For: Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

by Vivian Brown and Jeffrey S. Hammond, November 26, 2013 KEY TAkEAWAYS Internal Hackathons Provide A Chance To Brainstorm And Play With Technology At internal hackathons, employees have a chance to break out of their normal work routine by working on projects that arent getting attention through usual channels and by collaborating on mixed-role teams. Participants bring their own interests and passions to the event, making internal hackathons a great way to engage self-motivated developers, generate ideas, promote collaboration, and identify star developers. External Hackathons Position Your Organization As A Technical Leader Technology companies have run external hackathons for years, and now more traditional brands are beginning to recognize the opportunity to be perceived as innovative. At these hackathons, non-employees compete in a marathon session to design an innovative application. Outsiders can bring a fresh perspective to business challenges and give you an outside-in view of your products and organization. Plan Ahead And Follow Up For a successful event, its important to have a plan. Hosts should work with partners to attract participants from a variety of roles. Set participants up for success: Organizations sharing technical tools should have clear documentation to help participants learn and help business leaders get instant feedback. Post-event, hosts should follow up with participants and use hard data to measure the outcome.

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

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

NOVEMbER 26, 2013

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

What Enterprise Dev Leaders Need To Know About Hackathons
by Vivian Brown and Jeffrey S. Hammond with Christopher Mines and Rowan Curran

WhY READ ThiS REport The clock is ticking down. A small team a couple developers and a single designer huddles around laptops, rushing to put the finishing touches on an application user interface. They havent slept all night. As the morning light filters into the San Francisco event center, 25 teams work side by side to hack together new and innovative apps in a single weekend. This may not sound like your typical app development workflow and thats the point. When done right, hackathons are an innovative proving ground for new ideas and a chance to position your organization as a technical leader by engaging in the social 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 benefits, and the keys to hackathon success.

Table Of Contents
2 Hackathons Bring Developers Together In A Social Context Internal Hackathons Generate Fresh Ideas And Foster Collaboration External Hackathons Promote Your Organization As A Technical Leader Hackathons Are Not The Time To Build Enterprise-Ready Software 7 Four Keys To A Successful Hackathon Event 1. Start With A Budget Of $10,000, And Revise To Your Unique Circumstances 2. Aim For A Hackathon Thats Just The Right Size 3. Provide Clear Guidelines To Participants Ahead Of Time 4. Follow Through After The Hackathon
RECOMMENdaTIONS

Notes & Resources

Forrester interviewed eight vendor and user companies, including Aetna, Cynergy, DocuSign, StackMob, T3, ThoughtWorks, Twilio, and West Monroe Partners.

Related Research Documents

Development Landscape: 2013 August 22, 2013 Hiring Creative Developers September 27, 2011 Case Study: Atlassian Creates An Innovation Culture That Produces Results January 14, 2011

9 Use Hackathons To Unlock Innovation And Creative Thinking 10 Supplemental Material

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect 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. To purchase reprints of this document, please email clientsupport@forrester.com. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

HAckAthoNS BriNG DEVElopErS ToGEthEr IN A SociAl CoNtEXt Its 6:24 a.m., and time is ticking away. The other developer youre working with got up to get another cup of coffee a few minutes ago, and the code he committed before he left is causing your build to fail. The dev team at the table next to you is napping, which is pretty amazing given the volume of the Daft Punk track blasting out of the audio system. Ah, there it is you spot a malformed 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 from hell? Well, no actually its Saturday morning, and instead of sleeping in, youre knocking out JavaScript on caffeine fumes for no pay. You think to yourself, Why on earth am I doing this? Oh thats right, its supposed to be fun, and this Android app were building is actually pretty cool; cant wait to show it off. . . . Welcome to the world of hackathons, events where teams or individuals compete to quickly hack together and present a project. Most hackathons involve coding a new app, but some take a different tack, asking participants to pitch a business plan, design an innovative user experience, or present a novel visualization of a big data set. Developer participation is completely voluntary, and team organization is often ad hoc. Some developers compete solo, while others arrive in groups or form small teams on the spot. In addition to developers, teams often include designers and entrepreneurs who help produce a polished application with a clear business pitch. Hackathons are mostly run on evenings or weekends, outside of normal working hours. The atmosphere of a good hackathon is competitive but fun (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 potential employers or venture capitalists. Music sets the mood, and pizza, soda, beer, and snacks fuel participants through the event. At the end of a hackathon, participants pitch their ideas to the combined group. Its their opportunity to get the attention of media, tech insiders, and executives. The best apps, usually selected by a panel of judges, win prize money and sometimes even development contracts. Large-scale, public hackathons typically run up to 36 hours and often involve hacking through the night. The most popular of these, hosted in cities around the world, include TechCrunch Disrupt and AngelHack. And its not just entrepreneurs and large companies getting into the act: State and municipal governments have also joined the social coding movement, offering civic hackathons to focus technical innovation on civic problems. Meanwhile, design agencies, systems integrators, and software companies are increasingly hosting internal hackathons where their own employees spend designated afternoons or an evening experimenting with new technologies and ideas.1

