Hackathons During a Pandemic

The Hackathon we organized was a bit different from the usual ones as we had one common goal for 7 development teams - to close down the legacy system.

The essential part of organizing any event is good communication, but for remote events - it’s the key for the whole event to succeed. It is very important to keep people in the same information field and if you have to choose between over-communication and under-communication, choose over!

Although there were some drawbacks (lack of specific technical knowledge and preparation according to the new framework), we consider the event a great success. The main achievements during those 3 days are valuable and it’s a win-win situation towards the organization and participants:

• Great teamwork experience (2+2=10);
• Focused work and higher results;
• Getting things done instead of complementing to perfection;
• New skills;
• Pair programming and practical knowledge sharing

Still hesitating? We can assure that organizing internal Hackathons is the way to go. Sometimes you don’t achieve initially planned results, but it’s more about creating a safe environment where people can learn, experiment, share knowledge, and get boosted by effective teamwork!

Feedback from participants

What did your team achieve?

• Big results as they got to work with full focus
• Teamwork!
• Amazing! Good experience and it’s interesting how much you can do together during this short period of time
• Got to know something about each other (early bird and late worm)
• Get it done instead of being perfect
• Quick and practical knowledge sharing
• Quick product handover to other teams

What did your team learn?

• New technical knowledge
• Easy to get stuck with small things
• Fast coding!
• Good communication is key, especially when doing a remote hackathon (everyone can and should ask and answer questions, no matter how simple they think they are)
• “Code with me”, pair programming