Preface - Originally, this blog was simply going to be about why we run hackathons. But as we are writing this piece, we thought it’d be beneficial to make this a multi-part series. This will allow us to go deeper into why culture plays such a huge role and discuss how to cultivate that culture through some of the best practices we’ve learned as a team.
Intro
As a company keeps growing it is easy to fall into a trap where it no longer has time to innovate. They get bogged down with day-to-day operations and a backlog of items that never seem to shrink.
How do you keep innovating as a company and how do you keep encouraging the employees to have a growth mindset in this ever evolving and ever-changing tech landscape? It’s hard! But not impossible!
Here at Microsoft our vision is to
‘Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more’
And to achieve this goal we need to be able to adapt to the changing climate of our customers’ needs – whether it’s technology or industry that’s pushing them. And cultivating the right culture is key to success!
What does culture have to do with organizing a hackathon? How does culture lead to innovation?
Imposter Syndrome and Innovation
In our team, we throw the term ‘Imposter Syndrome.’ A LOT! It means many or (probably) all of us have this persistent inability to believe in ourselves. Believing he/she is unable to be successful through their own effort/skills (link). How many times have we thought to ourselves, “Can I really do this?”, or “Oh boy... this is going to be hard for me.”. We notice this same trend in the internal / community hackathons we run.
When we think of certain things as being too hard for us to tackle anxiety and fear start to settle in, QUICK!
Innovation isn’t without risks. It’s about trying new things. Without willingness to tackle things that might be uncomfortable for us it’s impossible to foster innovation. How do you take risks without having the confidence to tackle issues at hand?
How do we build confidence in us and in others? Practice being comfortable with being uncomfortable :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Although this is not the only way, we believe hackathons can open a safe space to question and learn which is hard to come by, otherwise. A place where people aren’t afraid to voice their opinions to collaborate and innovate together as a team. A time when everyone can feel free to feel uncomfortable and work out a solution together.
In our team we sort of coined the above culture as ‘Hack Culture’ (I’d like to think of it as a supplement to Agile :D). If hackathons are incorporated well, it can promote Design Thinking, individual’s confidence, team collaboration, and focusing on MVP (read more) as the hackathon’s output would help frame Agile’ s iterative process in a tangible fashion.
Keystone Habit
The reason why we believe culture, in our case, a Hack Culture is so important is it can be treated as a keystone habit. In short – An essential habit that creates a chain reaction of other healthy habits across an organization.
“They have 3 characteristics: they give you numerous small senses of victory;
they serve as the soil from which other habits grow; and they give you energy and confidence to do more.”
Building confidence is vital in unlocking full potential from an individual. As we mentioned before, imposter syndrome is in all of us and experiencing small victories over time is going to help us slowly overcome our insecurities and turn them into curiosities. From a “I can’t” to a “Let me try to figure this out.”
Small victories will turn insecurities into curiosities
Breaking things down
Hackathons encourages an iterative mindset. This is where Agile mindset is necessary. When we come and join a hackathon, it is our tendency to solve EVERYTHING about a problem. But to create a full-fledged solution in two days... or even a week is just not possible. Hackathons helps participants to think small and about what is feasible with the given amount of time. Participants need to be creative to scope down and understand what is essential vs. nice-to-haves. Aka. MVP.
Making the scope digestible is key to creating those small victories we mentioned. Boosting participants confidence one task or an MVP at a time. I have heard many non-technical and first-time hackathon attendees express how amazed they were about how much they learned and accomplished.
We believe these small victories give ammunition for people to rumble with uncomfortable and seemingly impossible situations. It helps them to practice breaking bigger challenges into smaller chunks and it also allows them to face challenges as an opportunity to grow rather than with fear.
Last thought – Pausing to Celebrate
It is important to create a culture of celebration. After each hackathon we can take the time to share what we’ve learnted and celebrate how much we were able to accomplish! An MVP from a hackathon does not have to be the final product nor it ever should. It is an output where everyone in the team can look back and see what they were able to accomplish TOGETHER.
No matter how small an output it is.
When we are hungry for innovation it is easy to get tempted to keep on driving without pausing to recognize the effort of every individual who went out of their comfort zone to collaborate.
We believe creating a celebratory culture could help create a habit of encouragement amongst peers. These types of recognition will also lead to more participation from individuals in future hackathons and other similar events.
Innovative solutions through collaboration and celebrations :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:!
…. Until the next part
In the upcoming blog we will go over what a hackathon is, at least in our view, how you can run your own hackathons for your organization/team, and best practices.
We cannot wait to share our learnings!