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

Figure 1 Hackathons At A Glance

Who should you bring?

What will you need? User judges Media (DJ, projector, banners, film crew) Furniture, power cords, etc. Food, drinks, caffeine Business sponsors and developer evangelists Prizes Event space

API information at m/API w w w.hosturl.co :26:39 7 0 : aining Time rem

Welcome To The

e Totally Awesom n o Hackath

? Lone wolves (come alone, work alone) Seekers (come alone, find a team)

Established teams (corporate team, coworkers, friends)

Ad hoc teams (composed of seekers)

What kind of participants should you expect?

107621 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

Internal Hackathons Generate Fresh Ideas And Foster Collaboration Internal hackathons are hosted by companies for their own employees. Designers and developers work on teams and may mingle with employees from other parts of the business while working on projects that excite them. In our research, weve found that tech companies are the most prevalent sponsors of internal hackathons, but that user-side IT organizations are starting to catch on to their potential. Regardless of industry, internal hackathons give companies the chance to:

Surface and prove new ideas. At an internal hackathon, employees have the freedom to work

on any project that interests them. Anyone with a good idea has the chance to prove its viability and present it in front of executives. This is a great way to find opportunities that arent getting attention in traditional channels. Think of internal hackathons as a next-generation suggestion box for your developers.

Foster collaboration across silos. Forrester clients often tell us that organizational silos block

them from delivering effective digital applications. At a hackathon, developers, designers, and businesspeople form small teams that ignore formal process and reporting relationships. Working side by side, different roles have a unique chance to understand each others perspective. The resulting work teams create a great opportunity for large, siloed organizations to mimic the feel of a smaller company. One long-term result is greater developer awareness of larger business and IT needs. Tech teams used to be more heads down on their projects. Now they look around the work theyre doing to see how it connects outward. For example, developers are much more interested in analytics on their apps, even if they arent analytics folks themselves. (Dan Rosanova, West Monroe Partners)

Identify and engage self-motivated developers. Some developers love to play with new

technology; in our Forrsights Developer Survey, Q1 2013, 71% of respondents told us that they spend their own time developing personal or side projects not related to their day jobs. Enjoyment of programming and a desire to learn new technologies were the top two reasons they cited. Hackathons give self-motivated developers a chance to shine in a fun, fast-paced environment. Theyre also a great chance to learn new skills. Hackathon challenges often involve a specific tool or technology to encourage learning and experimentation. Cynergy, for example, ran a number of internal hackathons around the Microsoft Surface tablet. This gave employees the chance to have fun innovating with an unfamiliar device. Internal hackathons are a very good first step toward a self-challenging culture. Theyre helpful to both identify peoples passions and get a lot of mindshare focused on one problem. (Ben Gaddis, chief innovation officer, T3)

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

External Hackathons Promote Your Organization As A Technical Leader External hackathons are open to participants outside the hosting organization (see Figure 2). Some organizations may choose to run their own hackathon, while others get their feet wet by sponsoring an existing event. Well-known companies like 7-Eleven, Aetna, Home Depot, and Walgreens are already joining the movement, using external hackathons to advertise their public APIs and data to third-party developers. Heres the business case:

