Lean Method for Building Good APIs for Business – APIOps Cycles, Marjukka Niinioja, Founding Partner at Osaango Oy

1. Lean Method for Building Good APIs for
Business – APIOps Cycles
Marjukka Niinioja, Osaango & APIOps Community #APIDaysFinland
@miinioja @apiopscycles

2. What I have done and still do…
 API, Enteprise & Information Architect
 API Product Manager
 Developer
 Manager
 Project manager
 API management vendor
 Consultant (ERP, API, Business Strategy)
 Trainer
 Speaker
 Author
 Consulted, trained or advised 200
companies and public organizations on
APIs, microservices, integrations and
Developer experience
 Consulting & training currently Finnish
government, companies and enterprises in
Platform & API Economy
 Organizing API & Platform economy
related events
 Experience with multiple API
management, integration & API tools +
programming APIs
 Founding partner of Osaango.com
@miinioja @apiopscycles

3. Most of the material is on the
APIOps Cycles site, blogs and
API Economy 101 book
@miinioja @apiopscycles

4. API Economy runs on ecosystem
customer journeys
 Analytics
and
content
APIs
 Awareness APIs
 Sense APIs
 Market place APIs
 Search engine APIs
 Product APIs
 Ordering
APIs (own,
partner
customer)
 Payment APIs Logistics APIs
@miinioja @apiopscycles

5. I wish someone had given me a magic API
wisdom pill 10-20 years ago…
Photo by OhTilly on Unsplash

6. APIs –
Art or
Science?
Photo by John Gibbons on Unsplash
@miinioja @apiopscycles

7. Method ?
Expert
MotivationSkills
Tapping into my M.Ed. training…
@miinioja @apiopscycles

8. And into research, practice and business domains
In the scarce world of API
research, this provides
important view on APIs,
from global economy
point of view.
How can we make APIs
more widely adopted?
@miinioja @apiopscycles

9. Source: Huhtamäki & al. Visualizing the Geography of
Platform Boundary Resources: The Case of the Global
API Ecosystem
Amount of APIs
correlates with Global
Startup Index and
economic growth
areas.
APIs thrive in cultures
where user-centered
design is dominant.
Mashups combining
several APIs require
certain amount of co-
location and mindset
for marketers and
developers to co-
create.@miinioja @apiopscycles

10. The Cycle

11. Why do APIs need their own
method????
LET’S LOOK AT 10 REASONS
@miinioja @apiopscycles

12. Why is a lean
process important?
1
To minimize waste
and do things right
the first time
Else the docs don’t
match the reality,
like in this case…
@miinioja @apiopscycles
If you weren’t in the conf: when
making my shirt they put the
sleaves upside down and did a lot
of other “bad process” mistakes

13. THIS MAKES
COMMON
SENSE?
BUT IN
FINNISH WE
CALL IT…
MAALAISJÄRKI =
“Village sense”
2
@miinioja @apiopscycles

14. And we all come
from different
villages…
@miinioja @apiopscycles

15. POST /meet
Accept-Language: fi-FI
“Hello”: “Moi”
Response:
Status code: 200 OK
“Location”: “Helsinki”
“Hello”: “Moi”
Response:
Status code: 200 OK
“Location”: “Tampere”
“Hello”: “Moro”
Response:
Status code: 200 OK
“Location”: “Lappland”
“Hello”: “Hei”
@miinioja @apiopscycles

16. POST /add
POST /del
Hand-written
documentation
200 attributes for payload “just
because we have them”
Sensitive information in URI and
Query parameters
When we get new API users, we need to boot our servers
to give them access
“Basic auth is just fine”Not validating
specfiles
And we also copy-paste bad APIs… That’s why it’s
a technical jungle out there…
3
@miinioja @apiopscycles

17. If we don’t build
the APIs with the
right method…
4
@miinioja @apiopscycles

18. We’ll lose leaway in development and waste time and
money during API lifetime.
Difference between “normal software project” and one using API Consumer interviews
and Prototyping introduced by APIOps Cycles
6 month project time line
The “Oh s**t, they can’t use the API like this” -moment
✓
⛔
@miinioja @apiopscycles

19. 5
@miinioja @apiopscycles

20. @miinioja @apiopscycles

21. API is... Description Example Type of API
Important feature of a tangible
product
API is part of a tangible product or productized
service. Customer gets the API as part of the deal
when buying the product.
Internet of Things (IoT) APIs for controlling and
analyzing state of things like home appliances or
sensors
Partner or public, sometimes
also private
Productized service
API in itself is a productized service, offered to all
customers in the same way
Translation APIs, Payment APIs Public API
Part of a digital or real-world
service
API is part of the service experience, for example
maintenance service is ordered with an API, or you
can monitor package delivery with an API
Logistics API Partner or Public API
Customer-specific service
API is part of a service offered to customers as a
tailor-made solution including for example an
integration to a service providers system.
APIs in customer specific applications Partner
Interface to resources
API is just a means to access a resource the
company is selling
Company info APIs (risk category, owners, contact
information).
Cognitive APIs etc.
Open data APIs, Partner APIs
Interface to platform (boundary
resource)
API is a means to connect with a platform and get
added value through participation in the
interconnecting relationships of the platform (in
Platform Economy business model)
Online auction API, Apartment sharing API Partner or Public
Part of an integration
API is means to connect in to applications and
devices
Product API, Employees API, business transactions
API
Internal or partner API
@mniinoja Niinioja Marjukka. 2018. Translated and revised version. Published in a book about API Economy (Finnish) by Moilanen,
J., Niinioja, M., Seppänen, M., Honkanen, M. API-talous 101, Alma Talent
Is API a Product, Service, Integration or Something Else?

