Agile for Startups

SendGrid’s history with Agile

Victor Bonacci MBA, PMPAgile Coach @SendGrid@AgileCoffee

SoCal Code Camp -- November 2013

SendGrid powers your app

Cloud-based email service– delivers email on behalf of your app/site– increases deliverability– improves customer communications– via SMTP or REST API

We grow with your site• scalable email infrastructure• metrics on outgoing email• handle the time consuming tasks

involved with implementing unsubscribe links, abiding by anti-spam regulations, and maintaining corporate branding

Stay out of the Spam folder

SG has sent over 160 Billion emails

http://sendgrid.com/careers

SG Culture

Flat Org Structure

CEO|

VP Engineering|

Developers, QA Engineers, Project Mgrs

Founders (3) Board (6)

INSPECTADAPT

DOPLAN

Agile Flavors

Scrum

Agile…

… is a discipline

… is not a silver bullet

FIVE YEARS OF CHANGESendGrid’s Agile practices, 2009 - 2011

Five Years of Change• 2009 – inception (sweat equity)• 2010 – ramp-up (turning on the

spigot)• 2011 – going Agile (aligning

strengths)• 2012 – hello, Scale (massive growth)• 2013 – future-proofing (more growth)

year 1: 2009

inception

• 3 founders • 1 customer• Scrambling to start something up

year 2: 2010

Lift Off !

• $$$– Received funding– Customers– A lot of opportunity came at once

• Staff size = 20– sales, support, dev relations, accounting, marketing– ENGINEERS

year 2: 2010

how did we prioritize?• Skype culture

• Customers had direct access to developers (SnapChats)– Asked for customer feedback > Rapid response

• Flood of tickets

• Pivotal Tracker (without any basis in Agile understanding)

year 2: 2010

Engineering organization• Ad Hoc

• Devs branched into features – became experts based on skillset– Organic

• Tim (co-founder, backend expert) would give direction– No real timeframes (due dates)– Devs would figure out how – no documentation or

requirements

year 2/3: 2010/2011

tools in the early days

• Skype• Google Docs• Pivotal• BaseCamp• RedMine

year 2/3: 2010/2011

urgent questions

• How can we do more faster?

• Where are we with regards to Roadmap?

• What’s the ETA of features?

Enter Agile

… and Vic

Transition to Agile• First acceptance criteria:

“Make Shit Not Suck”

year 3: 2011

Training from Rally“SendGrid is one of my favorite groups to have worked with.

I always love checking in to see their progress.”- Ann Konkler, Rally Software

– Week 1: execs for one day– Week 2: full Engineering staff

• No tools, only cards on walls

– Week 4: follow-up with full staff

year 3: 2011

new VP Engineering

• Brought Agile experience• Encouraged experimentation• Was available to all Engineers• Huge motivating force

year 3: 2011

Agile roles

• ScrumMaster (SM) duty rotated among team members

• Product Owner (PO) was usually a VP (Finance, Sales) or founder

year 3: 2011

Geography• Tom organized Eng staff seven into teams

– All co-located: four in Anaheim, one in Boulder, one in Romania– Plus new Ops team split between CO & CA

• POs and non-Eng in Boulder– Support– Sales, Mktg, Finance, HR…

• Specialists / contractors– Newsletter team in Romania– Graphic Designer in Phillipines

year 3: 2011

Agile ceremonies

• Daily standups in the morning– Overlapping time – Vic floated to observe, capture

dependencies

• Retrospectives included full Engineering staff– Vic facilitated

• Demos lasted up to two hours– Every team demo’d every story/bug/task

year 3: 2011

Dev Days• Mid-sprint Wednesday• Opportunity for engineers to work on “something

cool”

• Not well organized• Tech Debt / Bugs• Low accountability

– Abused by some– Gone after 8 months

year 3: 2011

Bug Sprint

• Succeeded in cleaning up large backlog of accumulated defects

• Rewarded with K1 Racing day

• QA engineers on each team

year 3: 2011

Spice up the Experience

• Named the sprints• Team banners

25 Billionth email sentIn just over two years, 25B messages passed through the pipes

SCALE had not yet begun to show itself…

year 4: 2012

Kickoff in Mexico

• All employees (~90) met in Cancun for three days of – Tacos – Tequila – Teamwork

• Payback for the pre-Agile demands– Heroku & Rackspace integrations

year 4: 2012

Another Tool change

• Switched from Rally to Pivotal Tracker

year 4: 2012

2nd VP of Engineering

• Isaac (founder) as interim VP• Additional Eng team in Boulder• Second Project Mgr / Agile Coach

hired (Anaheim)– Each PM was SM of three teams

• First POs hired (Boulder)

year 4: 2012

Agile Education

• Tech Talks• Conferences

year 4: 2012

SendGrid Labs

• R&D in Rhode Island• Loader.io

year 4: 2012

Weekly Stakeholder meeting

• Weekly?!?• Started as status update• Priorities get set, reset• No consistent focus on either

Scalability/Stability or new features

year 4: 2012

Engineering & Ops

• 3rd VP of Engineering hired– Formerly of Amazon– Metrics-driven– * Not great culture fit

• Director of Ops hired– Ops now out of Engineering

year 4: 2012

Agile changes

• Agile training “Refresher”– 2-days with all Eng & Ops staff in Anaheim

• Team retros after each sprint (not full dept)– Quarterly Eng retro

• Include sprint metrics (velocity, etc) in team’s Demo

year 5: 2013

Mike Cohn, then Mexico

year 5: 2013

Yet Another Tool change

year 5: 2013

Changes

• Team restructure– Eight Eng teams– Team Leads

• 3rd PM/AC hired

• Overlapping sprints (every other week)• Smaller demos (groups of teams)

– Goal of increasing attendance / participation by non-Eng

Pair-programming• 2 programmers solving one problem

– 2 chairs, 2 monitors, 2 keyboards

• Saves time– Knowledge transfer– Better coding practices– Built-in code review

year 5: 2013

Camp SendGrid

• Replaces Agile refresher for full staff• Quarterly visits to offices to train new

staff (not just Eng)

year 5: 2013

New VP Eng

• Joe (employee #4) as interim VP Eng

• “Going Green” – 20% of items each sprint– Bugs, tech debt, security, stabilization

• 80% new features

Product Management

year 5: 2013

Director of QA

• Director and four QA engineers

STILL TO COME…

2015 Goals• More Pair-programming• CI / CD• Kanban• TDD

2015 Goals• Getting to Innovation vs. hardening /

strengthening • Build an ecosystem for 3rd-party

developer community

Challenges• Leadership turnover• Long-term planning• Tool change

Questions?

THANK YOU

Victor Bonacci MBA, PMPAgile Coach @SendGrid

@AgileCoffee