• hackathon
• innovation

Service Design student Elise Raittila researches thoroughly hackathon concepts in her commissioned Master’s Thesis that was completed during Spring 2022. Thesis studies the requirements for a successful teamwork. Thesis presents different aspects that should be considered, when organizing hackathon events for getting beneficial innovations.

What is common with apps like Carousell, GroupME, Appetas or EasyTaxi? They all started from innovation contests- hackathons – and ended up in huge success stories. The founders of these apps varied from students, who joined their first hackathon to hackathon veterans. (Tellicherry, 2017.) One can only assume, that whatever the composition of their team was, the co-operation between the team members worked seamlessly or at least the possible conflicts were handled effectively.

This article is based on a research, which investigated the pre-requisites of the successful hackathon teams and the ways the teams can be supported during a virtual or face-to-face hackathon event. Hackathon experts and frequent hackathon participants were interviewed. Furthermore, three hackathon events taking place in Vaasa in the autumn of 2021 were benchmarked.

What is a hackathon?

Word hackathon is still a term, which leads most people into the world of hacking and technology.  The roots of the hackathons are in fact in hacking. However, during the last decade hackathons have been spread to multiple sectors with different goals. They gather together people- often students – who in a certain, often very short pre-defined time, work together in groups to find new solutions to given challenges. The event often ends up presenting a prototype or a presentation about the idea to a jury. Jury decides the winner of the possible prizes varying from money to the opportunity to work for the challenge provider and anything in between. (Kohne & Wehmeier, 2020)

How to form a hackathon dream team?

When arranging a hackathon, groups can be either formed by the participants themselves or by the arranger of the hackathon. The groups, who know each other, have clear benefits in getting up to speed fast. However, these groups often lack the diversity, which is considered important in reaching a successful outcome. Teams formed with strangers are preferred due to the cross-functional knowledge sharing, learning, networking and motivational aspects. Preferred skills depend on the challenge but including at least one subject matter expert is seen beneficial. Also, extroversion is considered as an important qualification to pitch the solution to the jury effectively. However, equal drive and motivation to win the challenge are seen as the biggest factors for a successful team. Therefore, conducting a short survey prior the hackathon to find out the motivational aspects of the participants could pay back in the final results.

To boost the diversity of the teams, the innovation challenge formation is important. Too specific challenge topics might lead into many similar solutions. In those cases the pitching plays major role to define a winner. In too wide challenge descriptions instead, the solutions might lack real life touch or actionable items. In case the event is aimed to be lucrative for other than technical people, the naming of the event is important as well. Using a word hackathon can turn non-technical people away.

How to facilitate the hackathon team?

When the dream teams have been built in theory based on their diversity and motivation, the event itself proves whether the team works well together.  In case the team does not know each other from before, an ice-breaker exercise can help the team to lose some part of the excitement and work as a good start for the event. During the event, the role of the mentors is essential. Mentors should be available to support the participants during the whole event. They provide an objective source to reflect the ideas with and help the teams in case they face a wall.  Mentors can also guide the participants to follow the design driven principles.

Innovation tools can be helpful as well, but they should be simple and easy to use. While the ending of the hackathon event does not affect on the outcome of the innovation, it is still an important part of the hackathon deserving attention. Pitching the solutions and jury feedback is the reward teams are looking for. It should not be neglected even if the event would be virtual.

Virtual hackathons – how do they differ?

Virtual hackathons have become more and more common due to Covid-19 pandemic situation. The benefits of virtual hackathons are inevitably the global reach and cost savings. Face-to-face led hackathons are according to study still preferred due to their better qualities to embrace the team building, networking, and overall excitement of the hackathon.  In virtual hackathons, the selection of the platform becomes crucial to support the networking and easy reach aspects for the teams.  Team building in a virtual hackathon context can oppose different challenges than for the ones arranged face to face. The possible conflict situations can also be harder for the facilitator to solve without seeing the body language and small gestures of the team members.  According to the empirical part and the case studies, the ground principles however remain the same in both contexts.

Conclusions

Hackathons offer a unique concept for innovation. When conducted wisely and with good care, they can contribute to creating viable new solutions. Many good innovations and ideas are however still left to gather dust in a drawer after a hackathon. Further study could be made to see how to best utilize the ideas after the hackathon.

As a result of Elisa Raittila’s extensive research, the hackathons are suitable for different commissions. Raittila recommends face to face hackathons instead of online events, and the help of a mentor is found crucial for a successful teamwork. Hackathon participants with different cultural and educational backgrounds can together end up with valuable suggestions for the commissioners.