How to plan an innovation day
5 lessons learned from planning, preparing and participating in my first Innovation Day (or office hackathon)
During my first week of starting a new job at Tigerspike, I was asked to help plan the Sydney, office-wide Innovation Day. The theme was ‘Everyday Heroes’ and invitations to first responder organisations had just been sent out. The date was set for 3 weeks away and, to add a little more pressure, this was going to be the first innovation day held off-site at Telstra’s Customer Innovation Centre.
Without any idea where to start, I began searching: ‘How to plan a hackathon’. This surfaced some Atlassian ‘Ship It’ videos which were engaging, but not focused on practical planning or preparation for an Innovation Day or office hackathon. This is why I decided to write this article; to help other people trying to prepare and run an Innovation Day for the first time. I’ll be introducing what an Innovation Day is, the process we took to prepare and the five key lessons the organising team learned from this experience.
What is an Innovation Day?
There is no set formula for how these are run — it depends on what you want your organisation to get out of it. At Tigerspike, Innovation Days are an opportunity for teams of UX and UI Designers, Engineers, Project Managers and QA teams to collaborate and explore new concepts that expand beyond the horizons of project possibilities. It’s a chance to utilise our collective creativity, design thinking and technological innovation to be the catalyst for new ideas, opportunities and ways of working that are the seeds of change for clients and partners.
The overall structure of a Tigerspike Innovation Day looks something like this:
- Opening ceremony (time-boxed to 30 mins): An opportunity to welcome everyone and introduce the day and the briefs
- Teams working together: Teams break out into separate spaces to collaborate, brainstorm, validate with SMEs (even run some corridor testing) and finally create Proof Of Concepts (POCs). The amount of time allocated for this can vary, we recommend at least 6 hours (with some prep time prior to the day) in order to get the most value out of the day
- Presentations: Each team had 10 minutes to present their solution to the group. A panel of judges scored teams based on a set of pre-defined criteria
- Celebration: Partners and participants are thanked, winners are announced and awarded prize money. Everyone can grab a drink to unwind and reflect on how the day went
How we prepared for the day
4 weeks before innovation day
First, we needed a theme for the day. Something that designers and engineers would be excited to work with, that allowed space for creativity and experimentation. We wanted to open up opportunities to engage with new prospective clients through our partnership with Telstra. The theme of “everyday heroes” emerged from these goals — A day dedicated to improving the lives of first responders through technological innovation.
Next, invitations were created in collaboration with the Telstra team and sent to a range of first responder organisations who Telstra already had a strong relationship. The invitations were designed to provide the context needed to generate curiosity and excitement about leveraging the collective capability of Tigerspike for 1 day to innovate on organisational pain points.
3 weeks before innovation day
We received responses from two organisations who wanted to be involved; NSW Police and NSW Ambulance service. We needed context from our clients to be able to create briefs for the teams. To achieve this, we ran workshops with key stakeholders to understand the strategic organisational context to inform the “How might we…” innovation statements the teams would be solving for on the day. These statements needed to be at the right level. Too specific and you limit the opportunity for creativity and innovation. Too broad, and solutions may not adequately address the problem. As an example, wellbeing is a key focus for first responders due to the intensity of their jobs. The innovation statement we arrived at was “How might we reduce the impact of traumatic events on first responders over time to improve wellbeing?”.
2 weeks before innovation day
Once we had the innovation statements, we shared the insights gained from the stakeholder sessions with teams to get them thinking about the issues and get excited about the day. It quickly became apparent that background context was not going to be enough for teams to create effective solutions. We were going to need Subject Matter Experts (SME) available on the day to work with the teams. Calls went out, and we got a few responses from people willing to contribute their time. We didn’t quite get enough to have 1 SME for each team, but luckily we’re good at sharing. Our roaming Business Development Managers and Telstra Account Leads made sure everyone had time with an SME on the day.
1 week before innovation day
We focused on organising the nitty-gritty details. We divided people into 6 teams of 8–9 people with a mix of skillsets. We made sure there was enough space available for each team, styled the screens at the venue to the theme, made sure everyone knew what to bring including laptops and chargers, ordered catering and organised trophies and prizes. Presentation decks and templates also needed to be created for the opening ceremony and team presentations. Judging forms were also created and printed ready to take before the day.
After the experience of planning as well as participating in my first Innovation Day, there were 5 lessons I learned that helped to make it a success.
Lesson 1: Set expectations early
Clearly defining what you will get out of an innovation day is critical to include when contacting potential partners. Often, partners will have seen or read about hackathons previously and expect to have a working Minimum Viable Product at the end of it, which is not realistic. Our time constraint of 6 hours meant it was a chance to get fresh thinking and a variety of concepts rather than a working product. These concepts were a combination of narratives, coded prototypes or a clickable prototype from static screens that highlight 1 or more features. They become a vehicle to start conversations about how technology may be able to be more effectively implemented to solve a problem.
