APIs: A Key to change Immunity? Research Interim Findings Claire Barrett, Independent Consultant

1. Thank you To all the APIdays team for the kind invitation to speak.
Context / background
Today’s change and transformation agendas for many organisations are framing the
need for and direction of both external- and internal-facing APIs. Moreover these
changes are typically facing into broader the cultural, commercial and operating
model shifts that are necessary for APIs to be designed, governed and funded
appropriately into the future. The ease of use, scope and reuse, resilience and
performance of APIs can be seen as a reflection of an organisation’s broader IT
landscape. The environment in which APIs are conceived, built, used and monitored
are a window into an organisation’s broader strategic vision and its IT landscape
including: architecture, delivery capability and engineering practices.
API success—as organisations have learnt along the way—has been heavily reliant on
people factors including: technical knowhow and experience, openness to try new
things, changed operating models and associated roles, collaboration with other
teams and entities etc. Understanding the trade-offs organisations are making
during their change / transformation helps technologists and cross-functional teams
—such as those working with APIs—to deliver more effectively in line with their
organisations’ and customers’ goals.
Research participants CIOs, experienced IT consultants, senior technologists and
business leaders from industries such as: banking, insurance, retail, aviation,
education and manufacturing; and in Australia, France, UK and Middle East.
1 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

2. Most organisations are facing into many, if not versions of all, of these strategies and/
or directions, usually under a transformation banner. APIs are part of this busy
landscape. The scale and reach of change is putting individuals and teams under a
lot of pressure.
This research has been looking at what makes technology-enabled change stick. And
what trade-offs organisations are making to achieve stickiness.
It starts with the hypothesis that developing investment cases for change and
transformation is tried and tested. Getting investments both justified and mobilised
is straightforward; getting them executed in a way that makes the change stick is
more challenging.
2 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

3. The research covers a suite of factors to help change stick. This is an introduction,
and update on findings, for three of them.
3 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

4. Firstly, because of the amount of things that are changing in people’s environment,
there is a need to get through to people that “This time it is different”.
4 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

5. This calls for a trade-off between:
• disruptive symbols of change—to generate stories, get people to sit up and
listen, shift inertia, demonstrate what’s different
• “quick wins” or low-hanging fruit—to get runs on the board, build delivery trust
and confidence, get noise out of the system
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6. Overall, people generally saw effort into quick wins as more effective for getting
stickiness than into disruptive symbols (32 : 68). A recurring theme for those citing
quick wins as more effective was the value they gave in delivery and in building trust
and credibility in IT teams with business colleagues.
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7. Double-clicking on the information suggests that representatives for higher
complexity1 organisations saw putting effort into symbols as more effective for
stickiness; while still recognising a need to balance with quick wins as the priority
early on.
In complex organisations with a lot going on, the appropriate symbolic changes work
in getting people’s attention and motivated towards the change.
1 Higher complexity = IT function with thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars /
euros annual investment in tech-enabled change
Lower complexity = IT function with hundreds of employees and tens of millions of dollars / euros
annual investment
7 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

8. Second factor looks at the mix of the organisational gene pool.
8 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

9. The trade-off is between investing in internal capability—including recruiting new as
well as skilling existing people in technologies and practices as well as in new ways
of working and behaviours—or using third party experts and consultants to enable
the change.
9 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

10. Everyone cited the need for external specialists in some capacity with an overall
equal balance (51 : 49) between internal and external capabilities.
Consultants’ responses were typically mid-way, consistently citing the importance of
working as embedded team members helping cross- and up-skill client teams.
Some people noted the change in recent years in this factor. In the past, third parties
took full responsibility for end-to-end delivery; now they are working alongside
clients as part of a hybrid team.
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11. There was no material difference in opinions of those in higher or lower complexity
organisations.
11 © Claire Barrett, December 2019

12. The third factor to influence change stickiness is the organisation’s approach to agile2
adoption at scale. Assuming agile practices are known and understood, but most
likely in pockets, this is about how an organisation choices to propagate and nurture
agile mindsets and practices.
2 In this context, agile is used in a broad sense to include: frequent deliveries of customer / business
value; empowered cross-functional teams; disciplined engineering practices with heavy reliance on
automation; servant leadership cultures etc.
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13. The trade-off is between heavy investment in automation (DevOps, CI/CD pipelines,
monitoring etc) built up from cross-functional teams building local capabilities; or
championing the change from the top of the organisation.
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14. There was an overall orientation towards leadership in setting the tone as the best
way to make change stick (34 : 66).
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15. There was a notable difference between higher and lower complexity organisations:
clearly greater complexity called out the need and benefit from higher investment in
automated delivery practices.
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17. A huge thank you is owing to those who contributed to this project. Their input has
been generous, thoughtful and insightful. Their time, encouragement and candid
feedback has been inspiring.
The project is on-going and there are a number of people signed up to participate in
the near future. There expects to be further material published from the start of
2020.
If you know of others who would be interested in participating, please let me know.
Participation is anonymous and respects organisation / client confidentiality.
All content and opinions are those of Claire Barrett operating in the capacity as an
independent consultant. Please contact her directly for further information or
permission to share more broadly.
17 © Claire Barrett, December 2019