Bring fresh perspectives to the toughest problems. Your organization may be locked into

its own viewpoint through convention and policy. An external hackathon gives outsiders the chance to look at those challenges with fresh eyes. At Aetnas RFP Live Design Challenge, nine agencies and 28 individuals competed to design and pitch a healthcare-related application. The first-place prize was a contract for the winning team, but the benefit to Aetna extended beyond a single winner so far, five of the nine agencies that participated have subsequently worked with Aetna to move its ideas forward. People come from different backgrounds and have different views on the same problem space. They bring new ideas in terms of opportunities and different skill sets that you might not have in-house. (Mike Borozdin, director of integration development, DocuSign)

Market the company to developers as a technical leader. Developers tend to avoid direct

marketing (and marketers) like campers do poison ivy. To attract them and build awareness of how great your company is to work with, take a more subtle approach. Every organization we spoke with cited PR as an important reason to host or sponsor a hackathon. Hackathons carry the image of a tech-savvy startup, and more-traditional companies look to benefit from that halo effect. Hosts and sponsors boost their PR impact by being well-prepared for the event and promoting their involvement on social media. But be careful a ham-handed approach to a hackathon can quickly make your company the object of derision or scorn, so its best to get your feet wet by working with experienced hands first.2

Publicize your API and put it to the test. 7-Eleven partnered with The Think Tank (T3) to

sponsor a hackathon around 7-Elevens API. The challenge was to hack convenience by creating the most convenient 7-Eleven experience. The event showed off 7-Elevens up-do-date use of technology and generated novel uses of its API. Hackathons are also a great opportunity to get real-time developer feedback on your APIs. Mike Borozdin at DocuSign told us that it brings product managers and internal engineers to hackathons to watch and learn from participants. Feedback during these hackathons has directly led to new features and improved developer documentation.

External hackathons are good bets for companies that want to position themselves as technical leaders or build awareness of their technical capabilities. If youre sharing an API, make sure to have dedicated resources like technical evangelists to connect with and make developers successful. If

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

youre looking for new ideas, make sure to have a clear pipeline to turn them into reality after the event. Its also important to think about culture how will yours mesh with external talent? If youre accustomed to moving slowly or have strict data privacy concerns, consider whether youre ready for the fast-moving, open nature of a hackathon. Figure 2 An External Hackathon In Progress

Source: AngelHack
107621 Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

Hackathons Are Not The Time To Build Enterprise-Ready Software No matter whos invited, make sure to set reasonable expectations about the outcome of a hackathon. Hackathons should be a seen as a time to brainstorm and experiment. The code that gets written will be quick and sloppy. Hackathons are great for learning new technologies, testing ideas, and building connections, but theyre not for creating polished software. That said, weve talked to many developers who take a project they slammed together for a hackathon on a longer development cycle where problems are refactored away, and the concept is strengthened into a real feature.3 Its also important to remember that participants come to such an event voluntarily, so be sure to provide appropriate incentives and a fun, social environment. If you try to use the event as a chance to get low-cost labor, participants may leave feeling taken advantage of, and they wont come back. Make sure the hackathon is beneficial (and fun) for all participants not just the winners.

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

four KEYS to A SuccESSful hAckAthoN EVENt In our interviews with hackathon organizers, we heard recurring themes about what made their events successful and what they wish theyd done differently. Research participants stressed the importance of creating the right atmosphere and offering compelling prizes to set the tone, and they described the ways their corporate culture blended (or didnt) with the participants expectations for the event. What follows represents their advice to you. 1. Start With A Budget Of $10,000, And Revise To Your Unique Circumstances Internal hackathons and some external hackathons frequently take place at the hosting organizations own office. If you need to rent an outside space, this will significantly increase your budget (unless you can wrangle space as a donation). Food is usually the second biggest expense, including meals, snacks, beer, coffee, and other drinks. Additional expenses to consider include entertainment, security, furniture rentals, and marketing and promotion (see Figure 3). Consider bringing in outside sponsors to defray costs if the budget you set is growing beyond what youre prepared to spend. Figure 3 Set The Budget
What is the cost of hosting your own hackathon? Costs Event space Prizes Media (DJ, projector, banners, film crew) Furniture, power cords, etc. Food, drinks, caffeine Sponsorships Sponsors/partners +$1,000 to $10,000 Total estimated cost: $500 (on-site) to $15,000 (off-site) $1,000 to $10,000 $1,000 to $2,000 $1,700 to $2,000 $2,500 to $6,000

