Hackathons have been around since the late 90’s and have been used successfully by big companies and small start-ups alike as a way to create new software solutions quickly. There’s never been a better time to run a PMO Hackathon. There are numerous Hackathon success stories – one of the most notable being the creation of GroupMe at a TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 conference. GroupMe quickly became a major company and was sold to Skype a year later for $85m.

The word ‘Hackathon’ invokes images of rooms full of coders locked away in a room without windows while lines of code scroll across giant screens. But here at HotPMO! we ask, “Why should software developers have all the fun?” If the format works for software, there is no reason why the PMO cannot adopt the setup and use it elsewhere in the business.

 What’s the format for a typical Hackathon?

Hackathons typically have a theme or focus. The focus could come up with an innovative way of using an existing piece of software or to build something from scratch to solve a specific problem. The focus can be broad (e.g., come up with a new tool to reduce world hunger) or focused (e.g., find a way of improving the way the company notifies customers when products are out of stock). Once the focus is agreed, you need to decide on how much time you want to devote to your hackathon. Full-day hackathons are frequent, but they can be anything from a few hours to several days. Ing once held a hackathon that ran for 24 hours straight!

The hackathon starts with a presentation describing the theme, or challenge that people are trying to overcome. Teams form, and they work the problem in short iterations – sharing progress and ideas with the broader group at regular intervals. While the teams usually work together collaboratively, it is common to introduce an element of competition with prizes for the best product demonstration, the most innovative idea, or idea with the most potential.

Sometimes external speakers are invited to talk at various points during the hackathon (e.g. after lunch). Food and drinks are provided throughout to keep teams energized. At the end of the hackathon, the teams present (or demo) their work, and there is time for QA. Prizes are awarded, and the group celebrates the hackathon over a few drinks and nibbles.

What makes Hackathons so powerful?

Despite best efforts, most organizations have some silo mentality. Hackathons pull diverse talent and skills together to focus on a specific challenge for a short period. As well as the solutions that are presented at the end of the hackathon, there are benefits long after the event itself as the relationships that were forged on the day continue to bear fruit. Make no mistake; if you run a successful hackathon, you will see cross-silo communication improve massively afterward.

What type of PMO Hackathon could we run?

Data Hacking – One of the critical things PMOs do is act as a ‘single point of truth’. They collate reports and information from various sources and turn them into coherent and actionable Management Information. In an ideal world, the data are located in a single location in a format that is easily understood. In practice, however, data is held in a variety of systems, and spreadsheets and formats can vary wildly. Often the PMO are held back because they don’t have the right access, or the right skills to access data sources that could help them produce better management dashboards. A PMO-lead hackathon could be a solution! Invite technical resources from different teams, vendors, and PMO analysts. Snr Management should set the scene by explaining what they need and what challenges they face. Attendees should be assigned to teams to ensure a good mix of skills and knowledge in each group. At the end of the hackathon, Senior Management should return to observe the demos and award prizes.

Innovation/ Ideation – If you find your business strategy is typically developed ‘top-down’ then maybe an innovation hackathon as part of your strategic planning process could be just what you need. Once the high-level strategic goals are agreed, organize a hackathon where different departments come together to come up with ways to achieve the strategic objectives. This approach generates fresh thinking and avoids ideas being filtered through conventional silo mechanisms. Another advantage of this approach is that it garners buy-in for the strategy, as more people have an active role in shaping some of the strategic initiatives.

Supplier Evaluation – If you’ve worked in PMOs and Projects for a while, you’ve almost certainly been involved in the evaluation of a tool or service. But what if there were a way to get suppliers to demonstrate their capabilities while helping them understand the business challenges? A supplier hackathon could be the answer. Invite your suppliers to attend, give them the theme for the event and let them know how teams will be evaluated. Once the teams are in place, provide them a realistic scenario and grant them access to the feeds and data that they need to work the problem. Suddenly you move from evaluating suppliers based on fancy presentations, to assessing them based on their ability to help solve your real-world challenges. At the end of the hackathon, be sure to give all suppliers detailed feedback so they can learn from the experience too.

Process Automation – Here at HotPMO, we love automating. RPA technologies such as UiPath are great for rapidly automating processes and seeing how they work. RPA hackathons can be a great way of exploring how a process could look if it were handled by Bots instead of humans and can be a great way of starting to understand how the technology works. Find out more about how HotPMO works with UiPath here ?https://www.hotpmo.com/uipath

Others – There are many ways the PMO could apply the hackathon model could be used outside of software teams – share your ideas in the comments section below!

Update – First PMO Hackathon!

Since I wrote this article back in 2016, I’ve had several conversations about the idea of PMO Hackathons. And in October 2017, HotPMO joined forces with PMOFlashmob and Ticketmaster to run the world’s first public PMO Hackathon in London! You can find out more about it in the video below: