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Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA Tel: +1 617.613.6000 | Fax: +1 617.613.5000 | www.forrester.com

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

by Vivian Brown and Jeffrey S. Hammond, November 26, 2013

For: ApplicationDevelopment& DeliveryProfessionals

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Internal Hackathons Provide A Chance To Brainstorm And Play WithTechnology

At internal hackathons, employees have a chance to break out o their normal workroutine by working on projects that arent getting attention through usual channelsand by collaborating on mixed-role teams. Participants bring their own interests andpassions to the event, making internal hackathons a great way to engage sel -motivateddevelopers, generate ideas, promote collaboration, and identi y star developers.

External Hackathons Position Your Organization As A Technical Leaderechnology companies have run external hackathons or years, and now moretraditional brands are beginning to recognize the opportunity to be perceived asinnovative. At these hackathons, non-employees compete in a marathon session todesign an innovative application. Outsiders can bring a resh perspective to businesschallenges and give you an outside-in view o your products and organization.

Plan Ahead And Follow UpFor a success ul event, its important to have a plan. Hosts should work with partners toattract participants rom a variety o roles. Set participants up or success: Organizationssharing technical tools should have clear documentation to help participants learnand help business leaders get instant eedback. Post-event, hosts should ollow up withparticipants and use hard data to measure the outcome.
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2013, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best availableresources. Opinions reect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester , Technographics , Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar,and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Topurchase reprints of this document, please email [email protected] . For additional information, go to www.forrester.com .

FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROFESSIONALS

WHY READ THIS REPORT

Te clock is ticking down. A small team a couple developers and a single designer huddles aroundlaptops, rushing to put the nishing touches on an application user inter ace. Tey havent slept allnight. As the morning light lters into the San Francisco event center, 25 teams work side by side to

hack together new and innovative apps in a single weekend. Tis may not sound like your typical appdevelopment workow and thats the point. When done right, hackathons are an innovative provingground or new ideas and a chance to position your organization as a technical leader by engaging in thesocial coding movement. Leading enterprises including well-known brands like 7-Eleven, Home Depot,and Walgreens are already joining the trend by hosting or sponsoring major hackathon events. Read

this report to understand the movement, the business benets, and the keys to hackathon success.

Table Of ContentsHackathons Bring Developers Together In ASocial Context

Internal Hackathons Generate Fresh Ideas AndFoster Collaboration

External Hackathons Promote Your Organization As A Technical Leader

Hackathons Are Not The Time To BuildEnterprise-Ready Software

Four Keys To A Successful Hackathon Event

1. Start With A Budget Of $10,000, And ReviseTo Your Unique Circumstances

2. Aim For A Hackathon Thats Just The RightSize

3. Provide Clear Guidelines To Participants

Ahead Of Time4. Follow Through After The Hackathon

RECOMMENDATIONSUse Hackathons To Unlock Innovation AndCreative Thinking

Supplemental Material

Notes & ResourcesForrester interviewed eight vendor anduser companies, including Aetna, Cynergy,DocuSign, StackMob, T3, ThoughtWorks,Twilio, and West Monroe Partners.

Related Research Documents

Development Landscape: 2013 August 22, 2013

Hiring Creative DevelopersSeptember 27, 2011

Case Study: Atlassian Creates An InnovationCulture That Produces ResultsJanuary 14, 2011

Energize Your Developers With A HackathonWhat Enterprise Dev Leaders Need To Know About Hackathonsby Vivian Brown and Jeffrey S. Hammondwith Christopher Mines and Rowan Curran

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Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon 2

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited November 26, 2013

HACKATHONS BRING DEVELOPERS TOGETHER IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT

Its 6:24 a.m., and time is ticking away. Te other developer youre working with got up to getanother cup o coffee a ew minutes ago, and the code he committed be ore he lef is causingyour build to ail. Te dev team at the table next to you is napping, which is pretty amazing giventhe volume o the Daf Punk track blasting out o the audio system. Ah, there it is you spot amal ormed API request in your teammates code, rebuild, and all is well with the world.

