How and Why We Run Internal Hackdays

There are a lot of external hackdays happening around the UK nowadays, but how do you run one internally at a company for just your employees/colleagues? This talk looks at the differences between organizing external hackdays vs internal ones, the things that need to be considered when organizing an internal hackday and how to get everyone in your company involved (beyond just the developers).

Transcript

1. How Melinda Seckington @mseckington Why & We R nternal i ackdays un H i
3. Am Whoi? j
4. Developer
5. Blogger
6. Speaker
7. Event Organiser
8. ackdays H i
9. Hacking at hackdays
10. Organising hackdays
11. Running ackdays H nternal i
13. To pioneer the best social learning experiences for everyone, everywhere
14. How Create L earning Culture A Do You Of ?
15. learn on your own learn from each other learn from the community learn by teaching
16. learn on your own learn from each other learn from the community learn by teaching
17. Run ackday? H nternal i How Do You An
18. When onsider C ackday? H What Organizing T o nternal i An 4 ackdays H nternal iExamples Of
19. When onsider C ackday? H What Organizing T o nternal i An
20. where who why when how
21. why why are you running the hackday?
22. why is there a specific theme?
23. where who why when how
24. who is the hackday for? who
25. limited to devs/designers? who entire company? external guests?
26. if everyone: who how do you involve everybody? does everyone need to code?
27. where who why when how
28. where where are you running the hackday?
29. where external vs internal
30. where who why when how
31. when are you running the hackday? when
32. how many days? when weekday vs weekend specific days tricky for certain teams? timing with other events?
33. where who why when how
34. how how are you running the hackday?
35. how demos? prizes? schedule? judges? food?
36. where who why when how
37. When onsider C ackday? H What Organizing T o nternal i An
38. When onsider C ackday? H What Organizing T o nternal i An 4 ackdays H nternal iExamples Of
39. 4 ackdays H nternal iExamples Of
40. may 2014 futurelearn hackday
41. where who why when how
42. why Highlight talent & creativity among the team Get people working across teams
43. why Let people be creative and experiment!
44. why How do we make clear that people can work on what they want?
45. What can I work on? Whatever you want. Well, as long as it is related to FutureLearn in some way or another. Has there always been one thing you wish FutureLearn did? Got some crazy idea that you’d love to experiment with? Go ahead and build it! Our hacks should showcase what FutureLearn could be, so your ideas can range from features that we could add tomorrow to something completely blue sky. why
46. where who why when how
47. Everyone in the company who
48. How to get everyone involved? who
49. Do I need to know how to code? Nope, you don’t! Hacking is all about playing with technology and using it in new and creative ways. For our hackday it means coming up with new ideas for FutureLearn and creating something to showcase that idea, be it in code, in semi- decipherable whiteboard scribbles, or in interpretive song and dance. who
50. where who why when how
51. Our office where
52. How to make sure people don’t get distracted by the day-to-day? where
53. Create a hackspace where
54. where who why when how
55. Full day 10:00 - 17:00 when
56. where who why when how
57. Allow people to form their own teams and choose hack ideas how
58. Hack Whiteboard how
59. how What next? 1. Checkout the whiteboard, get inspired and add your idea 2. Add +1 to any idea you like, add your name to ones you’re interested in working on 3. Talk to people! Think you need a developer or a designer to pair with during the day? Talk to them beforehand to see if they want to help out 4. Think about which tools you might need to install beforehand 5. Check out the Slack #hackday channel for inspiration
60. 3 minute demos 1 prize Audience vote how
61. where who why when how
62. stats 16 hacks 23 people
63. ? what did we learn?
64. 1 Lots of discussion to form teams, less hacking lessons learnt
65. 2 Not everyone was sure they should join a team lessons learnt
66. 3 Lots of great ideas, but only one got rewarded lessons learnt
67. 4 What happens with the ideas after the hackday? lessons learnt
68. may 2014 futurelearn hackday
69. july 2014 growth hackday
70. where who why when how
71. why This hackday we want to generate as many hacks as possible around how we can grow our number of registered users. We want you to come up with any ideas that can help grow our user base - from small changes on the platform to creative concepts for other corners of the web.
72. why How to encourage people to come up with different and lots of ideas?
73. why Prize categories: Most likely to grow awareness of FutureLearn offline Most likely to grow awareness of FutureLearn online Most likely to increase new registrations Most likely to improve number of shares Most likely to reduce bounce rate Most likely to improve conversion from sign up to active learner Best use of social media Simplest change we can make Best hack inspired by data Best international hack
74. where who why when how
75. when Half day 13:00 - 17:00
76. where who why when how
77. 1 Lots of discussion to form teams, less hacking lessons learnt how
78. 2 Not everyone was sure they should join a team lessons learnt how
79. how Hack Whiteboard
80. where who why when how
81. stats 19 hacks 33 people
82. ? what did we learn?
83. 1 Too many hacks! lessons learnt
84. 1 Don’t promise one thing and then do something else lessons learnt
85. 2 Half day is too short lessons learnt
86. 3 Judging took too much time lessons learnt
87. 4 Not everyone felt comfortable just joining a team lessons learnt
88. july 2014 growth hackday
89. december 2014 christmas hackday
90. where who why when how
91. why This time around we want you all to create something that is full of delight, play or fun for our users.
92. where who why when how
93. when The day before the Christmas Party
94. where who why when how
95. 4 Not everyone felt comfortable just joining a team lessons learnt how
96. how How can we encourage everyone to participate?
97. how How can we get people working across teams?
98. how Pre-assigned teams
99. how 5 minutes to present per team
100. how Challenges + leaderboard
101. how Challenges: Wear clothes with colours from the FutureLearn gradient (blue to pink to yellow) Bring a Secret Santa present in the theme of delight & play, for less than £8.53 Find the hidden chocolate coins Solve the cryptic riddles Make your own lunch and be creative! Perform a song/poem with FutureLearn as the topic (they can be based on real songs and poems).
102. how
103. where who why when how
104. stats 14 hacks 48 people 7 teams
105. ? what did we learn?
106. 1 Teams worked lessons learnt
107. 2 Challenges were fun for ‘this’ hackday lessons learnt
108. december 2014 christmas hackday
109. june 2015 partner hackday
110. where who why when how
111. why Explore ideas from and for our partners
112. why Show our partners our team and how we work
113. where who why when how
114. who Invite representatives from each of our partners
115. where who why when how
116. when The day after our Partner Forum
117. where who why when how
118. how How can we encourage people to participate?
119. how Emails and blog posts explaining what the day was for
120. how Pre-assigned teams + Google Docs + Slack
121. where who why when how
122. stats 21 hacks 43 partners 10 teams 38 fl-ers
123. ? what did we learn?
124. 1 Developers & designers felt stretched lessons learnt
125. 2 How to share what effect the hackday had? lessons learnt
126. june 2015 partner hackday
127. june 2015 partner hackday december 2014 christmas hackday july 2014 growth hackday may 2014 futurelearn hackday
128. ? what did we learn?
129. 1 communicate
130. 2 reflect
131. 3 iterate
132. Melinda Seckington @mseckington FutureLearn