More than 80% of the top companies listed by leading magazines conduct hackathons to drive innovation in the respective field and is said to one of the best tools for sustained growth and innovation. In simple terms, hackathon is nothing but an event or meeting where the participants including all of the professionals related to the intended sector or work to gathers together for a few hours or days. They get engaged in discussion to find the best solution for a problem or to discuss innovative solutions that can increase the productivity of the intended tasks. These fantastic sessions provide the best opportunity for each of the members to burst out their creative ideas and professional talents.
Need of hackathon
Most of the companies and business give utmost importance to hackathon of various reasons. Teamwork is gaining more importance than individual performance in successful businesses organizations. It is really a good idea to keep the spirit and smooth flow of teamwork to increase productivity. The idea behind hackathon planning is to bring all members of a team or different teams to a meeting session that is free from the formal restrictions to share their ideas and thoughts in a fun packed atmosphere. These sessions certainly help to find the right problems for several issues to suggest the best solutions for the betterment of business operations. The sessions make the team members feel relaxed and to have chats with each other to have some fun at the same time of sticking to the professional and organizational goals.
Importance of hackathon in innovation
Incentives only can’t bring innovation. It comes only when you create environments where ideas can connect. Hackathons help the companies to harvest creative ideas and knowledge from a handful of people to take productivity and technology to next level. The ideas derived and delivered out of hackathons from the participants helps a lot in designing top-notch products, providing beer customer experience and generating greater revenue. Every professional will have something special in talents to deliver for the success of the businesses. Hackathons help professionals to put those creative talents to the working grounds to turn them into better business strategies or innovative technological solutions.
Internal hackathons
Traditionally hackathon was conducted only for the people within the organization. Now the companies make active participation of the different section of workforces within the organizations to add the thrill and effect to the hackathons. This is what called or known as internal hackathon. The members or workforces within the organization participate in these sessions with the freedom to forget everyday restrictions and responsibilities to build something innovative.
Objectives of an internal hackathon
The prime objective of the internal hackathon is to crowdsource ideas from the existing workforce than depending on other paid professional teams to bring innovative changes in product designing, customer service, IT infrastructure, marketing and in almost all of the core activities of the business. This also helps the companies to identify the collaboration ability, presentation skills and other hidden professional and creative talents of the employees. Some of the important factors that assure success to internal hackathon include high-cross functional collaboration, high participation, relevant and quality ideas, positive feedback from the employees, top quality proofs of prototypes and concepts.
External Hackathons
As the term says, external hackathons invite the participation from participants within and outside the organization. These hackathons are mainly conducted with an aim to improve customer experience, change culture, reduce cost, find new revenue opportunities, and improve talent management and to engage new ecosystems. This helps the companies to engage with external audiences including data scientist, anyone from the developer community or the general public. This helps the companies to explore new techniques, create potential startups, creating better solutions for social causes, and more.
Make hackathon really effective
There are some basic steps that help the companies to make hackathon really effective. The first and most important step or factor is to decide the prime purpose. Even though the sessions are made free from usual restrictions and responsibilities, the company should be very clear about the purpose. The next step is to make proper planning and to inform the intended participants about the purpose, date, and time of hackathon. This helps them to get prepared for the event and to deliver the best ideas and solutions. It is also a good idea to decide on some prizes or reward points to encourage the participants and to make the event really effective.
Make use of online platforms
Now, most of the team members love to share their ideas through their favorite computer or laptop than sitting around the table to have face to face chats. This provides them with maximum freedom and comfort in participating in hackathons with an extra level of fun and thrill. Most of the present generation love to make chats with their beloveds that talking through the phones. This psychological approach of the people is what made most of the business to think about the best online hackathon platform.
Benefits of using online platform
Well-developed hackathon platforms are so easy to access by any of the team members from anywhere in the country or world. Those who manage hackathon can easily add members from different teams. The team members can be altered and managed at any time as per the purpose of hackathon. The purpose and date of the event can be updated on online platforms to send automated notification for each of the members. Online platform helps a lot in inviting the participants from any part of the country or world to participate in hackathons without making a move from wherever they are. This freedom and flexibility in participation really help the businesses to conduct productive hackathons with the successful participation of real talents within and outside the organization.
Get the best hackathon platform
There are reputed software development companies in the country to provide the best hackathon platform that works on the cloud. Get the best solutions that can be easily customized as per the requirement to make hackathon planning real success with the smooth execution of the same?