Just another all-nighter in the office working on a mis-scoped death-march project rom hell? Well,no actually its Saturday morning, and instead o sleeping in, youre knocking out JavaScript oncaffeine umes or no pay. You think to yoursel , Why on earth am I doing this? Oh thats right, itssupposed to be un, and this Android app were building is actually pretty cool; cant wait to show itoff. . . .

Welcome to the world o hackathons, events where teams or individuals compete to quickly hacktogether and present a project. Most hackathons involve coding a new app, but some take a differenttack, asking participants to pitch a business plan, design an innovative user experience, or presenta novel visualization o a big data set. Developer participation is completely voluntary, and teamorganization is ofen ad hoc. Some developers compete solo, while others arrive in groups or ormsmall teams on the spot. In addition to developers, teams ofen include designers and entrepreneurswho help produce a polished application with a clear business pitch. Hackathons are mostly run onevenings or weekends, outside o normal working hours.

Te atmosphere o a good hackathon is competitive but un (see Figure 1). For many participants,its a chance to socialize with other tech enthusiasts, learn new skills, and demonstrate their

programming talent. Other entrants are motivated by prize money or exposure to potentialemployers or venture capitalists. Music sets the mood, and pizza, soda, beer, and snacks uelparticipants through the event. At the end o a hackathon, participants pitch their ideas to thecombined group. Its their opportunity to get the attention o media, tech insiders, and executives.Te best apps, usually selected by a panel o judges, win prize money and sometimes evendevelopment contracts.

Large-scale, public hackathons typically run up to 36 hours and ofen involve hacking through thenight. Te most popular o these, hosted in cities around the world, include echCrunch Disruptand AngelHack. And its not just entrepreneurs and large companies getting into the act: State andmunicipal governments have also joined the social coding movement, offering civic hackathons toocus technical innovation on civic problems. Meanwhile, design agencies, systems integrators, andsofware companies are increasingly hosting internal hackathons where their own employees spenddesignated afernoons or an evening experimenting with new technologies and ideas. 1


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Figure 1 Hackathons At A Glance

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.107621

Food, drinks, caffeine

Furniture, power cords, etc.

Media (DJ, projector, banners, lm crew)

What kind of participants should you expect?

What will you need?

Who should you bring?

Event spacePrizesBusiness sponsors anddeveloper evangelists

User judges

Established teams(corporate team, coworkers, friends)

Ad hoc teams(composed of seekers)

Lone wolves(come alone, work alone)

Seekers(come alone, nd a team)

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Time remaining: 07:26:

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Internal Hackathons Generate Fresh Ideas And Foster Collaboration

Internal hackathons are hosted by companies or their own employees. Designers and developerswork on teams and may mingle with employees rom other parts o the business while working onprojects that excite them. In our research, weve ound that tech companies are the most prevalentsponsors o internal hackathons, but that user-side I organizations are starting to catch on to theirpotential. Regardless o industry, internal hackathons give companies the chance to:

Surface and prove new ideas. At an internal hackathon, employees have the reedom to workon any project that interests them. Anyone with a good idea has the chance to prove its viabilityand present it in ront o executives. Tis is a great way to nd opportunities that arent gettingattention in traditional channels. Tink o internal hackathons as a next-generation suggestionbox or your developers.

Foster collaboration across silos. Forrester clients ofen tell us that organizational silos blockthem rom delivering effective digital applications. At a hackathon, developers, designers,and businesspeople orm small teams that ignore ormal process and reporting relationships.Working side by side, different roles have a unique chance to understand each othersperspective. Te resulting work teams create a great opportunity or large, siloed organizationsto mimic the eel o a smaller company. One long-term result is greater developer awareness olarger business and I needs.

ech teams used to be more heads down on their projects. Now they look around the worktheyre doing to see how it connects outward. For example, developers are much moreinterested in analytics on their apps, even i they arent analytics olks themselves. (Dan

Rosanova, West Monroe Partners)

Identify and engage self-motivated developers. Some developers love to play with newtechnology; in our Forrsights Developer Survey, Q1 2013, 71% o respondents told us thatthey spend their own time developing personal or side projects not related to their day jobs.Enjoyment o programming and a desire to learn new technologies were the top two reasonsthey cited. Hackathons give sel -motivated developers a chance to shine in a un, ast-pacedenvironment. Teyre also a great chance to learn new skills. Hackathon challenges ofen involvea specic tool or technology to encourage learning and experimentation. Cynergy, or example,ran a number o internal hackathons around the Microsof Sur ace tablet. Tis gave employeesthe chance to have un innovating with an un amiliar device.

