Corporate hackathons, how and why? A multiple case study of motivation, projects proposal and selection, goal setting, coordination, and outcomes

ABSTRACT

Time-bounded events such as hackathons, data dives, codefests, hack-days, sprints or edit-a-thons have increasingly gained attention from practitioners and researchers. Yet there is a paucity of research on corporate hackathons, which are nearly ubiquitous and present significant organizational, cultural, and managerial challenges. To provide a comprehensive understanding of team processes and broad array of outcomes of corporate hackathons, we conducted a mixed-methods, multiple case study of five teams that participated in a large scale corporate hackathon. Two teams were “pre-existing” teams (PETs) and three were newly-formed “flash” teams (FTs). Our analysis revealed that PETs coordinated almost as if it was just another day at the office while creating innovations within the boundary of their regular work, whereas FTs adopted role-based coordination adapted to the hackathon context while creating innovations beyond the boundary of their regular work. Project sustainability depended on how much effort the team put into finding a home for their projects and whether their project was a good fit with existing products in the organization’s product portfolio. Moreover, hackathon participation had perceived positive effects on participants’ skills, careers, and social networks.

KEYWORDS:

• coordination
• time-bounded event
• hackathon
• collocated work
• team familiarity
• goal setting
• mixed-methods
• case study

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge support by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, “Enhancing Scientific Software Sustainability Through Community Code Engagements” and the National Science Foundation under award number 1901311. Also thanks to our study's participants, the organizers of Microsoft OneWeek Hackathon, and the reviewers and editors.

Notes on contributors

Ei Pa Pa Pe-Than

EI Pa Pa Pe-Than is a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Software Research in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research seeks to investigate collaboration and coordination in the production of software and non-software artifacts and the novel way of organizing work such as globally distributed sociotechnical systems and hackathons, using empirical research methods. Pe-Than received a Ph.D. and M.Sc. from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and B.Sc. (Hons) in computer science from University of Computer Studies, Yangon, Myanmar. Contact her at [email protected]

Alexander Nolte

James Herbsleb is the Director of the Institute for Software Research and Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests include the many ways in which software development work is organized and coordinated, including geographically distributed teams, open source ecosystems, and hackathons. He has a PhD in psychology and a JD in law from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and a MS in computer science from the University of Michigan. Contact him at [email protected].

Anna Filippova

Alexander Nolte is a lecturer at the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Tartu and an adjunct assistant professor at the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests include understanding how individuals collaborate and supporting them by designing and evaluating sociotechnical approaches that spark creativity, foster innovation, and improve collaboration. Nolte received a Ph.D. in information systems from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Contact him at [email protected].

Christian Bird

Anna Filippova is a senior manager, data science at GitHub. Her research interests include fields of communications, organizational behavior, social psychology, and information systems, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Filippova received a Ph.D. in communication and new media from the National University of Singapore. Contact her at [email protected].

Steve Scallen

Christian Bird is a principal researcher in Empirical Software Engineering at Microsoft Research. His research interests include empirical software engineering and focusing on ways to use data to guide decisions of stakeholders in large software projects. Bird received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Davis. Contact him at [email protected].

James Herbsleb

Steve Scallen is a principal design researcher at Microsoft Garage. His research interests include the development of tools and resources for hackathons, hackers, hack teams, and hack projects. Scallen received a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Contact him at [email protected].