In this article, we discuss five essential steps to drive your API program:

• Obtain executive sponsorship of the API program for longevity.
• Establish clear objectives to ensure a unified focus on the API program across the entire organization.
• Implement lightweight API governance to ensure APIs may be discovered and used consistently.
• Shift to a product-based delivery model by avoiding project-based funding and delivery that discourages long-term API ownership and growth opportunities.
• Focus on API adoption by making it easy to understand what your API does and how to get started quickly.

Organizations are establishing an API program as part of their digital transformation efforts. What does it take to drive the transition to an API-led business? In our work with global organizations to help them with this transition, we have identified five essential elements for a successful change to an API-led organization: executive sponsorship, establishing clear objectives, implementing lightweight API governance, shifting to a product-based delivery model, and focusing on API adoption. Let's examine these elements to see how your API program can benefit. 

API Programs Must Have Executive Sponsorship

API programs with and without executive buy in

An enterprise API program often starts with IT staff tasked with integrating existing systems and supporting mobile applications. This bottom-up approach is expected when the immediate demands of partners and internal innovation must be solved. While this can be an effective way to launch an API program initially, programs that begin within IT must obtain executive buy-in to realize longevity and maximum impact.

With executive sponsorship, an API program will be unlimited in budget, resources, and overall effectiveness. APIs will only be as important as the high-priority initiatives driving them. Once the attention shifts away from these initiatives, APIs become the responsibility of a select few. Funding is reduced or removed, resulting in inconsistencies and a lack of internal support.

API Programs Must Establish Clear Objectives

day to demands with and without strategic sision

A clear set of objectives will drive an organization's API program in a particular direction. With clear goals, an API program can handle the organization's day-to-day demands. It will need more vision and metrics to help teams make decisions to address the needs of the day as well as the long-term direction of the API program.
The objectives for an API program will include one or more of the following:

• Establish a portfolio of digital capabilities to respond to market demands quickly
• Accelerate mobile strategy by making data and services more accessible
• Adapt to changing customer relationships that go beyond web and mobile to an omnichannel experience
• Transform partner integrations by adding efficiency and freeing up resources through API reuse
• Foster technical and business innovation by reducing technical barriers to the delivery of new solutions
• Unsilo internal departments by modernizing the operating model and sharing digital capabilities across the business
• Reducing the lines of code written to deliver solutions and automation
• Convert competitors into partners by allowing them to build on top of one or more APIs
• Increasing revenue through an API subscription model or indirect revenue by reducing customer churn through more deep integration.

How APIwiz helps with having clear set of objectives for the organisation 

Be very clear about the objectives of the API program. Revisit them often to ensure that they reflect the current needs and vision of the organization. Finally, communicate them often during quarterly meetings, as part of online video resources, and through job role objectives that incentivize everyone to own a portion of the API strategy.

Case Study: North American Bank API Program

An example of the positive impact of formalizing an API program through executive sponsorship is a North American banking institution. They began a formalized API program in 2013 after executives realized the power of delivering their business capabilities to a digital marketplace. Efforts were established to establish a formal governance program to ensure consistency across APIs.

A team was established to organize their entire API portfolio of digital capabilities. At its inception, only a handful of APIs existed. However, executive sponsors realized that over time the API portfolio would number in the thousands of APIs. While not all APIs would be externalized for a partner or public consumption, the value of each API was noticed by many internal developers who could reuse APIs from other teams. API training was delivered as the program grew to prepare each team to take an API design first approach. Teams began to focus first on the value delivered by each API. Eventually, API products were created to support the needs of their partner ecosystem. Today, they have over 5000 APIs, and their API portfolio is still growing.

API Programs Require Consistency

The term governance may call a rigid, strict set of rules and processes to mind. However, that does not need to be the case. Lightweight API governance encourages consistency across the organization, mixed with the flexibility to support changing requirements over time.

Effective API governance programs include the following disciplines:

• Repeatable API design processes and tooling
• Self-service and live training, and other resources that share knowledge across the organization at a scale
• An API catalog that empowers teams to discover and consume existing APIs before building their own
• Clear API standards, protocols, and design patterns supported by the organization through a style guide, with automated enforcement through API linting rules.
• Automated testing of APIs that provides confidence to internal and external consumers of every API in the catalog.

For some organizations, an API governance effort may be centralized and managed by a single team, such as a center of excellence (CoE) or center for enablement (C4E). For larger organizations, governance may start with a centralized group but, over time, support a federated API coach program to scale the efforts across the organization.

Federated governance establishes API coaches within a specific business unit or regional location for context-specific guidance and coaching. The centralized API governance team works with federated coaches to gain insights and make improvements. It also helps to maintain consistency across the organization while providing flexibility based on the specific needs of the business units.

API Programs Must Shift to a Product-Based Delivery Model

In most organizations, teams manage the delivery of projects that have a fixed timeline and budget. While this helps to deliver immediate results, it removes opportunities for APIs to grow and mature over time. The most effective API programs implement a product-centric delivery model.

APIs that are treated like projects do not grow and mature over time. After they are delivered, support is limited to maintenance developers assigned to the project. Below you can see the contrasts between a project-based delivery model with a product-based delivery model:

Project-Based Delivery Model

• Fixed budget to meet milestones
• One-off solution
• Date-driven
• Ends in maintenance mode
• Not marketed as a product

Product-Based Delivery Model

• Variable budget to meet market demands over time
• Repeatable and reusable
• Results-driven
• Continues to meet customer needs
• Marketed as a product to encourage reuse

Product ownership is essential to achieve the goals of an API product delivery model. The ownership will be focused solely on the API. Product owners and product managers must agree to own the API and the solution the API will support. 

Shifting to a product-based delivery model requires teams to move beyond thinking about API purely as technology and raw data to solve business problems. An API product delivery model focuses on identifying stakeholders, continually identifying their needs, delivering the API capabilities that meet those needs, and obtaining feedback early and often to improve the API continually.

API Programs Focus on API Adoption

An API strategy with objectives and governance is essential, but the API program will only gain sufficient traction with a focus on API adoption. 

API consumers are an essential ingredient of any program. Focusing on increasing API adoption helps organizations avoid spending time and resources to design and build APIs that developers rarely (or never) use. This requires proper API documentation and a transparent onboarding process. 

API documentation is most developers' first encounter with any of your APIs. Providing excellent documentation is essential to helping them understand what your API offers, how to use it, and what to do when they are ready to start integrating. This documentation is provided via a developer portal that encourages rapid API discovery. 

In addition, developers need to experience success quickly. Define a transparent onboarding process to ensure that developers can be up and running in a short amount of time. Make it easy for them to try your API from within your documentation or use a step-by-step getting started guide.

Implementing an API strategy requires the right tools to encourage teams to do the right thing. APIwiz helps get APIs to market faster, connect your ecosystem, and be a leader in delivering customer-centric experiences. From planning and design to building and managing your APIs, APIwiz helps your organization focus your API efforts and ensure they align with your API strategy. Sign up for a free trial to see how your API program can use APIwiz to track and deliver on your API program objectives.