Develop an Agenda

Your agenda will vary depending on the goal of your hackathon and it’s something that you should determine early on in your planning.

There’s a temptation to have hackathons become two day sprints with participants getting little to no sleep. However, if the goal of the hackathon is to develop prototypes versus fully working apps, you may not need really need to make a coffee run at 2 in the morning.

One Day Hackathon Example

7:00am Event organizers arrive to help set up
7:30am Food/Coffee/Water arrives
8:00am Breakfast
8:30am Welcome (“Hi, welcome! Here’s the wifi password, the bathrooms are over there.”)
8:45am Education (“Here’s what we’ve done so far, here are some resources”) [You can also cover this in a pre-event email]
9:00am Problem Set (“Here’s the problem I’m facing in the day-to-day”) [You can also cover this in a pre-event email]
10:00am Q & A (“Would this be helpful?” “How does this activity work?”)
10:15am Break out to form teams and hack! (If using Hackshop format for attendees, begin facilitation of Hackshop format alongside the attendee guide at http://hackshop.waffle.io)
12:00pm Lunch served
4:00pm Hacking ends, judging begins (if applicable)
4:30pm Project winners announced (If applicable)

Variations on this include having the talking portion of the event happen on a Friday night. (This is particularly helpful if you’re trying to have working prototypes by the end of the event.) This allows for a full day (or full two days) of hack time.

Two Day Hackshop Example

See The Hackshop Playbook for more information and resources.

Day One

6:00 pm - Welcome Dinner & Networking
6:30 pm - Introductions to organizers and specialists from the field
6:45 pm - Overview of event goals
7:00 pm - Problem Pitching - What Problem do you want to Solve?
7:30 pm - Team Formation
8:00 pm - Getting Started with Waffle & GitHub
8:30 pm - Lean Canvas & Hackshop introduction
9:00 pm - Team Sprint 1 (Customer/Problem/Promise) (45 minutes)
9:45 pm - Wrap up

Day Two

8:30 am - Breakfast, Hackshop intervention: Lean Canvas Review
9:00 am - Team Sprint 2 (problem/solution) (1 hr)
10:00 am - Customer Advisor/Feedback Panel
10:45 am - Hackshop Lesson: Iterate/Pivot/Persevere
11:00 am - Team Sprint 3 - Adjust Canvas (30 minutes)
11:30 pm - Hackshop Lesson: Running Lightweight Experiments
12:00 pm - Lunch
12:00 pm - Team Sprint 4 begins (1 hr)
1:00 pm - Hackshop intervention: Review team experiments
1:30 pm - Team Sprint 5 (build) (2 hrs)
3:00 pm - Hackshop lesson: How to build your pitch
3:30 pm - 30 Minute warning/tech test
4:00 pm - Pitches Begin
4:30 pm - Judging & Prizes
unConference Example
7:00am Event organizers arrive to help set up.
7:30am Food/Coffee/Water arrives
8:00am Breakfast
8:30am Welcome (“Hi, welcome! Here’s the wifi password, the bathrooms are over there.”)
8:45am unConference 101 (“Here’s how unconferences work”)
9:00am Icebreaker (“Everyone is going to form a line based on a statement. If you agree head to the right, disagree head to the left. OK, the weather is too cold!”)
9:30am Throw session ideas on the board, vote, assign rooms
10:00am First Session
11:00am Second Session
12:00pm Lunch served (Throw out and vote on afternoon sessions)
1:00pm Third Session
2:00pm Forth Session
3:00pm Group Returns & Report backs (Here’s what we talked about)

\ These are just general examples and in the course of running the event you may find yourself running a bit behind. We always assume that things are going to run over by about 15 mins and just prepare accordingly. (You can use the lunch hour to make up for time.)

code4sac / codeacross-2016