New Hackathon at Tinkoff.ru

Hello! My name is Andrey. At Tinkoff.ru, I am responsible for decision-making and business process management systems. I decided to radically revise the stack of systems and technologies in my project, I really needed fresh ideas. And so, not so long ago we held an internal hackathon in Tinkoff.ru on the topic of decision-making.

The entire organizational part was taken over by hr, and, looking ahead, I’ll say that everything turned out to be bombing: the guys rejoiced at gift merchandise, delicious food, ottomans, plaids, cookies, toothbrushes and towels - in short, everything was at a high level and, at the same time, cute and homely.

I could only come up with a task, assemble a team of experts / jury, select the submitted applications, and then select the winners.

But it was not so simple. I want to share my thoughts on what questions should be answered in advance so as not to screw up.

Why do you need a hackathon?

The hackathon must have a goal.

What do you personally (your product, project, team, company) want to get from this event?

This is the main question, and all your decisions must correspond to the answer to it.
For example, the topic of decision-making is very extensive and complex, and I perfectly understood that I definitely could not take and run applications made on the hackathon in the prod. But I can get new technological ideas, and prototypes, as confirmation of the applicability of these ideas to solve the problems posed. This was my goal, and, in the end, I consider it to be achieved.

Why hackathon to the participants?

Often companies make a mistake and expect cool business ideas for new products from participating teams. But the hackathon is an event primarily for developers, and they most often have other interests. Most programmers want to escape from everyday work and try new technologies for themselves, change the stack, or, conversely, apply the usual stack for themselves in a new subject area. Realizing this, I completely took the chewing of the business task on myself, leaving the hackathon participants the maximum freedom of choice of technical solutions.

Most employees do not participate in the hackathon for the sake of the prize, but, nevertheless, the prize must be worthy of staying at work without sleep at the weekend! We gave the winners a trip to Sochi for 4 days with full payment of the road, accommodation and ski passes.

Why the hackathon to the organizers?

An hr hackathon team usually has its own goals, such as promoting an hr brand, increasing employee interest and engagement. And, of course, these goals must be taken into account. For example, we were ready to give the winner of our hackathon a cool and expensive prize (more expensive than on the previous hackathon) - but in the end we abandoned this idea, because it would demotivate people to participate in further activities.

Are you sure someone is interested in your topic?

I was not sure. So I made a draft of the task, went with him to the developers of different business lines and different stacks and asked for feedback - is the task clear, interesting, implemented in the allotted time, etc.? I was faced with the fact that it is very difficult to fit the main essence of your work over the past 5 years in a couple of paragraphs of the text. I had to conduct many such iterations and hone the wording for a long time. The text of the assignment, which turned out, I still do not like. But, despite this, we received applications from employees of as many as 15 different departments from 5 regions - this suggests that the task turned out to be interesting.

Are you helpful during the hackathon?

During the hackathon, I caught myself thinking that while the teams are coding, I and the team of experts are messing around or doing our own thing, because we are not needed here. We periodically approached the team tables, were interested in how things were, offered help, but most often we got the answer “everything is OK, we are working” (read “do not interfere”). Some teams in all 24 hours have never shared intermediate results. As a result, several teams failed to hold a full demo, limited to slides with screenshots. It was worth more actively explaining to the guys that it is important to share intermediate results so that we can direct projects in the right direction during the hackathon, help plan time and overcome difficulties.

Perhaps it would be worth even introducing 2-3 mandatory checkpoints, on which the teams would talk about their progress.

Why do we need experts and a jury?

I recommend recruiting experts (these are those who help teams along the hackathon) and the jury (these are those who choose winners) not only people who are knowledgeable in their field, but also people who will be as active and energetic as possible. It is important to help teams during the hackathon (and sometimes even be intrusive, although you won’t be thanked for it), ask them the right questions both during the hackathon and during the final presentations.

Can you calmly face the losers?

In the morning, after the night in front of the monitor screen, the soul of the programmer is the most vulnerable. And if somewhere you were unfair, inconsistent in your actions or decisions, you will definitely remember this insult. Therefore, it is important to identify in advance the criteria by which the jury will select the winners. We handed out lists with a list of criteria to each team and posted them on a common board so that the participants always remembered them.

I also tried to give all the participants a brief feedback - what I liked about their work and what was not enough to win.

Total

Honestly - by and large, I didn’t care who won, because it would not affect the achievement of my goals. But I tried to make the decision fair, transparent and understandable to everyone (although I was not a member of the jury). In addition, the level of warmth and comfort proposed by the organizers allowed the participants to feel good, and we received positive feedback from them and their willingness to participate in further such events.