In Engineering, it's common to jump into a hackathon as a core activity for a group gathering. And why not? The working principle is that a hackathon scratches so many itches.
- Engineers are asking for it
- Product thinks it's a great idea
- It's energizing, you can feel the excitement when ideas come up, when teams start working, and when groups are demo-ing at the end
- People get to work with others they don't usually work with
- It's relatively easy to organize. There are a few different approaches but they don't change that much and mostly the expectation is that engineers will self-organize effectively.
The intended outcome of this time together is a high performing team that encourages one another and, for business goals, realizes how quickly they can ship and iterate when they put their mind to it.
At the end, the entire department or company are cheering with a variety of emojis and excitement. They're in awe of this team that usually works behind the scenes, quietly shipping the work that moves the entire company forward. This is their time in the spotlight and they love it.
And yes, hackathons are great for vibes and feels in the moment but it doesn't actually accomplish some of the key goals of gatherings.
It doesn't actually bring people together and allow them to make meaningfully deeper connections that enable productive work and communication.
It doesn't actually energize people outside of that moment.
It doesn't actually make engineers think or motivate them to work faster and more iteratively when they put their mind to it.
It doesn't help the larger company understand more deeply what engineers care about as company employees or the difficulties they face every day.
And it actually frequently damages morale and expectations in unseen, unspoken, and undocumented ways.
At this point, I bet a lot of you are saying, Hey now. That's not fair. We get great feedback. People love it! They're always asking to do them again!
When this is the case, the goal is to dig into each of these reasons WHY you do a hackathon and ask why or how.
Why are engineers asking to do a hackathon? From my experience working with multiple teams, departments, and companies, it usually falls into 3 buckets.
Bucket 1: we don't know what else we would do that would be a better use of our time and please please don't make us do ice breakers or sit through a dozen presentations (which commonly seems like the only alternative).
Bucket 2: I don't have the ability/autonomy to work on great product ideas that I have. This is my chance to prove myself and if I do a great proof of concept/demo, then my idea will make it onto the product roadmap, will be prioritized, and we'll be able to ship it (which feels damn good, when you see something you thought of go into production and be used by real customers)!
Bucket 3: There so much tech debt, it's driving me crazy. Flaky tests, refactoring, migrations. If only I had a few days to tackle these items, I'd be able to make the codebase so much cleaner and easier to work in.
But if you dig deeper, what are the long-term outcomes?
How do hackathons actually help people connect? They don't. People might work with new folks to pitch an idea or break down tickets. Maybe they jump on something to pair together, but those moments are often few and far between when a group is trying to get something demo-able within a short period of time.
How do hackathons create sustaining energy that lasts beyond the hackathon? They don't. Here, there's a double-edged sword. Either hackathon work makes it into production when it isn't quite ready adding to the maintainability burden OR hackathon work never actually floats to the surface compared to other priorities and work-in-progress pull requests wither on the vine collecting merge conflict after merge conflict until it's decided that if that work happens, it'll just need to start from scratch anyway.
How do hackathons help engineers believe they can do work faster if they put their minds to something? They don't. However, a result of seeing what a team can produce in less than a week often leaves non-technical executives asking "why can't this be our every day velocity and rate of shipping?" which is both unreasonable and dangerous.
There are ways you can create deeper connections, talk about technical concerns and topics in a way that is exciting and energizing, and help convey expertise and contribution to the larger company and non-technical teammates, but a hackathon ain't it.
If you're eager to discover what an exceptional offsite, retreat, or gathering facilitation could look like for your group, Book a free consultation call with me today. With a range of pricing options and levels of involvement, I'm here to help you create magical moments and get to GREAT. Whether you're seeking a complete overhaul of a traditional format or looking to infuse your event with fresh, impactful elements, I can help guide you through this journey.