Internal hackathons are a very good rst step toward a sel -challenging culture. Teyrehelp ul to both identi y peoples passions and get a lot o mindshare ocused on oneproblem. (Ben Gaddis, chie innovation officer, 3)


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External Hackathons Promote Your Organization As A Technical Leader

External hackathons are open to participants outside the hosting organization (see Figure 2). Someorganizations may choose to run their own hackathon, while others get their eet wet by sponsoringan existing event. Well-known companies like 7-Eleven, Aetna, Home Depot, and Walgreens arealready joining the movement, using external hackathons to advertise their public APIs and data tothird-party developers. Heres the business case:

Bring fresh perspectives to the toughest problems. Your organization may be locked intoits own viewpoint through convention and policy. An external hackathon gives outsiders thechance to look at those challenges with resh eyes. At Aetnas RFP Live Design Challenge, nineagencies and 28 individuals competed to design and pitch a healthcare-related application. Terst-place prize was a contract or the winning team, but the benet to Aetna extended beyonda single winner so ar, ve o the nine agencies that participated have subsequently worked

with Aetna to move its ideas orward.

People come rom different backgrounds and have different views on the same problemspace. Tey bring new ideas in terms o opportunities and different skill sets that you mightnot have in-house. (Mike Borozdin, director o integration development, DocuSign)

Market the company to developers as a technical leader. Developers tend to avoid directmarketing (and marketers) like campers do poison ivy. o attract them and build awareness ohow great your company is to work with, take a more subtle approach. Every organization wespoke with cited PR as an important reason to host or sponsor a hackathon. Hackathons carrythe image o a tech-savvy startup, and more-traditional companies look to benet rom that

halo effect. Hosts and sponsors boost their PR impact by being well-prepared or the event andpromoting their involvement on social media. But be care ul a ham-handed approach to ahackathon can quickly make your company the object o derision or scorn, so its best to getyour eet wet by working with experienced hands rst. 2

Publicize your API and put it to the test. 7-Eleven partnered with Te Tink ank ( 3) tosponsor a hackathon around 7-Elevens API. Te challenge was to hack convenience bycreating the most convenient 7-Eleven experience. Te event showed off 7-Elevens up-do-dateuse o technology and generated novel uses o its API. Hackathons are also a great opportunityto get real-time developer eedback on your APIs. Mike Borozdin at DocuSign told us thatit brings product managers and internal engineers to hackathons to watch and learn romparticipants. Feedback during these hackathons has directly led to new eatures and improveddeveloper documentation.

External hackathons are good bets or companies that want to position themselves as technicalleaders or build awareness o their technical capabilities. I youre sharing an API, make sure to havededicated resources like technical evangelists to connect with and make developers success ul. I


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youre looking or new ideas, make sure to have a clear pipeline to turn them into reality afer theevent. Its also important to think about culture how will yours mesh with external talent? Iyoure accustomed to moving slowly or have strict data privacy concerns, consider whether youre

ready or the ast-moving, open nature o a hackathon.

Figure 2 An External Hackathon In Progress

Hackathons Are Not The Time To Build Enterprise-Ready Software

No matter whos invited, make sure to set reasonable expectations about the outcome o a hackathon.Hackathons should be a seen as a time to brainstorm and experiment. Te code that gets writtenwill be quick and sloppy. Hackathons are great or learning new technologies, testing ideas, andbuilding connections, but theyre not or creating polished sofware. Tat said, weve talked to manydevelopers who take a project they slammed together or a hackathon on a longer developmentcycle where problems are re actored away, and the concept is strengthened into a real eature. 3

Its also important to remember that participants come to such an event voluntarily, so be sure toprovide appropriate incentives and a un, social environment. I you try to use the event as a chanceto get low-cost labor, participants may leave eeling taken advantage o , and they wont come back.Make sure the hackathon is benecial (and un) or all participants not just the winners.

