If you are eager to crowd source the solutions to address the problems that are pressing your business and other social issues impacting negatively then you are right in thinking to organize a hackathon. A hackathon is firmly a time-bound program in which the participants collaborate and create viable solutions with solid proof to a set of predefined problems. So hackathon opens a great opportunity to you and your team to integrate the problems properly and to find out a bigger solution pushing the participants’ skills beyond the boundaries. But planning a hackathon is not mere regular event management where you just arrange some catering and decoration. It is rather resource-intensive management in terms of setting up and running an end-to-end successful event aimed to accelerate the speed of innovation that can be used in solving the problems. So don’t miss any detail while planning. Let’s take look at every delicate issue of planning a hackathon.
Define the Purpose
Define the goal of organizing the hackathon. It may generally be one of the following:
- Crowdsource solutions for innovation
- Increased product relevance to the API adoption
- Testing
- Internal engagement
- Marketing
- Brand development
While defining the goal your role should explicitly be neutral. Don’t overemphasize or privilege your own product.
Define the Problem Statement
Explain the particular problem that needs to be addressed and the opportunities you are searching through an innovation. There should not however be any confusion while describing the problem statement in a hackathon planning.
Choose the Theme
Suppose someone is asking you a question that, “what would you like to learn”, the answer may be many items, but you have to choose only one. The theme is also like that. You need to find out your theme through the decision making process. While describing the purpose and problem statement, you should define the theme that you want the contestants to deal with. Provide them as much context and insights as possible.
Leave Enough Time to Plan
Don’t hurry! Assess the scalability of the scope and size of your event. Take adequate time at least four weeks and at most eight weeks depending upon your avenues and problem statements to plan properly for smooth conduct of a successful hackathon planning. No matter how long you think and how big is the size of your event, you should take an extra week to reassess for good measure.
Engage People from Across
After choosing the theme, you should concentrate on choosing the right developers having robust knowledge and experience in the field to lead the project. Assess the number of candidates that you require to engage to accomplish the number of activities scaled in accordance with your vision. Augment the verticals of people with different skills and from different levels to avoid the same line of group thinking and encourage the teamwork to build a network. A diverse class of ideas and innovations will create quality.
While selecting the team for the hackathon, you may need an external expert who can guide the team through the latest technology that you haven’t used ever before. So providing an experienced mentor to the team cuts not only your precious time on the rudimentary work that could be sorted out within a few minutes but also makes a grand success of your hackathon planning.
Find Sponsors
Organizing hackathon may be very expensive. If you alone can shoulder the entire cost then it’s well and good but if it can’t, you should find sponsorships for paying the events. Different companies provide sponsorship for swag, food, venue, hardware, CI (Continuous Integration service), API (Application Program Interface), and many more. You have to ensure one thing while searching for one or more sponsorships that they will not be equated as partners of the hackathon.
Book the Venue
As soon as you decide the dates for the hackathon, you should immediately go ahead to find out the venue and book the site. Choosing the right place is as important as the event is. The venue should be easily accessible and the site should have enough space, airy, cool, and quiet. There should be every potential option for comfort if the hackathon runs for three days or more. In no way the hackathon attendees should feel any sort of discomfort or trouble, right?
Create your Web Presence
Choosing theme, arranging people, booking a venue, and finding a sponsor is not everything for a hackathon planning unless your presence is projected on the web world. You should secure a place for the participants to find out the details of your events and register. You should also ensure that all pertinent issues like the theme of the hackathon and detail info related to the venue, dates, and time etc. have been uploaded therein the site in an explicit manner. You can use different tools that available in the market, however, is not that expensive, will help the attendees to sign up.
Give Breaks in Between
The breaks should be predefined and the hackers also should be communicated properly. Good breaks in between the events with adequate food inspire the hackers to hack through the each other which in turn give good result to achieve.
Create a Deployment Process
If you declare that on successful completion of the project that will be deployed for the business and will be accessible to the public in general, the participants will be boosted with the motivation factor.
Find the Right Judges
The juries are generally set from the organizers and sponsors. You should select the right judges who are responsible, trustworthy, and well versed in your industry. The judges, however, will ultimately choose the winning product that will accomplish the grand success of your hackathon planning.
Decide on Prizes
Although a hackathon is organized from an innovative-driven culture, you must keep in mind that the hackers’ community is little bit quirky. So you should come up with some unique and off the beaten prizes and rewards.
Wrap-up
After completion of your hackathon showcase it to the World Wide Web. Upload videos, pictures, and blog post with winners and publish the story out in the media.