22. Don’t know what the
customers would use it
for… I need the Force
APIOps Cycles!
Sell our API or else…
@miinioja @apiopscycles

23. Available for
anyone to
register?
Paid support
available for
adopting API?
Pay for usage?
Open license for
data?
Open Data Interface Yes Yes Maybe Yes
Open API
Public API Yes Yes Maybe Maybe
Partner API No Yes Maybe No
Internal and Private APIs No No No No
@mniinioja API category cheat sheet: Marjukka Niinioja & Jarkko Moilanen 2018
6

24. 7
@miinioja @apiopscycles

25. 8

26. API =
All People are
Important
But do all these
people even
make a
difference
between an App
and an API?
9

27. Release both API
interface and code
which implements it
Monitor API
performance, code,
developer experience &
business metrics
Configure API interface,
management & code
environment
Create, verify and
package API interface &
code which implements
it
Plan API business
model, API consumer
requirements,
interfaces, API mgmt,
code
DevOps cycle y Kharnagy - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 – APIOps changes by @mniinioja
APIs need 2x DevOps 10
@miinioja @apiopscycles

28. APIOps CyclesTM
https://www.apiopscycles.com/
For lean and business oriented API
Development
@miinioja @apiopscycles

29. About the method
 Developed in 2017 at Digia Plc, updated version published in 12/2018 by
Osaango
 Licensed with CC-BY-SA 4.0 open license
 Maintained and developed further by APIOps community backend by
Osaango Ltd
 Used in many public and private organizations, from small to enterprise
size
 Purpose is to bring collaborations, DevOps mind set, business needs,
developer experience and lean thinking to API development.
@miinioja @apiopscycles

30. Business models and
business model canvases are
well known by the business
people and designers, as is
Lean Startup
@miinioja @apiopscycles

31. Minimum Viable API Architecture
Prototype
Just enough
Scale
API Audit Checklist collects all the rookie mistakes
usually done with designing APIs, even by otherwise
experienced developers.
It’s great for improving the Developer Experience,
security, metrics and API mgmt adoption. And helps in
onboarding newbie API developers
@miinioja @apiopscycles

32. Everyone hates NFRs so why not make them as easy and business user
friendly – main thing is you consider them per API & Customer journey
@miinioja @apiopscycles

33. Connecting APIs with business and
user goals
 Business strategy, IT strategy, API strategy
 Service / Project goals
 Customer journey or business process
 Value proposition -> API Value Proposition Canvas
 Business model -> API Model Canvas
 Canvases can and should be used for identifying the APIs that you don’t have
to or shouldn’t build
@miinioja @apiopscycles

34. Consulting Partners
 Certified Premium Partner
 Certified Partner
 Community members
@miinioja @apiopscycles

35. API consumer’s customer experience –
www.apieconomy.info with
Developer journey
AWARENESS
”I need a
image
detection API
”
ENGAGEMENT
”Hmm… there
seems to be
many visual
recognition APIs
that might fit
my needs”
COMPARISON /
NURTURE
”I’ll compare
these APIs: who
else is using,
what languages,
features,
revenue,
support”
TRANSACT
”How do I
get access to
it and use it”
”Do I need to
pay, how &
when do I
pay?”
USAGE
CUSTOMER
SUCCESS
”How do I
get support?”
ADVOCACY
“This is a
great API, we
should use
this for all of
our projects!”
“You should
try this too,
I’ll make a
tutorial
video”
PREVIOUS
EXPERIENCE
FUTURE
EXPERIENCE
PRE-
PURCHASE
TOUCH
POINTS
PURCHASE OR
ADOPTION
TOUCH
POINTS
POST-
PURCHASE
TOUCH
POINTS
Niinioja, M. (2018) adapted from picture “Current customer experience” in article by Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016).
Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96.
FEEDBACK (Qualitative and quantitative, technical and satisfaction, f.eg. API requests,
errors, support requests, Conversion rate, drop-out, MRR, NPS, CES)
Channels (brand owned, partner owned, customer owned, social):
Search engines, cloud platforms, API market places, blogs, social media, company
website, company’s developer center, extranet, intranet
@miinioja @apiopscycles

36. Get started or contact for partnership or training!
www.apiopscycles.com
Contact via:
LinkedIn
Twitter @mniinioja or
@apiopscycles
info@osaango.com