July 27, 2015 at 16:19What is an internal hackathon, or the Rule of five is "impossible"
The term "hackathon" in the IT community today is not heard, probably only lazy. The fact that this "beast", know a little less than market participants. And even fewer people actually took part in the hackathons and can be proud that they survived in their harsh realities. But what are internal hackathons of companies, ordinary developers almost do not know. In this sense, only a few specialists were lucky in whose companies such events were held.
We want to talk about what is an internal hackathon and how best to organize this momentous event. And believe us, it will certainly become a landmark in the life of your company. Our experience of conducting internal hackathons has resulted in a set of tips, which we called the "Rule of Five" Do Not. "
That is, it is possible, of course, but if you do not want this to be the first and last hackathon in your company, then you should turn to those who have experience in conducting such events. Organization of a hackathon is a complex process, which involves working with participants, teaching them the art of presenting their own ideas, preparing presentations. It will be necessary to do logistics, catering, and purchase the necessary stationery.
We hold our hackathons together with old friends - "Mikhail Kechinov Studio", which organizes a series of HackDay events. It is clear that it is necessary to lay a certain budget for this, but the quality of the event will definitely increase. You can read about their views on the process of organizing external hackathons here .
You need to pay attention to any, even nominative, little things, because you will have only one chance to make the hackathon incendiary, memorable, and, most importantly, useful for employees. And if the first pancake is lumpy, then the second time no one will come to you.
Hackathon is not a competition. The point is not to lure specialists from project to project, but to the possibility of cooperation between participants from different teams. The more engineers communicate, working on joint projects, the more favorable the climate on the site, and therefore in the working groups after the hackathon. Therefore, important are not personalized, but team prizes. They should be inexpensive, but always aimed at team pastime: multi-level complex puzzles, puzzles of millions, chess, radio-controlled toys and all sorts of cute things that are designed for the team. No expensive devices should become a bait for participation in a hackathon; if a person counts on this, he is not to you.
The role of the right motivation, as well as the marketing of the hackathon himself, is so great that, perhaps, this is the main thing that you need to think about from the very beginning. How to attract people? If the chain of “promotion” is correctly built, everything will benefit the business: and creative advertising banners posted throughout the office; and a warm-up warm-up event, which is usually held 1-2 weeks before the hackathon.
In our EMC, we are conducting a series of brainstorming sessions (innovative manifestos), and we are calling to bring all the ideas that give birth to the hackathon, to assemble a team and work on creating a prototype. This is one of the types of motivation that we use.
An example is the idea of Andrei Pakhomov, the head of the development team of the EMC Research Center in Skolkovo. He proposed making a “lightweight” system for collaborating with scientific communities. Here is how he himself describes it: “We solved the problem of managing, storing and exchanging scientific data. The architecture is based on popular and reliable OSS solutions. Thanks to their application, our functionality represents a fairly small level of control, potentially scalable to any needs. In principle, the system can be used not only for scientific projects, but also for any tasks that require data management, including search and analytics. ” This idea was born during an innovative manifesto, at the nearest hackathon it turned into a working prototype.
But this does not mean that things do not go further than the hackathon. We invite employees to contribute their ideas to the annual corporate Innovation Roadmap, an internal competition program for collecting innovative ideas. And here it’s not the foggy floodlights that gather, but thoughtful prototypes that have passed fire-water-and-copper hackathon tubes, so the hackathon helps someone to become a winner at the corporate level as well. This is the second type of motivation in our company. And, of course, there is a third reason why employees come to the hackathon - it's a fan.
Hackathon is a long and continuous event. Usually their duration is 48 hours, and for the second year now we have been doing 35-hour hackathons (Friday-Saturday). For the comfort of participants, just convenient bin-bags are not enough, you need full-fledged sleeping bags, more comfortable and more. We also learned this truth from our own experience.
Why do employees come to the internal hackathon? Work out your ideas. Have some fun. And, most importantly, get feedback on the prototypes presented. Do not limit the participants in the "types" of ideas. It can be both tasks that teams or customers need to solve today, as well as ideas that lie outside your business.
Everything is also important here: from nominating the jury to organizing mandatory personal feedback from each jury member for each project! The role of the moderator of the discussion during the jury meeting is important, which should ensure that all valuable comments are voiced and no draft is left behind.
The composition of the jury should be diverse, it should include representatives of various departments, not only engineering, but also business, sales, and development. Feedback should be versatile.
Quite the contrary: the success of the prototypes developed during the hackathon largely depends on the further implementation of the projects, on how much you manage to help the participants show their project to the right people in the company, whether the project will receive investments for further development, or the results of the work can be implemented in the product . Of course, patent applications, incubation of ideas, and attraction of investments within the company will be further, but this is a completely different story.
