Why API success in 2024 will be more about psychology than technology
A contribution to #apifutures a curated set of ideas, insights and inspiration from API thought leaders and specialists from across the globe.
“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.” Peter Drucker
Ask me what’s going to happen in 2024 with APIs, and you’ll get the consultant’s stock answer: “It depends.”
So let’s drill down a level.
In API World, there’s generally a marked difference in how people understand, think of, and engineer for APIs between:
those working at born-tech companies; and
their counterparts at large organisations in incumbent industries.
To narrow API predictions to something manageable my 2024 predictions focus on the latter. The “enterprise” space still represents an enormous scope—with wildly different levels of API understanding and maturity, often within the same organisation.
What’s the big picture?
For people working in more complex, mature organisations, any API-related crystal ball gazing should be couched in the wider socio-economic environment.
What matters to these companies’ customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders/investors matters for their enterprise strategies and directions.
And that’s before you overlay the galloping technological advances affecting each of those players.
If you believe API strength is integral to an organisation’s digital opportunities in The API Economy, then API-related investments and priorities naturally trickle down from—or at least have reference to—decisions by people steering the organisation.
And news about the broader business climate is generally pretty bleak.
Inflation, interest rates and industry layoffs. Elections and uncertainty. Wars and hostilities. Security and (mis)information. AI and ethics. Climate and risks.
The lists are long and the issues complex.
Knowing an organisation and its API opportunities means knowing its people
Those working hard on an organisation’s API agenda may be completely unaffected by concerns about the wider business climate in carrying out their day-to-day work.
However, likely as not, if not affected themselves, there are people among their friends and families who may well be.
Costs of living. Job security. Worries about loved ones suffering in another part of the world.
This is not a commentary on the “don’t go there” topics for online writing such as politics, religion or the world economy. It’s just that these are the things that may be in the hearts and minds of people making decisions and choices in business generally. The things that may impact how they think, behave and act for the organisations that employ them.
And therefore those organisations’ APIs.
Specifically, one could expect that:
There’ll be less direct API investment around
API roles and expectations will continue to evolve
Many API people and their key stakeholders will continue to experience stress
It’s why getting on top of the psychology is as important as ever in making the most of the technology associated with APIs.
So what does this mean for those of us working in and around API World at or with these types of organisations?
Prediction #1 | API teams need to keep sweating the small stuff
Hunker down. Do more with less. Spend more wisely.
These were already messages for many API programs and platform investments towards the back half of ‘23. Expect more in ‘24.
Transformation will be seen by some as more of a luxury. Execution as even more of a necessity.
Expect increased pressure on getting returns from transformation investments made to date—in many cases in foundational API-enabling capabilities.
Less “the chickens coming home to roost” and more “we built the new home, where are more of the chickens we expected?”.
Broader API goals and aspirations haven’t changed
In many respects, they’re more important than ever.
Faster, cheaper IT change. A simpler technology landscape. The ability to realise new business models with APIs as digital products. Participation in the API Economy.
These business and tech strategies still rely on a fit-for-purpose stable of robust APIs meeting internal and external needs. With solid API management practices around them.
A cynical perspective might suggest that means not much “new or interesting” will be happening with API tooling and platforms. In practice, it could look like:
Budget holders will want to show they’re spending their API dollars responsibly.
There’ll be more prototyping and tyre-kicking than placing big bets.
Decisions may get delayed “while we wait and see how the year plays out”.
This can expect to put pressure on the people waiting on those decisions. People wanting to get on and get moving on projects.
Results, results, results
If it feels like organisations are taking in a big breath around API-related procurement, when it comes to wanting results from investments to date it might feel more like hyperventilation.
Gen AI will continue to attract executive attention and management / discretionary investment. It risks taking oxygen out of other conversations, while the promise of AI productivity savings may be too seductive to ignore because of cost pressures (see above).
On the commercial side of API plans, API-related compliance and risk obligations will be encouraged to stick to “just enough”. There’ll need to be stronger cases for “review, rethink, and then refactor while we’ve got the trunk open doing small changes”.
But there’s light and sunshine in getting creative
An optimist’s viewpoint would suggest API management becomes more like home improvements during the pandemic.
If you’re stuck with the tools and teams you have right now, and you’re looking every day at the little niggly things you used to ignore when out of the house…you can knuckle down and get creative with what’s already there.
For API leaders, this means time and focus to improve the existing API customer experience/s for your engineers, partners, and product teams.
For API centres of enablement (”C4Es”) or their equivalent, this could look like back to good old-fashioned IT management.
Or at least the product management of the platform that allows others to do more and better business/digital product management (with APIs).
It looks like:
pragmatic management of the APIM platform and team backlog
real clarity on what’s necessary versus what’s nice-to-have
a clear and socialised platform roadmap that reflects realistic investment expectations in the near to medium term
widely applied communications and plans for internal advocacy
One simple example of the type of communication clarity when supporting investment cases comes to claiming benefits.
This may be obvious to many, but may still confuse people enthusiastic to get people committed to the main game: the big API Economy participation goals.
API enablers can claim benefits from improvements to the APIM platform itself— or that the team can directly influence; versus what wider benefits will come to the organisation e.g. differentiating between providing an API platform capability (their responsibility) versus providing faster E2E change; or delivering a new ecosystem play.
