This article is about the first time I ran a hackathon for a team. The material, pumped over by the organizers, will surely seem too simple, and the story - naive. I focused on those who are just getting acquainted with the format and are thinking about whether to organize such an event.
does complex things with data: we clean and enrich customer contacts for large companies and build customer bases of hundreds of millions of records. 65 people work in Moscow offices, about a dozen more - remotely from other cities.
Any work sometimes not only bothers, but becomes insipid. At this point, it is useful to change focus, to try something new. Therefore, we have been looking at hackathons for six months.
A hackathon is such a competition for IT people: several teams gather and solve difficult problems for two days in a row. Usually competing for a prize awarded by a jury.
We wanted to try out the format and have fun, but the classic hackathon is a rather large-scale, troublesome and expensive undertaking. So we ran a light version with almost no budget. And in the end, they were satisfied and even did something useful.
Why do companies need a hackathon
Classic hackathons are usually not satisfied with the breadth of the soul. Organizers either solve practical problems, or are PR. The hackathon format is also chosen for the purpose.
- Solve a practical problem. The organizer sets goals, and the participants choose the appropriate one and decide. An example of such a task is to create a new customer scoring algorithm for a bank.
- Promote your tools. The organizer provides participants with their own software, programming language or API. The goal is to do something useful with given tools. For example, the conditional Google opens access to its voice translator and waits for interesting use cases.
An additional goal of a large hackathon is to present the organizer as an enviable employer, inside and out. Guests from other companies will be imbued with the office, organization, breadth of opportunities. His own - new tasks, freedom, communication.
For example, VKontakte held a hefty hackathon. It is difficult to attribute it to one type: there are too many directions
Like we have. The main goal of the whole undertaking for HFLabs is internal HR. We saw the hackathon as another collaborative activity outside of work. To rally, cheer up, entertain - that's it. Someone goes to football teams, someone to quizzes. Hackathon is another meeting format outside of everyday business. Which, of course, does not cancel either quizzes or football.
At the same time, a hackathon, even in a light format, is not pure entertainment. For example, one team ended up writing a text quest after learning the mechanics of Telegram bots from scratch. This is wonderful: when a person tries something new and tries to figure it out, he comes up with fresh ideas. For everyday work as well.
Moreover, in the end we got useful tools, although we did not set any practical tasks at all. But more about that at the end.
Why hackathon participants
Participants come to the classic hackathon to get acquainted with technologies, try new experiences or earn money. Moreover, there seem to be more people from the latter category.
- Try new technologies or methods. On weekdays, each developer sits on his own stack of technologies, sometimes for years. And at the hackathon, you can try something new - either just appeared, or just interesting.
- Walk the grocery route in miniature. IT people are interested in creating a full-fledged product in a matter of days. Having gone through the entire cycle from concept to presentation.
- To earn. Sometimes strong specialists gather in teams of professional hackathoners - played and trained. They choose events with a rich prize pool and endure everyone through experience and preparation. Some organizers immediately weed out such dodgers. Others welcome.
Like we have. To begin with, we asked the team whether a hackathon was needed in principle. We do not force anything, so we wanted to measure interest in advance. We used Google Forms for the surveys.
There are 65 people in the team, 20 completed the survey. Since 75% of them are interested, you need to do it!
The second task is to motivate the waverers, who are more than half. The next survey showed: the prize will not help in this matter.
Then it turned out that ours is interested in making new products. Let with a tiny application, but go from idea to working prototype
We began to collect topics for the hackathon that would be of interest. Again, by the strength of the team: they started a chat in Telegram, where they threw ideas into everything. Without brakes: whatever comes to mind is good.
We collected 25 topics and launched a poll in confluence. The five most popular projects - they are in the picture - were taken to the hackathon
How long has this been going on
The classic hackathon lasts two days and a night in between. Night is a hello from the old IT school, both a pragmatic and romantic touch.
What to do in the dark, each team or participant decides independently. You can sleep at night, the organizers won't say a word. But you can act: program, design, design, test.
Like we have. We didn't talk about the night vigil. Moreover, they cut the format even more and took only one day. Otherwise, one would have to either spend two working days on the experiment, or pull out colleagues for a full summer weekend. Few would agree to the second option: weekends in the summer are worth it.
There were wishes that it would be nice to get together on weekdays. But I did not want to arrange all this during working hours. No matter how hard you try, you canβt isolate yourself from work during the week: clients write, colleagues ask about something, something is boiling in the office, some meetings are scheduled. Everyone will return to normal business. Therefore, the next poll is whether you are ready to hack at the weekend.
Not everyone is ready to unconditionally sacrifice the weekend. But more than half of those who doubt, it remains to seduce them
A little later, in June, the participants were asked about the dates. Slots have been allocated right up to the fall - in the summer, colleagues are on vacation and at their dachas, but I donβt want to miss the event. Therefore, we decided that we would offer all Saturdays. You can choose several - which ones are free, mark them.
Not everyone is ready to unconditionally sacrifice the weekend. But more than half of those who doubt, it remains to seduce them
As a result, the hackathon was scheduled for August 17th. The alternative July 27 coincided with my business trip, and the option fell off.
Where is the event held
Usually most of the participants gather in a common space. Communication is an important part of a hackathon, so the organizer allocates an open space or an entire building.
I once participated in a Google hackathon. The organizers singled out a two-story building with ottomans, tables and other furniture inside. The teams themselves dispersed on the ground and arranged jobs.