$6,700 to $40,000

107621

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

2. Aim For A Hackathon Thats Just The Right Size Participants join hackathons for a variety of reasons some come in search of prizes, some want to build a prototype and promote their app in front of an audience, while others want to play with new technology and socialize with other developers. Think about what types of developers youre aiming for, and adjust the marketing and budgets to adjust the mix of developers youll attract. A good hackathon is similar to a good bar or club on a Friday night. Aim for a crowd thats not so large that individual developers feel lost or cramped and not so small that its a boring scene where developers walk away before the end. Interviewees told us they followed the following best practices to ensure strong turnout and participation:

Prizes matter. Especially for external events, prizes are important. Although developers

participate in hackathons for a variety of reasons, a substantial cash prize draws participants and generates excitement. At internal events, recognition is often a substitute for 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 of roles getting designers as well as developers engaged will promote cross-team interactions and yield more polished projects. External hackathons, meanwhile, are a great opportunity to recruit outside of normal hiring channels by seeing potential employees in action.

Make it fun. Provide plenty of food, drinks, and music to set the tone. The event should feel

different from day-to-day office work. While a few slices of pizza probably wont convince anyone to attend, good food and a pleasant atmosphere will help keep morale up as the event wears on.

Plan for no-shows. Its much easier for developers to click an attending button than it is to

actually show up to a hackathon. Assume that attendance will be significantly lower than the number of guests who registered for the event, and plan accordingly.

3. Provide Clear Guidelines To Participants Ahead Of Time Hackathons based around a specific design goal work best when the sponsoring organization provides clear guidelines to participants. Distribute a design brief before the event that lists specific information about business goals and defines rules and constraints. Dr. Steph Habif, a behavior designer and lead organizer of the Aetna design challenge, told us, The narrower the requirements given up front, the better the quality of the prototypes we got. Including users and business stakeholders in the event as on-call resources can also help guide participants. Some hackathon events bring in end users to work with design teams, while others include a mix of business stakeholders and end users on the judging panel.

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

4. Follow Through After The Hackathon The weeks after a hackathon matter just as much as the pre-event planning and the event itself. This is the best chance to cement the benefits of the event. Follow these best practices to strengthen new relationships and keep projects moving forward:

Incorporate the best ideas into established workflows to turn them into reality. Create

incentives that encourage participants to stay interested in their projects after the hackathon is over. If you want to turn an idea generated during the hackathon into a formal enterprise app, make sure design and development teams are in place to carry the idea forward to production.

Follow up with participants. If you move forward with any of the prototypes generated during

the event, make sure participants stay in the loop. A follow-up survey is also a good way to learn best practices for the next event.

Use hard data to measure success. If youre using the hackathon to promote an API, its a

golden opportunity for measurement. Look at metrics like the number of people joining your developer 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 definitely have a place in enterprise development shops. They are especially good as a tool to stimulate the creative juices of developers, in a social context that fosters problem solving and risk taking due to a low cost of failure. Approach a hackathon as the developer equivalent of an executive strategy retreat or a musicians jam session, and youll be off to a good start. At the same time, make sure to secure enough budget and take enough time to properly plan the hackathon, so that you dont inadvertently poison the well of developer goodwill through clumsy marketing or poor execution. We recommend the following strategy for teams that are new to the hackathon game:

Learn firsthand by participating in an existing event. The best way to learn more about

hackathons is to experience one. Many external hackathons are open to anyone dont be afraid to join a team and see how your skills stack up. Talk to participants, hosts, and sponsors, and ask what they hope to get out of the event. Regardless of how you fare in the competition, youll get a feel for the atmosphere of a hackathon and the types of developers they can attract.

Start by hosting an internal hackathon. We strongly recommend that you gain basic

hackathon experience by starting with internal development teams, via an Atlassian-style FedEx Day or a series of evening sessions. These sessions will give you the time to try

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

10

different formats, get some ideas about what problems make sense as hackathon challenges for your products or applications, and may help identify developers to enlist in executing a public hackathon.

