Pat mentioned on the Webmail blog that we have learned many valuable lessons since our first Hackathon. I thought I'd go into a bit more detail and tell you exactly what we have learned and why Hackathon III was our most successful Hackathon yet.
1. Pick projects that are small enough to complete in one day.
Developers believe they can accomplish the world in one day, so chances are they are going to pick projects that are just too big. They see a small task, assume it will take only a few hours, and they won't want to do it. If someone finishes a few hours early that is great, they can usually help in other areas.
2. Design before the Hackathon
In the weeks prior to the Hackathon we have found it valuable to design the project before the actual day of the Hackathon. It helps ensure that the project is small, but the main reason is that our graphic designer won't get overwhelmed with requests on the day of the Hackathon. Having the designs early is crucial to getting the coding finished in one day.
3. Don't upload the same day.
It's important to finish the project the same day as the Hackathon, but getting it uploaded on the same day isn't necessary. It causes too much pressure on quality assurance and nobody wants to fix bugs after working all day. It's nice to go out, have a nice dinner, and not have to worry about that last upload that might be causing issues. Don't skip on QA because you are trying to get everything finished the same day.
4. Limit the presentation time
Limiting the presentation time to three minutes certainly helped us get through all the projects in a reasonable time.
5. Order the pizza early
Don't wait until people start getting hungry to order the pizza. Velvet made sure this time around that the food was here at 12:00pm sharp.