But there are often no strict restrictions: if someone warns in advance and connects remotely, there will be no obstacles.
Like we have. Since the hackathon turned out to be chamber, for seven people, Saturday's empty office was more than enough. Even if you do not take into account that one participant connected from Volgograd.
We planned that we would all sit down together in a negotiation
What about the winners
For classic hackathons, a jury is appointed to announce the best project. The jury includes someone from the organizers or sponsors - those who pay for the entire banquet.
Demo projects are an important part of the hackathon. Teams show a short presentation, and then show their decision to the jury. This is something like defending a diploma in a university.
Sometimes the computer evaluates the work: the one that scored more points in the test wins. This approach seems too formal to me: by evaluating solutions with βparrotsβ, the organizers kill the product component of the hackathon. It's like a sports programming contest, not creativity.
Like we have. We acted radically: we simply canceled the jury and the competition in principle. Because the goal was not to create the best solution to the problem or to get the finished product.
Since the task is to have fun, let the participants calmly saw projects without looking at other teams.
Ha Day at HFLabs
The hackathon started on Friday evening, the day before. The participants gathered, each chose a topic. Commands have been formed.
Gathering and unexpected participants. They came to the office by 11-12 Saturday - so as not to get up as on weekdays, early in the morning. There were six participants left, one more joined from Volgograd.
The announcement of the date did not go unnoticed - the fighters began to actively leave the hackathon chat. But the disaster did not happen and the quorum was preserved
During the day, new members suddenly appeared. Colleagues who were not going to the hackathon carved out three or four hours. They came, chose a project and helped. For the classic format, this is uncharacteristic, but we enjoy it.
teams and projects. It turned out that three people did their projects alone. This is the main disadvantage of the event, it is more interesting to work in a team. Feeling the interaction is generally an important thing in the concept of a hackathon.
Text quest on the Telegram engine. There is no practical use, but inside - workshop humor and local memes
And a couple of hours after the start, one project was left without developers: the author left the brainchild and went to another team. This is normal even for the classic format: good ideas attract people. At first it seems that you will do your project to the end. And then you dive and you see - there is no time, there is nothing to try. Or you go to your neighbors, because the business is going there, and the product is useful.
Seryoga, a front-end developer from Volgograd, got a little bored, so he came up with a project βfrom the knifeβ. And immediately got down to it.
A cat lives in the corner of one of our products. Previously, the cat just slept and created comfort, but Seryoga taught the mechanic how to react to events
At the end of the day, the number of projects remained the same - five. One fell off, another was added.
Space and schedule. Under the hackathon, we planned the largest room in the office - a meeting room. But when it came to the point, everyone habitually dispersed to their offices. This is how they started.
At first it seemed that the common space is not important. Since the projects are not connected, there is no competition, you can sit separately. And for discussions, gather in the lobby - the main thing is not to scatter further than walking distance.
But after a few hours, the fragmentation stopped by itself. Those who worked alone, under the influence of a hidden force, moved one by one to the most populated office. And it became more interesting - the conversations are livelier, the questions are more complicated and more frequent.
We interrupted every couple of hours - shared our impressions, looked closely at other people's projects. We had lunch in the middle of the day.
At lunch, a fan burst into the canvas of the hackathon, all this time invisibly hovering nearby: cheesecakes were suddenly brought to the office
Time was not limited: whoever wants as much as he wants, he sits. They left, usually bringing the project to a more or less finished state. The last participant left around 22:00.
We didnβt start the demo right away - we decided that we would tell about the hackathon on Tuesday for the entire office.
Results and life after
The hackathon light gave even more profit than I expected.
H.R. We had a lot of fun: we closed the hackathon gestalt and talked on smart topics without the fuss of work. All this for a budget equal to the cost of the road to the office and lunch. Plus, they brought up evangelists of internal hackathons in the office.
Projects. During the day, we did not complete any of the five projects. But this is not a problem: usually the purpose of the event is to solve the problem in principle, to find an idea. A good result is a minimally working tool, albeit with crutches and bugs.
Anton Zhiyanov, head of our product , made by an email mailer. It looks like a browser editor, to which a CSV file with recipients is attached. It's more convenient than in overloaded Mailchimp
But after the hackathon, the projects went into life or are being prepared for that. We are already sending out emails as a mailer, and the cat touches customers. The remaining applications are completed by the authors, and already at the request of the outside. For now, we distribute it to friends for free and in our own way, but someday it may reach commercial use.
ΠΠΈΠ½ΡΡΡ. The main drawback is that there were few people gathered. As a result, three out of five projects were done by one person, and this is not so interesting. When you hackathon alone, you lose the effect of the product team. There is no one to interact with anymore.
I also realized that a more stringent regulation will work in a plus. More organization needed
- clear timing;
- merch for participants;
- jury and demo on the same day, while still charged;
- preparation β announcements, descriptions of projects.
You can also call someone from the outside, but it is not necessary at all. And call, most likely, pointwise. No big ads.
Future. Half the office gathered for a general demo on Tuesday. And then I already saw interest in projects, in the format. Not everyone wanted to get involved in the experiment, but after the first test, there were more willing people. I think in 2020 we will make an event on a larger scale.
That's all about the hackathon. If you are interested in doing all sorts of complex things with data, come to work with us. : we are looking for java developers, maintenance and testing engineers, system analysts.
Article for the first time . The version for Habr has been revised and supplemented.
Source: habr.com