Hackathons - The New Team Building Exercise
Looking to diversify your day? Get your creative juices flowing? Every quarter the team at Perigee participates in an internal Hackathon. Check out why we think you should start implementing Hackathons into your work life!
We started implementing Hackathons in the beginning of 2018 to help our team carve out time to develop new skills or areas of interests. Each Hackathon uncovers innovative solutions and products that we've been able to implement in our apps Seven and Cycles, which our users love!
Our favourite? The Seven activity tracker. It keeps track of active users throughout the day and gives real-time updates (in the form of bursts) which lets users know how many people are currently using Seven across the globe.
At Perigee we LOVE our quarterly Hackathon days, that why we've answered a few of the top FAQs on Hackathons that'll help you understand what all the fuss is about, enjoy!
Who can participate in Hackathons?
Anyone! While traditional Hackathons are focused on designers or developers at Perigee we’ve opened up our Hackathons to include everyone in the office. This includes our extremely valuable members of the user success and growth teams.
How do you put on a Hackathon?
At Perigee, employees can participate in two ways:
- Work on a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that has the potential to become a Perigee product.
- Learn a new skill or bit of technology that can potentially benefit your work at Perigee.
What’s the benefit of a Hackathon?
There are tons! We’ve listed below our top 3 reasons for hosting one below:
- Intense Problem Solving: With only 8 hours to deep dive into your topic, rapid problem solving is needed to ensure that you can create a viable solution. On top of the time crunch, working closely with peers in different departments, skill levels, or fields facilitates an opportunity for innovative and compelling solutions you may have not uncovered on your own.
- Explore Innovative Solutions: When creating an MVP the goal is to have an idea that is viable enough to be implemented in future updates. With so much innovation and less parameters in place we’ve been able to see some really great products make their way into the apps we create.
- Team building: The core of a Hackathon is all about collaboration. Whether you’re working in a team or solo, each employee spends time investing in themselves and the organization which also means investing in each other. By sharing ideas and working collaboratively we’re fostering a closer connection across all our teams.
So what are you waiting for? Hackathons are the new go-to team building experience for your employees and peers. If you’re interested in joining our next Hackathon as a team member, check out our current openings on our careers page.
