How to plan an Industry Hackathon Event

We have been involved in planning Industry Hackathon Events since 2012. As a result we have a refined process with expert resources.

“Hackathon” or “Hack Event”?

These days, the term “Hackathon” brings to mind herds of spotty nerds consuming pizza and staying awake for 3 days. It hails from the days when the event was more competition than a collaborative exercise.

“Hack Event” has become the more comfortable label for this routine of intense multidiscipline collaboration, with colleagues, to explore a shared challenge. Many successful corporations and product teams hold regular Hack Events as part of their working process.

Above all, Hackathons are a means to creating a culture of innovation.

The 4 stages of Planning & Delivery

This approach has worked well over the years for Industry Hackathons, where multiple competing organisations participate.

We base our approach on 30 areas broken into 4 sections: Business Case, Event Design, Event Rollout, and Event Delivery.

1. BUSINESS CASE: Make the case for your Hackathon Event.
   1. Rationale.
   2. Benefits.
   3. Expectation Management.
   4. Hack Event Canvas.
   5. Three Horizons.
   6. FROST Innovation Framework.
2. EVENT DESIGN: Design the key elements to deliver your Hackathon.
   1. Roadmap.
   2. Brand.
   3. Theme.
   4. Challenges.
   5. Target Participants.
   6. Location.
   7. Schedule.
   8. Support.
3. EVENT ROLLOUT: Prepare your event and sign up your participants!
   1. Roadmap.
   2. Venue.
   3. Participants Hitlist.
   4. Suppliers.
   5. Managing invitations.
   6. Marketing Tools and Resources.
   7. Hack Team Formation.
4. EVENT DELIVERY: Show time – Make your “event day” run smoothly!
   1. Get in.
   2. Registration.
   3. Kickoff.
   4. Support.
   5. Group Updates.
   6. Demo.
   7. Wrap up.
   8. Retrospective.
   9. Next Steps.

Extra tools for tracking your Hackathon delivery

Manage the detail while you deliver your event:-

1. Master Checklist and Dashboard.
2. Event Budget Spreadsheet.

Common Industry Hackathon Questions

Summary

The above 30 planning and delivery areas will help you deliver a great Industry Hackathon.

There will always be critics, but Hackathon events are a potent force in driving innovation in for your organisation.

The benefits are such that 80% of Fortune 100 companies use hack events, and 50% of those do it regularly (Source – HackerEarth).

Some of our Industry Hackathon Event Resources