intro to whole brain® hackathons

Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results.

© Herrmann Global LLC

Whole Brain® Hackathons A Rapid, Co-Creative Approach to Innovation

Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. © Herrmann Global LLC © Herrmann Global LLC

Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results.

What is a Hackathon? A Hackathon is typically a gathering of engineers to collaboratively hack a product or service to innovate for new value. This is done in an intensive format, over a compressed period of time, in order to accelerate speed to market.

The goal: Create a testable product or service in as little as 3 days…and have fun doing it!



What’s unique about a Whole Brain® Hackathon? Stronger focus placed on identifying and leveraging diverse and complementary thinking preferences across your team – so you bring your Whole Brain® to bear.

Leveraging a wider network of thinkers to catalyze your innovation – not just engineers, but also designers, marketers and strategists (internal and external).

Using our tried-and-true team workshop facilitation approaches and tools to most effectively engage and tap into the Whole Brain ® of each participant and the group.

As a result, delivering Whole Brain ® innovation – an engineering breakthrough plus the user experience, business model, and development plan it needs to succeed.

Our distinctive Whole Brain® approach enables maximum co-creative productivity from the team, resulting in a more successful innovation outcome.



The “secret sauce” is in harmonizing 4 teams & workstreams to create something amazing!

Business

Design

User

Ops



Working prototype

User journey & feedback

Feasibility & development

Business case

Whole Brain® Hackathon deliverables

Quantified business case and ROI, value

proposition & business model canvas

Initial feasibility assessment &

development plan

Minimally viable product (or service) demonstrator

Empathy mapping, feedback from initial demo testing & user

experience journey

Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. © Herrmann Global LLC


Discover Explore Develop Refine Consolidate & Test

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

• Introducing our team’s Whole Brain® (getting to know each other and our thinking preferences)

• Defining a shared, interdependent Hackathon goal

• Aligning on inputs: business / user stories, ingoing ideas and hypotheses

• Kicking off workstreams, teams (Design, User, Business, Ops) and and roles

• Product requirement identification / prioritization

• Initial prototype development

• Prototype testing and refinement

• Prototype Demonstration

• User need assessment & initial marketing strategy

• User experience journey and UI/UX design

• UX/UI testing & refinement

• Prepare for user testing

• User testing & feedback capture

• Marketing strategy refinements

• Value proposition and business model ideation

• Business case development and calculations

• Business case refinement and ROI estimates

• Present business case and ROI estimates

• Capture initial feasibility considerations and requirements

• Further develop requirements and feasibility considerations

• Refine feasibility assessment and development plan recommendations

• Present feasibility assessment, development plan and next steps

• Facilitate & share progress • Evaluate and prepare for next day

Typical Whole Brain® Hackathon Process

Workshop & team prep (2-4 weeks)

Development Iterations / Sprints (5-8 weeks)

Start product development

Further User Tests

(3-5 weeks)

Refinement & selection

(2-4 weeks) Start product development

Initial Ideation Sessions

Full Product Development Cycles

Hackathon (1 week)



New capabilities, same promise…

Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. Better Thinking. Better Performance. Better Results. © Herrmann Global LLC