The term “success” is overused and often misunderstood when it comes to effectively setting and measuring it in the digital economy. Companies often take one of two paths, both of which lead to wasted time, incomplete analysis, and the wrong approach to how they view and measure the success of their journey.
The first incorrect approach is creating a complicated ROI model based upon a pre-established, internally set benchmark for the company—one based on “expertise” within the company to get the project approved for funding. Employees learn how to game the system, resulting in missed milestones, more funding and more resources. Yet, they continue on. They learn to change the rules, blame other’s original estimates and use statements like “it’s too late to turn back now?”.
The second incorrect approach is the talk with no follow-through. Success metrics are discussed, half-documented with no real tangible results or dates set, and emphasized as important for the group to focus on. The problem is that these metrics are rarely or never reviewed to see if goals were met. Nice conversation for initial alignment, but there was nothing to review and learn from to improve outcomes.
At Apigee, we see this is as one of the largest problems with API programs. It’s critical to take a step back and understand the value being built for your customers. At the Google Cloud NEXT ‘17 conference, Andre Fatala, CTO of Brazil retailer Magazine Luiza, was asked what advice he would give himself a year ago. “Focus more on our customer’s problems than our own problems.”
Wow! Think of what you are developing today or planning to develop and ask what customer problem you are solving. If you can’t answer it, change your focus immediately to what matters.
Now, technical folks may say that solving connectivity of some backend systems really doesn’t solve a customer problem. They might be wrong, or maybe they’re right. If they are right, then think about why they’re working on it. Is it data availability? Is it more timely information? Is it accuracy of data? Put the success of the work into words that would make your customers (and remember this can be customer, partners, or employees) nod their heads in agreement.
So, make success metrics and understanding what matters a priority. It could help you avoid spending effort in the wrong area.
Where do you start? Here are some quick ways to find value;
- Good corporate strategies focus on customers, partners, and employees. This requires more of an outside-in type view in most cases. Review your corporate strategy and see if you are working on something that will positively impact the company’s direction and then put a success metric around this.
- Go through the project portfolio submitted to IT to find common areas to add value at scale and reduce costs in these projects. The projects submitted should be investigated for true customer value. Establish metrics on value created at scale of fixing multiple issues at once.
- Talk to your customers!
Once your success metrics are established with specific outcomes and dates, monitor the progress and iterate when you see things not meeting your expectations. Kill the idea if it just can’t get traction. Owning the success metrics and activities for iterating and monitoring is a perfect task for your API Evangelist, since he or she uses the results to influence others to use the platform. Learn from what you do and continually improve.
When you know what your customer needs, the process of defining, monitoring, and iterating on your success metrics is a much more meaningful activity that results in the success of your customers and your API program.
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