Lesson 2: Real-world context is crucial
Whilst we do work with a number of public safety organisations, not all our teams had extensive knowledge around this topic. Therefore it was important we gave the whole team context to create impactful solutions for first responders. We managed to attain this context in three ways:
- Stakeholder sessions: These allowed us to understand the key strategic challenges that each organisation faced. This was used to inform a set of innovation statements that were given to teams to solve. These statements — as well as context gathered within the sessions — were presented to everyone ahead of the day.
- In-person presentations: NSW Police Chief Inspector — Phillip Brooks gave a passionate presentation that drove home the need for road safety to reduce the NSW road toll. This helped to galvanise the team around the potential impact of what we would be working on.
- Subject Matter Experts: Available on the day for teams to collaborate with. We knew this was a big ask, but it was essential to the success of the day and the solutions. Not only did the teams find value in this relationship, but SMEs also valued the opportunity to step outside of their day-to-day and collaborate on potential new ways of working.
Lesson 3: Get out of the office
Holding the event off-site meant there was a higher level of focus from everyone in the teams as they were not distracted by their everyday familiar surroundings. We had an amazing space provided for us at the Telstra Customer Insights Centre. It gave us a number of opportunities — including screens we could theme for the day — but there were also some aspects of the space we could have prepared better for.
These included;
Each team needs their own room or space
At the beginning of the day, two teams were meant to share a space. Very quickly it became apparent that it wasn’t going to work as the day is competitive and it was distracting for teams to share a space. Having an enclosed room where teams are able to bounce ideas off each other freely was essential.
BYO Equipment or work with what’s available
Teams needed to bring all the tools and equipment necessary — no last-minute print-outs, grabbing a charger or whiteboard markers. We had great wifi connection and luckily some onsite tech support to solve some minor technical challenges, but it’s definitely something to consider when selecting a venue. 70 people all using the internet at once requires very good internet. As the space was predominantly used for meetings and events there were no desks or office chairs available to work on. This meant teams had to get comfortable on couches, beanbags, floors and coffee tables to make the space work for them.
Lesson 4: Leverage the day
It’s a big investment to dedicate an entire day to non-project work. Because of this, we wanted to extend the value of Innovation Day beyond the day itself. This meant we needed to capture the process and outputs from the day to be able to share the experience after the event. We also made sure we followed up with those involved to gain valuable feedback in order to learn and continuously improve so that the next one is even better.
On the day, we designated one person to take high-resolution photos. However, with 6 teams spread across different spaces, they can’t be everywhere at once and there were gaps in what was captured. Upon reflection, we could have spent time prior to the day planning what we might share to make sure we got what we needed. To fill some gaps, we could have encouraged teams to take photos of their team working throughout the day in order to comprehensively document the day. We didn’t capture any high-quality video footage of the day which may have been a missed opportunity to bring the experience to life for future innovation days.
Lesson 5: Theme the day
Having a theme of ‘Everyday Heroes’ was a key factor in our ability to build excitement and engagement for the day. It helped to develop a clear sense of purpose and the potential impact was a motivator for everyone involved in planning and participating in the day. It also made it easy for anyone involved to share their experience after the event and for a coherent story to be told from multiple voices because they were all tied to the theme.
For participants, an innovation day can be exhausting, with intense pressure to get a lot done in a short space of time. Knowing that the ideas will improve the working lives of first responders to be safe and more effective made the experience feel valuable and worthwhile.
Conclusion
For me, the day was the culmination of weeks of planning which meant high levels of anticipation for the day. Both as a first time participant, wanting to create an innovative concept and as an organiser, wanting the teams and the stakeholders to get the most value out of the day to be excited by the future possibilities.
As a participant, the pace was fast and it was incredible to observe the process of design and creation over 6 hours that in the real world, would take weeks. This was both exhilarating and exhausting, yet ultimately rewarding to work so closely with a diverse group of skilled experts. The experience of the day is captured perfectly in this quote by American author Wilfred Peterson:
“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.”
As an organiser, it turned out that we really needed 4 weeks to plan and prepare for Innovation Day in order for everyone to have the information, equipment, and space needed. A sign of our success was the engagement of participants and partners who were blown away by what was achieved in a single day. This demonstrated Tigerspike and Telstra’s value and commitment to innovation through technology to positively impact people’s lives.
This success is a direct result of the support garnered prior to the day by everyone to get behind helping our everyday heroes. We achieved this through; Setting up clear expectations of the outcomes for everyone involved, the commitment of time and support from NSW Police, NSW Ambulance and other emergency services organisations to provide the real-world context needed to create meaningful solutions. And finally, our partner Telstra’s support by connecting us to first responders and providing an amazing space that was fully catered to work effectively on the day.
