Abstract
Software development companies organize
hackathons to encourage innovation. Despite many
benefits of hackathons, in large-scale agile
organizations where many teams work together,
stopping the ongoing work results in a significant
decrease in the immediate output. Motivated by the
need to understand whether and how to run
hackathons, we investigated how the practice affects
productivity on the individual and organizational
levels. By mapping the benefits and challenges to an
established productivity framework, we found that
hackathons improve developers' satisfaction and well-
being, strengthen the company culture, improve
performance (as many ideas are tested), increase
activity (as the ideas are developed quickly), and
improve communication and collaboration (because
the social network is strengthened). Addressing
managerial concerns, we found that hackathons also
increase efficiency and flow because people learn to
complete work and make progress quickly, and they
build new competence. Finally, with respect to virtual
hackathons we found that developers work more in
isolation because tasks are split between team
members resulting in less collaboration. This means
that some important, expected hackathon values in
virtual contexts require extra effort and cannot be
taken for granted.
hackathons to encourage innovation. Despite many
benefits of hackathons, in large-scale agile
organizations where many teams work together,
stopping the ongoing work results in a significant
decrease in the immediate output. Motivated by the
need to understand whether and how to run
hackathons, we investigated how the practice affects
productivity on the individual and organizational
levels. By mapping the benefits and challenges to an
established productivity framework, we found that
hackathons improve developers' satisfaction and well-
being, strengthen the company culture, improve
performance (as many ideas are tested), increase
activity (as the ideas are developed quickly), and
improve communication and collaboration (because
the social network is strengthened). Addressing
managerial concerns, we found that hackathons also
increase efficiency and flow because people learn to
complete work and make progress quickly, and they
build new competence. Finally, with respect to virtual
hackathons we found that developers work more in
isolation because tasks are split between team
members resulting in less collaboration. This means
that some important, expected hackathon values in
virtual contexts require extra effort and cannot be
taken for granted.