own it.
- Going back to the world-wide hotel chain, when we first engaged with them they had 5 new REST-based APIs produced as a result of their modernization efforts. They were well thought out. But they lacked one thing – clear documentation. Not only documentation for developers, but also for executives. This included a high-level list of capabilities that the API offers. When we did this, suddenly non-technical executives, VPs, and directors were sharing the APIs with others in their meetings. They were proud of what the API platform was enabling them to do. An organization treating APIs as a technical concern only, resulting in fit-for-purpose APIs that lacked clear design, documentation, and discoverability to drive reuse.
- Next, we have to shift the way we think of APIs by introducing a digital product mindset.
- This is because they see APIs like this - a conversation between machines. This is what most of us as developers know and love. HTTP methods, JSON structures, response codes. We live and breathe this stuff
- But we must also factor in that there is another level of conversation: the developer-to-developer conversation. The API provider, the one that builds the API, needs to help the API consumer to understand how to use it. API reference documentation and getting started guides are common for this kind of conversation. This requires more than just technical knowledge, but also a deep understanding of the business problem and a variety of audiences beyond the developer.
- Ultimately, the conversation about APIs is human-to-human first and foremost. What is it that someone is trying to do? And how are we helping them get there? Ultimately, we need to model these as APIs to support the human outcomes desired. Homeowner: “Can you tell me where we stand with my home remodeling project?” Project Manager: “Sure, here are the tasks completed and items remaining” Policy Holder: “I’m trying to list the recently submitted claim so that I can track the status as I get back to whole” Adjuster: “Sure, I can provide you with that information”
- We introduce the concept of API ownership and the digital product mindset based upon the ADDR process outlined in my book. If you want to learn more, grab the book or add yourself to the waitlist for the next API course offering. We are launching a new instructor-guided course in a few weeks
- Once the API platform is established, it becomes necessary to look for ways to grow and mature the API platform.
- We use a technique we built that is based on our ADDR API design process. However, instead of delivering an API design, it helps us to identify the business operating model, key activities, job stories, and workflows across business units, domains, and subdomains. The insights gained help us to better understand how the organization operates, identify areas where it engages with partners and customers, and where internal processes are ready for automation. Some may ask why we don’t use EventStorming. While EventStorming helps to identify domain concepts and events but doesn’t surface the operating model as it doesn’t offer the diagramming elements necessary to capture workflows. Instead, it focuses on a single scenario from start-to-finish. This just doesn’t deliver the insights needed to drive an API platform.
- Using the insights gained from API Platform Modeling, we then map out the API platform taxonomy. This helps to organize APIs into areas based on domain or as shared capabilities. Product managers are assigned to each area and over the entire domain, ensuring that APIs within those areas are stewarded successfully over time
- As an example, we might have these three subdomains for an Underwriting domain of an insurance organization: Shop & Quote, Policy Management, and Customer Account Management
- Here is a visualization of what an API platform may look like once you have conducted API Platform Modeling. By identifying the domains, subdomains, and capabilities needed, you can start to map them into APIs. Some areas may be larger and some smaller in scope. The full API platform supports the organization digitally. Ownership is placed within and across domains, with a primary owner overseeing the API platform portfolio and stewarding/training owners
- Finally, let’s look at how you can scale your API platform efforts.
- One of our clients is a financial institution with over 2000+ agile teams. Coordinating their API efforts across these teams isn’t easy, as you can imagine.
- Likewise, what starts as a few APIs results in many 1000s of APIs in your API platform.
- The value of your API platform isn’t quantity. It is the value delivered through the outcomes it enables. This requires discipline to invest in the long-term execution of growing your APIs, not short-term project-based delivery
- Here is an example of a training site we published for a client. We leveraged our training materials to produce 4 courses for them, ensuring that their executives and business leaders, product owners, and developers were all prepared to contribute to the API platform.