This document outlines an approach for scaling API development across a large enterprise financial institution. It proposes establishing a Platform Services Center of Excellence to define API governance and design standards. The COE would provide training, mentorship, and reviews to coaches in each line of business to ensure APIs adhere to standards and are high quality. This centralized model aims to scale API development while maintaining quality, enabling faster delivery of new products.

1. Scaling API Design to Deliver New Products Faster
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Sanjay Kumar
Platform Services Center of Excellence
October 30, 2018

2. Money Isn’t Real
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• It’s an idea
• The paper and plastic in our wallets are symbols of that idea
• Our salaries, our bank balances, our net worths, the billions of financial transactions that occur
each day, are all part of an information flow, managed with tools held together by our financial
and societal institutions (which also aren’t real)
• In other words:
Finance = Technology + People

3. “Changing Banking for Good”
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• We’re not a banking company, we’re a technology company that does banking
• Technology is used to help re-define banking
• Digital Transformation
• Cloud, Mobile, Social, Analytics
• New products, new channels, new experiences, new ways to think about finance

4. APIs
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• APIs are the glue holding connecting systems across the web
• Once considered middleware or infrastructure, they are now full-fledged products
• Well-designed APIs are win-win for producers and consumers alike

5. Scaling Development
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• Centralized API design
• Large-scale Enterprise
• Multiple lines of business
• Thousands of development teams
• Federated model

6. DevExchange
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• Platinum-level Gateway
• API Discovery Portals
• API Lifecycle tool

7. Platform Services Center of Excellence
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• API Governance
• Define healthy API ecosystem
• Navigate the terrain
• Measure progress

8. API Design Standards
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• API as a Web service
• API as a Product
• API as a Façade
• API as a Contract
• API as a CollaborationTool

9. The DX Review
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• All APIs: new, major-versioned, minor-versioned, same-versioned
• Adherence to Standards
• Usability
• Alignment with existing catalog

10. DX Certification
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• CBT for any interested developers
• Ensures basic understanding of
• API design principles
• API service protocols
• API Tools and Lifecycle

11. Training
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• 2-day Coach Training
• Coach Mentorship
• Online courses
• API Fundamentals
• API Modeling and Design

12. Design Coaches by Line of Business
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• Standards by Business Domain
• API Champions
• Coaches
• Basic
• Advanced
• Coach Reviewer

13. Coach Mentorship
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• 1:1 sessions between COE members and active coaches
• Coach advancement path
• In-depth curriculum
• DX Reviews
• Exercises

14. Community
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• Open Governance meetings
• Slack community
• Intranet site
• Blogs
• Design considerations
• Tips

15. Measuring Results
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• API Lifecycle metrics
• API SLA tracking
• API Quality scoring
• Feedback

16. Conclusion
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• APIs play an increasingly critical role in the world of finance
• API Development can be scaled without losing quality
• Quality checks must be part of the process
• There is one opportunity to design an API well
• The payoff for good quality is faster and easier delivery for both consumers and producers