Writeup Great Pitch Summary

[gbinal]

... we are scrubbing through our past Great Pitch closed projects and reaching out to the project leads to get a status update. We want to see if the API Program project was successful — if so, how’s it being used today and where does this project live (18F, OPP Portfolio, etc.)? Any other information in re to your project is much appreciated (i.e. lessons learned, problems faced, etc.)

[gbinal]

Background:

API Program was selected as a round 1 Great Pitch project (proposal materials here). It was funded with $80,000 seed money over a 12 month period of performance. It's goal was to assemble the pieces that make up API Program and pilot it with 2 agencies.

Result:

Using the seed money, we were able to:

1. Assemble all of the pieces that make up the API Program.
2. Fully pilot the program with the SEC.
3. Partially pilot the program with NARA.

The pilot phase was successful in bringing the program together in a repeatable way and we have since brought on the Department of Education as the first paying customer for API Program. We are working with the 18F Agency Partnerships team to pursue adding two or three more agency clients in the first half of FY'17, under the Products and Platforms business unit. The program's website can be found here.

The API Program great pitch project was successful in that it provided the resources to build all of the components needed for future iterations (namely the api engine, a number of artifacts, and the workflow. After it was over, we were in a position to begin offering the API Program to other agencies.

Lessons learned:

• I tried to keep the initial proposal light in order to make it more likely to be accepted, but in the process, I wasn't able to devote as much time developing the resources as I wanted to. This also resulted in my not being able to get the NARA pilot off of the ground.
• The original vision of API Program is in the model of lightweight delivery projects that were more common in 18F's earlier years. I've come to appreciate that the team is moving towards relatively heavier (but more solid and reliable) delivery projects and that API Program needs to adjust to factor that in. This is now happening and is not a problem but I regret not seeing it coming earlier and taking it into account.