We want to talk about what is an internal hackathon and how best to organize this momentous event. And believe us, it will certainly become a landmark in the life of your company. Our experience of conducting internal hackathons has resulted in a set of tips, which we called the "Rule of Five" Do Not. "
“You can’t” do the hackathon
That is, it is possible, of course, but if you do not want this to be the first and last hackathon in your company, then you should turn to those who have experience in conducting such events. Organization of a hackathon is a complex process, which involves working with participants, teaching them the art of presenting their own ideas, preparing presentations. It will be necessary to do logistics, catering, and purchase the necessary stationery.
We hold our hackathons together with old friends - "Mikhail Kechinov Studio", which organizes a series of HackDay events. It is clear that it is necessary to lay a certain budget for this, but the quality of the event will definitely increase. You can read about their views on the process of organizing external hackathons here .
You need to pay attention to any, even nominative, little things, because you will have only one chance to make the hackathon incendiary, memorable, and, most importantly, useful for employees. And if the first pancake is lumpy, then the second time no one will come to you.
“It is impossible” to motivate employees with expensive prizes
Hackathon is not a competition. The point is not to lure specialists from project to project, but to the possibility of cooperation between participants from different teams. The more engineers communicate, working on joint projects, the more favorable the climate on the site, and therefore in the working groups after the hackathon. Therefore, important are not personalized, but team prizes. They should be inexpensive, but always aimed at team pastime: multi-level complex puzzles, puzzles of millions, chess, radio-controlled toys and all sorts of cute things that are designed for the team. No expensive devices should become a bait for participation in a hackathon; if a person counts on this, he is not to you.
The role of the right motivation, as well as the marketing of the hackathon himself, is so great that, perhaps, this is the main thing that you need to think about from the very beginning. How to attract people? If the chain of “promotion” is correctly built, everything will benefit the business: and creative advertising banners posted throughout the office; and a warm-up warm-up event, which is usually held 1-2 weeks before the hackathon.
In our EMC, we are conducting a series of brainstorming sessions (innovative manifestos), and we are calling to bring all the ideas that give birth to the hackathon, to assemble a team and work on creating a prototype. This is one of the types of motivation that we use.
An example is the idea of Andrei Pakhomov, the head of the development team of the EMC Research Center in Skolkovo. He proposed making a “lightweight” system for collaborating with scientific communities. Here is how he himself describes it: “We solved the problem of managing, storing and exchanging scientific data. The architecture is based on popular and reliable OSS solutions. Thanks to their application, our functionality represents a fairly small level of control, potentially scalable to any needs. In principle, the system can be used not only for scientific projects, but also for any tasks that require data management, including search and analytics. ” This idea was born during an innovative manifesto, at the nearest hackathon it turned into a working prototype.
But this does not mean that things do not go further than the hackathon. We invite employees to contribute their ideas to the annual corporate Innovation Roadmap, an internal competition program for collecting innovative ideas. And here it’s not the foggy floodlights that gather, but thoughtful prototypes that have passed fire-water-and-copper hackathon tubes, so the hackathon helps someone to become a winner at the corporate level as well. This is the second type of motivation in our company. And, of course, there is a third reason why employees come to the hackathon - it's a fan.
"Do not" underestimate comfort
Hackathon is a long and continuous event. Usually their duration is 48 hours, and for the second year now we have been doing 35-hour hackathons (Friday-Saturday). For the comfort of participants, just convenient bin-bags are not enough, you need full-fledged sleeping bags, more comfortable and more. We also learned this truth from our own experience.
"Do not" forget about expert feedback
Why do employees come to the internal hackathon? Work out your ideas. Have some fun. And, most importantly, get feedback on the prototypes presented. Do not limit the participants in the "types" of ideas. It can be both tasks that teams or customers need to solve today, as well as ideas that lie outside your business.
Everything is also important here: from nominating the jury to organizing mandatory personal feedback from each jury member for each project! The role of the moderator of the discussion during the jury meeting is important, which should ensure that all valuable comments are voiced and no draft is left behind.
The composition of the jury should be diverse, it should include representatives of various departments, not only engineering, but also business, sales, and development. Feedback should be versatile.
And the last: “it is impossible” to consider that after a hackathon there is no life
Quite the contrary: the success of the prototypes developed during the hackathon largely depends on the further implementation of the projects, on how much you manage to help the participants show their project to the right people in the company, whether the project will receive investments for further development, or the results of the work can be implemented in the product . Of course, patent applications, incubation of ideas, and attraction of investments within the company will be further, but this is a completely different story.