Prediction #2 | To specialise or not to specialise?…that is the question
API-related roles will continue to evolve and expand.
Increasingly, API will show up as a prefix for more “traditional” technology roles. Think of the equivalent of Cloud to qualify a particular type of engineer, architect or security specialist.
Meanwhile, API expertise will continue to show up more strongly in the more traditional “business-y” roles and specialties.
There’s nothing new about the importance of digital savviness in leadership at all levels in organisations.
The Gen AI juggernaut—of interest, investment and urgency—will continue to accelerate this need to learn and build fluency in all things tech.
It’s also adding pressure on API portfolios and priorities, relevant to Prediction #1 above.
As organisations continue their broader transformation agendas to offer and distribute more digital products, they’re likewise shifting more of their IT-related investment to long-running product / platform teams and capabilities.
This goes along with the trend towards recruiting and onboarding people with experience from born-tech companies and cultures—to accelerate teams’ understanding of digitalisation. This trend is also influenced by Tech industry layoffs and investment nervousness coupled with people seeking to take fewer risks around job roles and family finances.
The shift to the centre
For complex, globally recognised brands and companies, where different API teams and areas of expertise may have evolved independently, expect more consolidation into centralised API platform management and core capabilities.
Or at least focus on better, more consistent engineer experiences.
Most notably, those with well established API programs and thriving portfolios of APIs supporting third party and external customer relationships—will expect more demand and interest coming from demonstrated API wins in other parts of the organisation.
The flywheel effect of success should see shifts from API education outwards from centres of enablement; to demand for API support inwards.
API capabilities continue to be something that’s needed in-house, particularly any roles with responsibilities for:
API product management
API design
API architectures
API standards and governance
All of these inherently expect understanding and support for the organisation’s wider business and tech strategies. This means being able to apply the big picture in ways that are meaningful for colleagues on the ground.
Turning the why for APIs into the what and how on the ground.
The API product manager role is expected to continue to morph and evolve.
At the very least, the skillsets for managing APIs-as-products will be more visible for capabilities in other digital roles.
This anticipates a future where the API product manager role is more widely understood and celebrated. Where they are rewarded for doing more than delivering; but for actually driving wider cultural change that understands and brings to life the organisation’s wider digital dreams and aspirations.
There will continue to be roles of API product specialisation, as presented in four distinct API product managers subtypes.
With organisations’ API success, comes the appreciation that the most creative API opportunities and designs come from beyond traditional “physical product”, application or organisational boundaries.
Having API product leadership and processes that allow teams to surface and exploit these opportunities may be one of the operating model questions facing organisations.
Prediction #3 | Less grind, more grace
Lastly, people in API key roles—particularly those leading teams and/or API-related products or getting them put to use on customer or partner problems—are inevitably part of the middle/senior management layer(s) that are getting more attention. In a good way.
Far from bouncing back after the pandemic, the research and data for 2023 were overwhelming: middle and senior leadership teams in most geographies were experiencing the opposite. Research report after research report have pointed out the stress these people have been feeling.
The API “doers” at large organisations—the product leaders, the architects, the API platform managers—represent part of this middle management community that’s increasingly being recognised as the undervalued-but-critical glue in the smooth running of organisations.
Far from the “frozen middle” label that now seems to echo a pre-pandemic work environment, the focus is now more on the positive correlation between company performance and middle managers’ behaviours.
API direction and leadership for these people is more than:
getting strategy done
keeping the strongest contributors among colleagues and teams engaged and motivated
bringing strategic directions to life.
It’s also about recognising these are the people who need to be able to explain to teams at the coal face of API design and deployment:
new or latest API directions and needs coming from customers and partners
latest APIM features on offer to internal API producers and consumers
the rationale behind the latest expectations for API governance
While these may be people whose roles are harder to value from a direct / monetary perspective, they—and the people who work with them—need to be able to craft and incentivise roles that will allow these “connectors” to be recognised and rewarded as peers of the traditional delivery or team/budget ownership.
In conclusion
If the API agenda for mature companies focus for 2024 feels a bit like “2023 but more so”, then a differentiator will be the focus on the people involved.
These would be the top three things to be thinking about and acting on.
Be sensitive to the wider business climate, and the context it provides for strategies, with its potential impact on individuals and teams. The lines between work and home life expect to be just more blurred than ever. How they’re recognised and managed is the difference.
Ask for, or mobilise resources. Not just dollar investments or extra headcount. But time and space to be creative. Learning and professional development opportunities to grow across technical and non-technical areas. Air-cover for experimentation to mitigate people’s hesitancy about risk-taking.
Recognise people some people will be more risk averse; others may be up for taking bigger risks. Or at least recognise that some people’s behaviours may be a bit erratic if they’re dealing with their own or others’ stress levels.
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Claire Barrett is Director at APIsFirst and co-founder of The API Collective. She makes strategy happen, connecting and communicating strategies and dreams to the practical change needed for people and teams to execute.
The illustration comes from Georgina vH. Contact Claire for her details if you’d like to know more about her work.
These thoughts in this article are the personal opinions of the author only. They don’t represent the views or opinions of any clients, colleagues or affiliate organisations. If any of the quotes or ideas appear to come from others without appropriate citing or attribution, it is either unintended and/or a coincidence. The content may get edited if and when we get feedback.