apidays New York 2023 - Governance Doesn't Have to be a Dirty Word, Jason Harmon, Stoplight

apidays New York 2023
APIs for Embedded Business Models: Finance, Healthcare, Retail, and Media
May 16 & 17, 2023

Governance Doesn't Have to be a Dirty Word
Jason Harmon, CTO at Stoplight

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Transcript

1. Governance Doesn’t Have to Be a Dirty Word Jason Harmon, CTO of Stoplight
2. 2 Jason Harmon Chief Technology Officer, Stoplight Engineering, Product, Security, IT Host of #APIIntersection Podcast Background: • Previously: → Senior Director of Platform Architecture @Expedia Group → Chief Platform Officer and CTO at @Typeform → Head of API Design @Paypal → API Architect @uShip • Co-founded Austin API Meetup • Founding member of OpenAPI Initiative (inactive) • Founding member of RAML Working Group (inactive)
3. 3 Ghosts of SOAP/SOA Governance Past — 2010 & Onwards • Tedious and Time Consuming: Review committees & program management from my time at a large old enterprise • SOAP: (Simple object access protocol) official protocol developed by Microsoft as 1.0/1.1, later amended by IBM as 1.2. Industry-wide practices determined by the largest players
4. 4 The SOAP Era • “Centralized-Control” • Large, Slow, Controlling • Industry Consortium • Power structure entrenched • Top-down Approach 4
5. 5 …versus The Open Source Approach • SOAP standard vs REST architectural pattern (and other modern API standards) • Typically a few committers and a community of people around them providing input, feedback, and contribution • Compare that model of early 2000s web service governance, vastly different! 5
6. “ 6 Governance has changed, but we don’t always look at it as “governance” today.
7. 7 Today: Decentralized Governance and the “Federated Approach” Community of passionate and informed people Building APIs in a platform ecosystem Core team comprised of silo-breakers “Wanted Influence”
8. 8 Consider the inner source as your culture-change agent. • How are you contributing between organizations? • How are you conducting reviews? • Do they have the right permissions?
9. 9 This enables platform -thinking.
10. 10 So, what does that mean for governance today?
11. 11 APIs as Products 1
12. 12 The Rise of the API Product Manager Era • An ever-changing role • Not-necessarily-technical • Broader sense of inclusion • APIs are business critical assets • Partnership capability 12
13. 13 Treating APIs as a Product Recognize Relationships Gain Business Buy-In Enhance Your Acceptance Criteria
14. 14 If you don’t treat your APIs as products… It becomes just a commodity. A tech artifact. You end up with an engineered design experience instead of designing for the end-user. This is system-centric, not customer-centric.
15. 15 Evolving Review Processes 2
16. 16 “ SOAP era: principal engineers can wield the power unchecked Modern era: end product of the API, an intentional design, distributed authority If using a suite of APIs that fits cohesively together, there is a design effort put behind it. Governance makes it possible.
17. 17 The New Review Process • More inclusive • Contributors, curators, maintainers & non-technical stakeholders • Building for an ecosystem • This leads to: → Better developer experience → Happier customers → Satisfied partners → Increased Scalability
18. 18 Key Takeaways 3
19. 19 Key Takeaways: Today’s “Governance” Means: • Decentralized Control; distribute power • Maintain intentional consistency; small centralized team • APIs as a product; more inclusive product development process • Greater Transparency; educate & evangelize
20. 20 Tools to Help Improve Your Governance Efforts • Style Guidelines → Standardization of naming conventions • Collaboration Tools to smooth out the design review process • Shared Components/ Model Libraries • A solid API Product Manager! • Psst! If you use Stoplight Platform, you can get all of these things and more!
21. 21 For more tips and tricks on the API space…
22. 22 Check out Stoplight’s API Intersection Podcast The podcast on the intersection between API design and digital transformation. Available Wherever You Listen to Podcasts
23. 23 Questions?