On the Inner Workings of nwHacks 2019
How we made nwHacks 2019 the best experience for both hackers and organizers
Last month, we welcomed over 700 hackers from around the world to build 132 projects together at nwHacks — Western Canada’s largest hackathon. Although most people can see the success of nwHacks 2019 either from word of mouth, this video, or perhaps this Medium article recapping the big day, little is shown about the team that spent the past year making nwHacks the amazing event it is known to be.
We are nwPlus. ✨
We are a team of 33 UBC students who organize hackathons together while balancing co-op jobs and full course loads across 14 different majors. Behind the scenes, our marketing, logistics, sponsorship, development, and design teams work tirelessly over the span of 9 months to make these events possible.
As team members take on roles covering various areas, it can be easy for members to feel isolated and emotions to fall through the cracks. A happy team is a hard working team, and it takes extra effort to ensure all team members feel important and happy while working towards making the best hackathon yet. I spent the past year leading the logistics team for nwHacks 2019, and in this article I will describe steps we took to facilitate a positive team culture here at nwPlus.
Prioritizing transparency and communication 💬
Communication
Although transparency may seem like a given in the workplace, what people don’t realize is that they can often unintentionally contribute to a non- transparent work environment. For example, a small direct message conversation leading to a new idea for the event may cause others to feel left out of the loop if they weren’t notified of it before.
A new idea we introduced this year was to include all hackathon related discussions in public Slack channels, with Slack as our principle means of communication. To prevent clutter, all discussions are made as threads under a topic message.
Even when ideas accidentally come up during a private conversation, we make sure they are reiterated back over to the Slack channel:
Apart from Slack messaging, we also hold weekly in-person meetings to ensure every team is kept up to date!
Documentation
To share knowledge and answer questions between the different teams, we introduced Notion to be our documentation + knowledge hub. Each team had their own section where they could customize and put in all of their task statuses, meeting minutes, FAQ’s, and plans for the rest of the team to see.
Even with such measures in place, no question is a stupid question and Notion lets team members ask them in form of comments as well.
Leading by example 🏃
Take initiative
Whether you are leading the day or just helping out, taking initiative shows your dedication to the event and inspires teammates to follow suite. As a leader, don’t give out work you wouldn’t do yourself. This includes offering to do a garbage sweep or being the first to start room setup.
Facilitate collaboration
It is important to always vote and discuss as a team when it comes to most, if not all decisions. Even if you already have plans on what to do, adding a simple “thoughts?” or “what do you think?” at the end of your proposal leaves the floor open for others to voice their opinions and make organizing a truly collaborative process.
Work through hardships together
Let’s face it: shit happens, even when you least expect it. In 2019, our opening ceremony venue fell through 11 days before the event. In 2018, a mini toaster caused a power outage in 150 people’s worth of hacking space. Go figure.
However, disaster mitigation is an important skill and it’s our job as a team to get through the disasters together. Most of the time, it is not one person’s fault, and pointing fingers doesn’t fix any problems. What we can still do is keep calm, carry on, and find the next best solution.
Appreciating people and having fun! 🎉
One thing people forget to do while crunching to put together a 700+ participant event is to celebrate each person’s contributions. Big or small, everyone’s work should be appreciated!
Bi-weekly wins
This year at nwPlus, we had every bi-weekly meeting start with team updates and “wins” where people share and recognize each other’s recent achievements, both in and outside of the club. These can include the completion of a long term task, organizing a fun social, winning an external hackathon, or simply owning at life. 😎
Even during the work week, it’s a great idea to ping the Slack whenever someone helps out or finishes a task so everyone can know what great work their teammates are doing.
Team bonding
While we are work colleagues, the job is always more fun when you’re friends with who you work with!
We host team socials throughout the year. Some of our socials this year included a build-your-own taco party and a bowling night.
Since it’s hard to coordinate socials with 33 different people’s schedules, the logistics team ran their own mini “socials” by holding their weekly meetings at various food and dessert places around town.
Surprisingly enough, many people join the nwPlus team having never been to a hackathon before, so attending hackathons together has been great for both the team bonding and educational experience.
We are hiring for our 2019/2020 team!
Liked what you read and want to join in on our team’s shenanigans? nwPlus is hiring for the 2019/2020 academic year and we want you on our team!
Find more information and application details in the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/2387769031455230/
nwPlus is the club behind nwHacks (Western Canada’s largest hackathon), UBC Local Hack Day (North America’s largest Local Hack Day event in 2018), and cmd-f (Vancouver’s first ever all female* hackathon).
Words by Anita Tse, 2018/2019 nwHacks Logistics Director, 2019/2020 incoming nwPlus Co-President
