API Services

I provide tactical and strategic API governance services to the enterprise using API contracts, helping align product and engineering producers align to deliver the APIs that internal, 1st-party, and 3rd-party API consumers are needing.

Tactical Services

Each API contract provides access to a suite of tactical services that will help establish and evolve API contracts, keeping teams who are producing APIs moving forward and keeping the proper amount of attention on the business and technical details of an API contract. Contract services are designed to help keep API producers moving at just the right speed to stay aligned with business goals, but also the expectations that are set with consumers.

Mapping
Mapping the landscape of APIs, defining one or many contracts that already exist, helping to better understand the scope of existing API operations, and organize based upon the bounded context that matters most to leadership.
Creation
The creation of APIs.json business, OpenAPI technical, and other properties of a contract that are machine-readable, helping lay the groundwork for your API contracts, then helping guide you in refining and evolving them over time.
Review
Providing reviews of API contracts to identify existing patterns in use across API operations, then also providing feedback on anti-patterns, as well as additional patterns that could be applied to help improve API operations.
Certification
Certification of the properties of a contract, ensuring that they exist and are up to standards, and that individual API operations are accessible and are aligned with business use cases and are acceptable with contract schema.
Mediation
Provide mediation services when there are disagreements between owners and stakeholders producing APIs, as well as between producers and consumers over the business or technical details of an API, helping establish alignment.
Nudges
Weekly nudges on an agreed upon day regarding any questions, feedback, and changes being proposed by both API producer or consumer, helping keep the API lifecycle moving forward and maintain agreed upon levels of activity.

These services are designed to implemented tactically by a single team, line of business, or API, as well as be aligned with wider API strategy services that help provide the scaffolding for an API governance program, a common and agreed upon API lifecycle, as well as the other standardized building blocks of enterprise API operations. Services can be scaled to meet the needs across many different teams or lines of business.


Strategy Services

Every API contract opens up access to a suite of API governance strategy services, helping you focus on the big picture of your API operations. API strategy services help align and increase velocity across more tactical API contracts applied within specific teams or lines of business. We provide you with all the scaffolding and support for your API governance strategy, and you bring the domain and organizational expertise to drive governance forward.

Strategy
Helping define the overall API lifecycle and governance strategy, working with internal teams to evolve existing strategy, or help define a new strategy, bringing the experience you need to augment your existing resources.
Program
Laying the ground for your API governance program, providing the lifecycle, policies, rules, schema, and contracts to kick-off your efforts, while laying the foundation for an API governance program that you can scale over time.
Platform
Defining the infrastructure beneath API operations, providing a common definition of the resources and capabilities needed across the API lifecycle, allowing for self-service and automation across the teams who are producing APIs.
Policies
Getting formal about the business of why you need API governance and properly wrapping your rules with the business rationale for why you do things like versioning, status codes, and other essentials to better align API operations.
Rules
Developing the machine-readable governance rules you need to validate and certify your API contracts in full, providing the rules, but also the automation needed to keep APIs moving forward in a consistent and repeatable way.
Schema
Defining the custom schema you need to round-off your API contracts with the business and technical details you need produce APIs, ensuring the language you need for your API contracts properly defines what is happening.
Lifecycle
Get explicit about what each stage of the API producer and consumer lifecycle, as well as what actually occurs within each stage, organizing your governance rules by lifecycle stage to keep APIs moving forward across teams.
Guidance
Modular educational resources for APIs and API operations, providing markdown resources that provide an overview, but also insights into the business, technology, policies, and people side of API operations.
Evangelism
Helping enable you to evangelize your API lifecycle, policies, and guidance across your teams, and within your industry, helping build more awareness and gather feedback from stakeholders across your API operations.

API strategy services are designed to work in concert with more tactical API services surrounding individual API contracts. It is up to you to decide where to start and where to invest in when it comes to what your organization needs, leveraging strategy or tactical services to govern how you produce APIs, and define the API contracts your consumers will need.


Initiate Contract

As an API producer we welcome you to initiate a contract for your APIs. If you are unsure of where to start, begin with a single contract and we can advise you from there. If you have question, go ahead an initiate, and we can answer your questions as we progress.

This form will send an email directly to Kin Lane, with all of the information you've provided, and you should hear back within a day about how we can help you manage your API contract(s) across your public and private APIs.

APIs are powering your business today, and we want to make sure you have the contracts in place that keep your business moving into the future.