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.107621

Source: AngelHack


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2. Aim For A Hackathon Thats Just The Right Size

Participants join hackathons or a variety o reasons some come in search o prizes, some want tobuild a prototype and promote their app in ront o an audience, while others want to play with newtechnology and socialize with other developers. Tink about what types o developers youre aimingor, and adjust the marketing and budgets to adjust the mix o developers youll attract. A goodhackathon is similar to a good bar or club on a Friday night. Aim or a crowd thats not so large thatindividual developers eel lost or cramped and not so small that its a boring scene where developerswalk away be ore the end. Interviewees told us they ollowed the ollowing best practices to ensurestrong turnout and participation:

Prizes matter. Especially or external events, prizes are important. Although developersparticipate in hackathons or a variety o reasons, a substantial cash prize draws participants andgenerates excitement. At internal events, recognition is ofen a substitute or cash. In both cases,

a prize with tangible value increases desirability.

Involve human resources (HR) and think beyond developers. For internal hackathons,involve HR to promote the event. Reach out to a variety o roles getting designers as wellas developers engaged will promote cross-team interactions and yield more polished projects.External hackathons, meanwhile, are a great opportunity to recruit outside o normal hiringchannels by seeing potential employees in action.

Make it fun. Provide plenty o ood, drinks, and music to set the tone. Te event should eeldifferent rom day-to-day office work. While a ew slices o pizza probably wont convinceanyone to attend, good ood and a pleasant atmosphere will help keep morale up as the event

wears on.

Plan for no-shows. Its much easier or developers to click an attending button than it is toactually show up to a hackathon. Assume that attendance will be signicantly lower than thenumber o guests who registered or the event, and plan accordingly.

3. Provide Clear Guidelines To Participants Ahead Of Time

Hackathons based around a specic design goal work best when the sponsoring organizationprovides clear guidelines to participants. Distribute a design brie be ore the event that lists specicin ormation about business goals and denes rules and constraints. Dr. Steph Habi , a behaviordesigner and lead organizer o the Aetna design challenge, told us, Te narrower the requirementsgiven up ront, the better the quality o the prototypes we got.

Including users and business stakeholders in the event as on-call resources can also help guideparticipants. Some hackathon events bring in end users to work with design teams, while othersinclude a mix o business stakeholders and end users on the judging panel.


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4. Follow Through After The Hackathon

Te weeks afer a hackathon matter just as much as the pre-event planning and the event itsel . Tisis the best chance to cement the benets o the event. Follow these best practices to strengthen newrelationships and keep projects moving orward:

Incorporate the best ideas into established workows to turn them into reality. Createincentives that encourage participants to stay interested in their projects afer the hackathon isover. I you want to turn an idea generated during the hackathon into a ormal enterprise app,make sure design and development teams are in place to carry the idea orward to production.

Follow up with participants. I you move orward with any o the prototypes generated duringthe event, make sure participants stay in the loop. A ollow-up survey is also a good way to learnbest practices or the next event.

Use hard data to measure success. I youre using the hackathon to promote an API, its agolden opportunity or measurement. Look at metrics like the number o people joining yourdeveloper community, API calls, and apps going live.

R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S

USE HACKATHONS TO UNLOCK INNOVATION AND CREATIVE THINKING

Hackathons denitely have a place in enterprise development shops. Tey are especially good as a toolto stimulate the creative juices o developers, in a social context that osters problem solving and risk

taking due to a low cost o ailure. Approach a hackathon as the developer equivalent o an executivestrategy retreat or a musicians jam session, and youll be off to a good start. At the same time, makesure to secure enough budget and take enough time to properly plan the hackathon, so that you dontinadvertently poison the well o developer goodwill through clumsy marketing or poor execution.

