How to plan a remote hackathon in 2 days
What we learned while bringing a scattered team together (virtually) in uncertain times
As part of our annual Tech Summit in Q1 of every year, the Glossier tech team comes together from various parts of the globe (New York, Montreal, Seattle, Ireland, Brazil, San Francisco, North Carolina, Washington D.C., Chicago, to name a few) to convene around past learnings and our shared future vision. Given the team’s significant growth in 2019 — a new CTO, new Seattle office, and new team members across engineering, product, data, design, and research — we wanted the focus of this year’s Summit to be on team-building. Hosting a hackathon seemed like the perfect way to rally the tech team members together around projects they were passionate about working on. (For some context: a hackathon is an event where teams get together to collaborate on a project, outside of their normal day-to-day work, under a deadline.)
The Summit was planned for the first week of March. With the uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic at that time, there were a lot of questions: Was it wise to have people traveling to NYC? Should we move forward with the event as planned, but remote? Should we host the event at all or push it to a later date? When would that later date even be? We had several considerations to work through in advance of our decision, and in bringing the hackathon fully online, learned a lot in the process.
- Timing is everything.
The weekend before the event was scheduled, there were ongoing conversations across the technology managers and Glossier leadership as available information about the pandemic changed by the hour. We were also quickly approaching the day that some team members were supposed to fly to New York, so we had to move quickly. As the hours went by, it became even more important to make sure communications were delivered in a timely manner to prevent any misinformation or confusion.
2. (Over)Communication is key.
Communication with a large group of people in a tight timeframe can be difficult even in the best of times. In this scenario, we wanted to ensure team members received this update as quickly as possible, without alarming the broader organization. Collaboration with our comms team was key in ensuring we effectively explained that this was a preventative decision aimed at prioritizing the well-being and safety of our team members.
3. Be organized, but flexible.
Collaboration and diligent attention to detail is required when planning any event. The planning committee was organized to the nth degree, planning each session down to the minute, pre-ordering meals each day, designing funny trophies to be handed out to the hack day winners — all neatly organized into docs and spreadsheets. (Seriously, we love spreadsheets — there may have even been a group order of these hats at some point.) That attention to detail became even more important when we had to start thinking about how we could host the two-day Summit remotely, instead of IRL as planned. We had to be comfortable pivoting — and quickly — to make everything come together. We needed to anticipate the changes that would be necessary to host an event for 70 teammates in different locations (and time zones). This included readjusting each day’s programming to ensure everything was remote-friendly; adding Zoom meetings to EVERYTHING; creating an event-specific Slack channel for communication; figuring out lunch breaks; and more. It was tough at first when we felt like we were scrapping weeks of planning and work, but we quickly realized that the entire process (including these pivots) was invaluable practice, as we were quickly gaining proficiency in anticipating needs for future remote events. And the truth is, things rarely go exactly as planned; the overall lesson in flexibility was a great reminder to always stay open-minded and nimble.
4. Acknowledge the hard stuff.
The team had spent weeks preparing and getting excited to convene at Glossier HQ to work on new projects, host workshops, and bond with their teammates. How could we keep that excitement alive when it felt like we were losing a core component of the team-building experience? An important first step was simply acknowledging that the situation was difficult and unprecedented: the travel cancellations, the pared-back programming, accepting that we all wouldn’t physically be in the same location. This was tough to accept mere days before we were all supposed to come together, but in simply acknowledging the uncertain and, at times, even scary nature of the broader context, we were able to better bring everyone together around the idea that we were all feeling the same uncertainty together.
5. Great ideas inspire great ideas.
In terms of project pitching and organizing teams, we decided to go a different route than the typical hack project “pitch” presentation. Our engineering managers felt strongly that having to stand up and present to the entire tech org early in the process (to find teammates) would discourage people from sharing their ideas, so we took another approach — having individuals drop ideas directly into a spreadsheet where other teammates could sign up for their team. As the ideas started trickling in, we began to see more momentum with team members adding new ideas and building on what others had suggested. Projects included everything from a Slackbot you could ask for on-demand data, to a wallet pass that let you “check-in” to retail locations to streamline your in-store experience, to an AR experience to help you remotely try makeup products (and Glossier stickers) on your face, to a filter that let you change the colors of the site.
6. Clarify expectations to manage remote logistics.
From a logistical perspective, we had both presenters and judges who were remote, so we relied heavily on our amazing IT team to make sure everyone could be seen and heard. We had limited time to get through all of the presentations, so clearly communicating the flow of the day was super important. Each team signed up for a time slot so everyone knew exactly when to be ready, ensuring transitions would flow smoothly. Projects were presented from a mix of NYC folks on the stage in our lounge at headquarters, and remoters calling in via Zoom. We monitored time tightly to make sure we were keeping to our schedule (there may or may not have been signs saying “2 minutes left!” or “time’s up!” waved about at various points).
7. Passion creates great work.
Seeing all of the work the team was able to accomplish in one day was truly amazing. The way the different members of the organization came together to brainstorm ideas to delight and meet the needs of our customers was inspiring to their fellow teammates and members of the executive team who sat on the judging panel. If this was what we accomplished in only a day, what could the team do with days or even a hack week?
8. Recognize shortcomings and turn them into opportunities.
We easily could have canceled the event and pushed it to a future, undetermined date. But given the growing remote nature of our org, we decided instead to take advantage of the time we’d booked on everyone’s calendars to practice working as a remote team. We knew we’d inevitably want to do more team-wide events like this in the future, and with the team growing both within and outside of HQ, we had an opportunity to be a bit scrappy to bring the event together and learn. There is always room for improvement when it comes to being a remote-friendly work culture, and this was an opportunity for the team to embrace the situation and grow.
9. People are resilient.
The team really came together during this event to turn lemons into lemonade, exhibiting incredible enthusiasm and excitement for their hack projects despite the disappointment of not being able to come together in person. There was a lot of concern around team morale during this time, particularly for those in different counties and time zones for the event, but we saw an incredible display of positivity despite having to pivot to a remote event and the broader uncertainty.
We’re so excited about the learnings around what did and did not work for remote collaboration, because they’ve built our abilities to plan and host these kinds of events in the future. In very uncertain times, the team showed that they can come together to produce amazing experiences to delight others (and have great attitudes while doing so!). Even while scattered across the globe, the innovation and collaboration we saw were truly inspirational. We can’t wait to see what new ideas come out of the next hackathon!
