For some organizations digital transformation is “buzzword whack-a-mole”: they chase hype after hype, implement digital platform after platform but never invest enough to really be successful. One of these strategies that I’ve seen up close recently is the “spray & pray API strategy”: build loads of API services and then sell them on an API marketplace. But it is not clear what exactly the product portfolio is, what market is being targeted, or even who the customers will be…
If you build it, they will come - right?
Developer portals can be the backbone for a digital transformation initiative. Providing an interface of interfaces that allows you to build digital platforms, plugin marketplaces, API ecosystems, service aggregators, and procurement switchboards. But to be successful, you need a strategy - your developer portal needs to be more than a dumping ground for API documentation.
In this talk Kristof will share an overview of the different types of developer portals he is currently aware of, and the types of digital transformation tactics they enable. He will use a complexity & systems lens to explain what he thinks is driving the need for digital transformation. Finally, he will explore a deliberate complexity architecture inspired by biology, that organizations can use to become more resilient & adaptive while maintaining efficiency.
8. 8
A GREAT
DEVPORTAL
SHOULD BE
LIKE A
TOOLBOX WITH
DIFFERENT
COMPART-
MENTS FOR
DIFFERENT
BUILDING
BLOCKS
Pronovix confidential and proprietary
Matthias Buescher
Deutsche Bank
20. 20
PHYSICAL PROXIMITY DIGITAL PROXIMITY
@kvantomme -20@kvantomme -@kvantomme -20@kvantomme -
1. Replacing physical proximity
Matthias Biehl
UBS, API University
21. DELIVERING
DIGITAL
PROXIMITY
21
Provide contextualized integrated customer
experiences
1) Expose services through Digital interfaces
2) Enable the experience you couldn’t build,
or didn’t know you needed through APIs
3) Developer experience: make it easy to
build additional experiences
4) Developer marketing - do developers
know you are part of their puzzle?
(discoverability, findability, SEO)
@kvantomme -
23. Rising
complexity
means that
industrial age
companies
organized as
complicated
systems no
longer work
(Cynefin framework)
COMPLEX
Enabling constraints
Loosely coupled
probe-sense-respond
Emergent Practice
COMPLICATED
Governing constraints
Tightly coupled
sense-analyse-respond
Good Practice
CHAOTIC
Lacking constraint
De-coupled
act-sense-respond
Novel Practice
OBVIOUS
Tightly constrained
No degrees of freedom
sense-categorise-respond
Best Practice
DISORDER
23@kvantomme -@kvantomme -23@kvantomme -
24. Complex
Adaptive Systems
are a group of
interacting
agents, that adapt
to complexity in
the environment
with complex
adaptive
emergent
behaviour
24@kvantomme -24@kvantomme -
28. 28
1. Ecosystem devportal examples
Internal devportal mockups as presented at API the Docs Chicago by Darren Shelcusky from
Ford Motor Company
@kvantomme -
29. 29
1. Ecosystem devportal
29@kvantomme -
RESILIENCE, ADAPTIVITY
● Level of constraint: mixed
● Network: de-centralized
● Market focus: internal, industry
● Business model: strategic
40. 40@kvantomme -
● A developer’s intent is not to “buy an API”,
but to solve a very specific problem
● Devportals are specialty boutiques in a
shopping mall, not commodity markets
● APIs are infrastructure, not transactions
Can an API marketplace work?
51. 51@kvantomme -
APIs are signal-boundary
systems
1. Separate services behind APIs to
break them free from silo
constraints.
2. Improve adaptivity through faster
information cascades in smaller
teams.
52. 52@kvantomme -
The principle of deliberate
complexity:
“Alternate layers of high and low
constraints in systems, to maximize
both adaptivity and efficiency”
53. 53@kvantomme -
Conway’s law:
“Any organization that designs a system
(defined broadly) will produce a design
whose structure is a copy of the
organization's communication structure.”
=> Reshape the structure of an
organization’s communication system to
change its structure