We recommend the ollowing strategy or teams that are new to the hackathon game:

Learn rsthand by participating in an existing event. Te best way to learn more abouthackathons is to experience one. Many external hackathons are open to anyone dontbe a raid to join a team and see how your skills stack up. alk to participants, hosts, andsponsors, and ask what they hope to get out o the event. Regardless o how you are in the

competition, youll get a eel or the atmosphere o a hackathon and the types o developersthey can attract.

Start by hosting an internal hackathon. We strongly recommend that you gain basichackathon experience by starting with internal development teams, via an Atlassian-styleFedEx Day or a series o evening sessions. Tese sessions will give you the time to try


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different ormats, get some ideas about what problems make sense as hackathon challengesor your products or applications, and may help identi y developers to enlist in executing apublic hackathon.

Sponsor a few public hackathons before you go solo. Te best way to learn about thesubtleties o public hackathons is to immerse yoursel in a ew, pre erably in the city youretargeting or you own public event. Start as a low-tier sponsor, and use your status toimmerse yoursel in hackathon culture, go to the hackathon, and ask questions o the leadorganizer. est your ideas or you own hackathon with the attendees. Tis will help yourene your plans as you get ready to lead you own events.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Methodology

Forresters Forrsights Developer Survey, Q1 2013, was elded to 2,038 sofware developers locatedin Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the UK, and the US rom companies o all sizes, as wellas students and reelancers. Tis survey is part o Forresters Forrsights or Business echnologyand was elded during February 2013 and March 2013. ResearchNow elded this survey online onbehal o Forrester. Survey respondent incentives include points redeemable or gif certicates. Wehave provided exact sample sizes in this report on a question-by-question basis.

Each calendar year, Forresters Forrsights or Business echnology elds business-to-business

technology studies in more than 17 countries spanning North America, Latin America, Europe,and developed and emerging Asia. For quality control, we care ully screen respondents accordingto job title and unction. Forresters Forrsights or Business echnology ensures that the nalsurvey population contains only those with signicant involvement in the planning, unding, andpurchasing o I products and services. Additionally, we set quotas or company size (number oemployees) and developer type as a means o controlling the data distribution. Forrsights uses onlysuperior data sources and advanced data-cleaning techniques to ensure the highest data quality.

Companies Interviewed For This Report

Aetna

Cynergy

DocuSign

StackMob

3

ToughtWorks

wilio

West Monroe Partners


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ENDNOTES1 We rst wrote about this trend as part o a prole on Atlassians high-per ormance developer culture, which

has long employed FedEx Days which are essentially structured like hackathons. For more details, seethe January 14, 2011, Case Study: Atlassian Creates An Innovation Culture hat Produces Results report.

2 Its easy or rms to cast a blind eye to content that might appeal to one segment o the developerpopulation while offending others. Un ortunately examples o misogynistic marketing and presentationsat hackathons are all too common. Source: Shira Ovid, Boorish Behavior by echies? Teres No Appor Tat, Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2013 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864604579065592682833608.html) and Jamillah Knowles, Sqoot loses sponsors ollowing misogynisticdescription o their API jam event, Te Next Web, March 20, 2012 (http://thenextweb.com/us/2012/03/20/sqoot-loses-sponsors- ollowing-misogynistic-description-o -their-api-jam-event/).

3 Atlassian is a company with big ambitions. It uses its innovation culture to drive change and corporategrowth in markets where the commoditizing powers o open source sofware are causing traditionalincumbents to stumble and struggle to maintain market share. Atlassian maintains its innovation cultureby hiring and keeping the most creative developers it can nd. It does this by giving them dedicated timeto innovate and by implementing bottom-up development processes that maximize ow and improve teamautonomy. Te result is a customer-driven development culture that delivers products that customers wantand a set o corporate values that resonates with Atlassians technical customers and prospective employees.See the January 14, 2011, Case Study: Atlassian Creates An Innovation Culture hat Produces Results report.
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Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice toglobal leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 13 key roles at major companies providing proprietaryresearch, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 29 years, Forrester has been making

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