Run an amazing hackathon with this playbook!

Part of a four-part series on creating kick-ass ideation events!

The purpose of this article is to provide you with a simple high-level playbook for creating your ideation event (Hackathon). Consider it a checklist of the essential items rather than an instruction manual. Know that every event has a distinct personality, requirements for success, and environment to flourish in, so there will be other considerations. Don’t worry, you’re smart, you will figure it out, I believe in you.

If you’re curious to dive deeper so that you can get the absolute most out of your ideation event, try exploring the three other articles in this series.

There Is More To Ideation Events Than Ideas — Organizations often overlook hidden value in ideation events. This piece will help you unlock and capitalize on it!

Building The Foundation Of A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 1 — Takes a deep dive into leadership support, choosing the right type of event, and getting the scale or size of the event right. Three interdepended pieces which you must get right to have a buttery smooth event.

Creating A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 2 — Setting expectations, rewarding the right things, and having a post-event plan; get these right, and your odds of success skyrocket.

If the purpose is to provide a high-level playbook, then the goal is to show you that with a purposeful approach, diligent planning, and a little creativity, anyone can run an ideation event. Seriously! Suppose you feel the challenge requires a little more juice than you have at your fingertips. In that case, organizations like HackerEarth can consult, provide a platform, and/or connect you to a community of potential participants. That said, we are here to explore how you can do it all in-house.

Before we start, a quick bit of level setting:

Ideation Event: An corporate innovation event where individuals or teams can pitch their ideas to leaders who can help advance them. Generally occurs over a relatively short period of time (a few hours to a few weeks depending on the format), during which participants come up with a solution to a problem and then create a short pitch.

Ideation events help innovators overcome invisible internal hurdles or corporate antibodies that unintentionally manifest to protect the core business. They do this by:

1. Creating space for people to take intellectual risks.
2. Elevating ideas past gatekeepers and providing visibility to a larger audience who might be keener to run with them (remember, most gatekeepers are just people doing their jobs and doing them well)
3. Providing structure so new ideas can be surfaced, considered, and tracked without significant investment or commitment.

Your Playbook For Creating An Ideation Event

Important: There is no perfect order to do these in. Obviously, some come later than others, but the numbers are only there for reference, don’t get caught up on order.

1. Engage Leadership and Get Support — Having leaders champion your event will make things 10x smoother, raise the event’s prestige, and help with post-event implementations. This might be the most impactful factor in the event’s success. (see Building The Foundation Of A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 1)
2. Recruit a Team and Judges- You may want to create a small team to make light work of planning and logistics. At the very least, you need to have judges, timers, and day of coordinators to direct traffic.
3. Determine the Type of Event — Is it going to be an open event where participants can bring forward any idea they want to solve? Is there a specific problem you want them to solve? Or, maybe there is a theme to guide participants in what types of problems they should focus on. (see Building The Foundation Of A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 1)
4. Determine the Size of the Event — Will the event be company-wide? Division specific? Location Specific? The event can be any size you choose, it can even allow for external participation. (see Building The Foundation Of A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 1)
5. Set Expectations — Participants must know what deliverables they will be expected to produce. Likewise, expectations have to be set with judges and stakeholders on what they will receive. Disconnects = Disappointment. Remember, ideation events are about bullets not cannonballs. In most cases, the goal is to explore lots of ideas quickly with as little wasted time and energy as possible. Avoid asking participants to do work that will never get used. You can always ask for more in the future, but you can never give the time back. (see Creating A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 2)
6. Determine Incentives and What Is Being Incentivized — Rewards are essential; they raise the stakes, encourage participation, and create healthy competition. More important than the rewards themselves is choosing the right things to reward. (see Creating A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 2)
7. Create a Scoring Matrix — This helps everyone understand expectations, what is important, and how pitches will be adjudicated. You want to share this with all stakeholders as early in the process as possible. What you put into the matrix you will get out of pitches. Use it to elevate the type of thinking you want to encourage.
8. Create an Information Package — The when, where, what, all in one place. It should contain the rules, event details, scoring matrix, and other materials stakeholders need to navigate the event.
9. Promote the Event — Putting a flyer by the elevator won’t be enough. Leverage company portals and information channels, reach out to known innovators directly, host information sessions, bring in guest speakers… get creative in how you grab people’s attention.
10. Create a Registration System — Knowing the number of teams, who is participating, and what ideas are coming forward is vital to planning, scheduling, and generating excitement around the event. You can use simple digital forms or survey tools, or even an excel spreadsheet if it comes down to it. Pro Tip ask participants to include a 1–2 line description of their idea. You can use this to give stakeholders a flavor of what is to come and ensure that there are no overlapping ideas. Overlapping ideas are not a bad thing, but it is good to make teams aware of this situation.
11. Set and Communicate Logistics — How long do participants get to work on their ideas? How long do they get to pitch? Where do they pitch? In-person? Online? What do they have to submit ahead of time? What do judges need to know? How do judges get their materials? When does training happen? There will be more questions than this to answer along the way. My advice, grab a piece of paper and imagine you are a participant; walk yourself through the process. What would you need to know? Do the same as if you were a judge, then again as a volunteer, coordinator, and spectator.
12. Run the Event — Things will not go the way you planned them. Something will go sideways. Don’t panic; if you have been diligent about planning, these issues will likely be minor. Keep moving forward. Think about it like a giant ball rolling down a hill. You can influence it by bumping and nudging it to course correct, but if you try and stop it and push it back up the hill, you’re going to have a bad time. Make sure you do a dry run and test all your technology ahead of time. Measure twice, cut once.
13. Have a Plan For What Comes Next — The event is not the end. it is the beginning. Know what comes next for participants and their ideas. When will they get feedback? Where will their ideas go from here? Will they be implemented? What will be expected of participants moving forward? You can have a perfect event, but if you do not have a plan for what happens after, it will kill the momentum and credibility instantly. (see Creating A Winning Ideation Event — Advanced Basics Part 2)
14. Follow up with teams — Technically, this is part of 13 but it is important enough to call out on its own. Follow up with each team individually. Provide feedback, be candid, be truthful. “Great Job! Really well done!” is a nice thing to say, but it won’t help anyone improve their skills or ideas.
15. Get Feedback — Three things 1. Everyone has blindspots, 2. There is no such thing as a perfect event 3. Making real choices means someone will not get what they want. Take the opportunity to get real feedback to improve future events. Remember that you don’t have to implement every suggestion and that it is not possible to run a perfect event. You can do this with surveys, interviews, pre-determined KPIs, whatever works for you.
16. Celebrate success — Recognize the participants and their ideas. Thank judges and volunteers. Build excitement for the future.

Yes, it’s that doable! If you only take away one thing from this article, it should be that ideation events don’t have to be complex or difficult, but they do require a purposeful approach to be effective. With a little bit of careful planning, creativity, and leadership support, you can create a meaningful and impactful event that will strengthen your organization’s innovation muscle and culture.