Because we operated in a SOA environment, we had to position the APIs in it. This was especially difficult since not all the stakeholders were already applying the enterprise SOA principles. Eventually we integrated a light approach for APIs into the SOA principles which allowed us to incorporate former non-SOA practitioners into the SOA environment without imposing too much governance on them. Within the SOA governance, guidelines were created for REST design, complementing the existing SOAP guidelines.
Throughout the project we tried to maintain the API-spirit of consumer-focus. This resulted in setting up an easy-to-use CI/CD pipeline for API’s and Application registrations. It also meant a lot of effort was invested into giving trainings and demo’s and supporting the early adopters.