agile for startups: sendgrid's history with agile (2013)

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Agile for Startups SendGrid’s history with Agile Victor Bonacci MBA, PMP Agile Coach @SendGrid @AgileCoffee SoCal Code Camp -- November 2013

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In SendGrid's 5-year history, we've had both successes and failures using Agile methodologies. Victor Bonacci (SG's first Agile coach) walks through some achievements and pitfalls in an attempt to guide new entrepreneurs adopting Agile.

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Page 1: Agile for Startups: SendGrid's history with Agile (2013)

Agile for Startups

SendGrid’s history with Agile

Victor Bonacci MBA, PMPAgile Coach @SendGrid@AgileCoffee

SoCal Code Camp -- November 2013

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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

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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

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Stay out of the Spam folder

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SG has sent over 160 Billion emails

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http://sendgrid.com/careers

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SG Culture

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Flat Org Structure

CEO|

VP Engineering|

Developers, QA Engineers, Project Mgrs

Founders (3) Board (6)

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INSPECTADAPT

DOPLAN

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Agile Flavors

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Scrum

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Agile…

… is a discipline

… is not a silver bullet

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

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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)

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year 1: 2009

inception

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

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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

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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)

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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

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year 2/3: 2010/2011

tools in the early days

• Skype• Google Docs• Pivotal• BaseCamp• RedMine

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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?

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Enter Agile

… and Vic

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Transition to Agile• First acceptance criteria:

“Make Shit Not Suck”

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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

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year 3: 2011

new VP Engineering

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

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year 3: 2011

Agile roles

• ScrumMaster (SM) duty rotated among team members

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

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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

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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

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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

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year 3: 2011

Bug Sprint

• Succeeded in cleaning up large backlog of accumulated defects

• Rewarded with K1 Racing day

• QA engineers on each team

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year 3: 2011

Spice up the Experience

• Named the sprints• Team banners

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

SCALE had not yet begun to show itself…

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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

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year 4: 2012

Another Tool change

• Switched from Rally to Pivotal Tracker

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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)

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year 4: 2012

Agile Education

• Tech Talks• Conferences

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year 4: 2012

SendGrid Labs

• R&D in Rhode Island• Loader.io

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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

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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

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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

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year 5: 2013

Mike Cohn, then Mexico

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year 5: 2013

Yet Another Tool change

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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

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Pair-programming• 2 programmers solving one problem

– 2 chairs, 2 monitors, 2 keyboards

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

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year 5: 2013

Camp SendGrid

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

staff (not just Eng)

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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

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Product Management

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year 5: 2013

Director of QA

• Director and four QA engineers

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STILL TO COME…

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

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2015 Goals• Getting to Innovation vs. hardening /

strengthening • Build an ecosystem for 3rd-party

developer community

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

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Questions?

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THANK YOU

Victor Bonacci MBA, PMPAgile Coach @SendGrid

@AgileCoffee