The concept of a hackathon is simple – anyone can participate; developer, analyst, technical architect, project manager etc. Hackathons are about creating a new system / idea / solution in a clever and skilful way. It’s called hacking because you are, in fact, clearing as many obstacles as possible to allow teams to focus on a solution.
Hackathons allow an environment where pretty much everything is possible. By exploring sideways from the standard company structure, they allow innovation to occur.
Organisations are often clogged with hierarchical structures and tend to have slow decision making processes, especially when introducing a new ideas or systems that affect their customers. Hackathons often provide the framework for THINKING BIG, STARTING SMALL & MOVING FAST.
On Tuesday 23rd July, we organized our own themed hackathon event focussing on ‘Simplicity’; a Simplithon if you like.
At the start of the Simplithon, no-one knew what the exact result would be or, what ideas would be generated re corporate simplification. The floor was open and our lively, quick thinking bunch wasted no time in getting ideas rolling.
All ideas that were pitched during the afternoon long event either contained strong improvements for the internal business processes or opened the door towards new ideas for our much valued clients.
Recognising that no two people ever look at a problem in the same way, we were cognizant of our employees different working backgrounds, knowledge, diverse skills, and experiences meaning that we all look for solutions in different places and take different routes to get there.
Given the range of ideas and insights offered by the teams, we will no doubt do this again and all managed by our new Chief Simplicity Officer (CSO).