Sponsor a few public hackathons before you go solo. The best way to learn about the

subtleties of public hackathons is to immerse yourself in a few, preferably in the city youre targeting for you own public event. Start as a low-tier sponsor, and use your status to immerse yourself in hackathon culture, go to the hackathon, and ask questions of the lead organizer. Test your ideas for you own hackathon with the attendees. This will help you refine your plans as you get ready to lead you own events.

SupplEmENtAl MAtEriAl Methodology Forresters Forrsights Developer Survey, Q1 2013, was fielded to 2,038 software developers located in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the UK, and the US from companies of all sizes, as well as students and freelancers. This survey is part of Forresters Forrsights for Business Technology and was fielded during February 2013 and March 2013. ResearchNow fielded this survey online on behalf of Forrester. Survey respondent incentives include points redeemable for gift certificates. We have provided exact sample sizes in this report on a question-by-question basis. Each calendar year, Forresters Forrsights for Business Technology fields 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 carefully screen respondents according to job title and function. Forresters Forrsights for Business Technology ensures that the final survey population contains only those with significant involvement in the planning, funding, and purchasing of IT products and services. Additionally, we set quotas for company size (number of employees) and developer type as a means of controlling the data distribution. Forrsights uses only superior data sources and advanced data-cleaning techniques to ensure the highest data quality. Companies Interviewed For This Report Aetna Cynergy DocuSign StackMob T3 ThoughtWorks Twilio West Monroe Partners

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

FOR APPLICaTION DEVELOPMENT & DELIVERY PROfESSIONaLS

Energize Your Developers With A Hackathon

11

ENDNotES
1

We first wrote about this trend as part of a profile on Atlassians high-performance developer culture, which has long employed FedEx Days which are essentially structured like hackathons. For more details, see the January 14, 2011, Case Study: Atlassian Creates An Innovation Culture That Produces Results report. Its easy for firms to cast a blind eye to content that might appeal to one segment of the developer population while offending others. Unfortunately examples of misogynistic marketing and presentations at hackathons are all too common. Source: Shira Ovid, Boorish Behavior by Techies? Theres No App for That, Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2013 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323 864604579065592682833608.html) and Jamillah Knowles, Sqoot loses sponsors following misogynistic description of their API jam event, The Next Web, March 20, 2012 (http://thenextweb.com/us/2012/03/20/ sqoot-loses-sponsors-following-misogynistic-description-of-their-api-jam-event/).

Atlassian is a company with big ambitions. It uses its innovation culture to drive change and corporate growth in markets where the commoditizing powers of open source software are causing traditional incumbents to stumble and struggle to maintain market share. Atlassian maintains its innovation culture by hiring and keeping the most creative developers it can find. It does this by giving them dedicated time to innovate and by implementing bottom-up development processes that maximize flow and improve team autonomy. The result is a customer-driven development culture that delivers products that customers want and a set of corporate values that resonates with Atlassians technical customers and prospective employees. See the January 14, 2011, Case Study: Atlassian Creates An Innovation Culture That Produces Results report.

2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

November 26, 2013

About Forrester
A global research and advisory firm, Forrester inspires leaders, informs better decisions, and helps the worlds top companies turn the complexity of change into business advantage. Our researchbased insight and objective advice enable IT professionals to lead more successfully within IT and extend their impact beyond the traditional IT organization. Tailored to your individual role, our resources allow you to focus on important business issues margin, speed, growth first, technology second.
FOr MOrE INFOrMATION To find out how Forrester Research can help you be successful every day, please contact the office nearest you, or visit us at www.forrester.com. For a complete list of worldwide locations, visit www.forrester.com/about. CLIENT SUPPOrT For information on hard-copy or electronic reprints, please contact Client Support at +1 866.367.7378, +1 617.613.5730, or clientsupport@forrester.com. We offer quantity discounts and special pricing for academic and nonprofit institutions.

Forrester Focuses On Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Responsible for leading the development and delivery of applications that support your companys business strategies, you also choose technology and architecture while managing people, skills, practices, and organization to maximize value. Forresters subject-matter expertise and deep understanding of your role will help you create forward-thinking strategies; weigh opportunity against risk; justify decisions; and optimize your individual, team, and corporate performance.

ANDrEA DAVIES, client persona representing Application Development & Delivery Professionals

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 13 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 29 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com. 107621