4 tips on effective hackathons from PropertyGuru’s product director

Twice a year, we hold our “GuruHackathons.” There are three fundamental drivers to why we do this: innovation, collaboration, and validation. These hackathons are our chance to practice innovation by applying new technologies and approaches to our identified problems, to collaborate with diverse team members across functions, and to validate the feasibility of ideas.

In the spirit of innovation, we tried something new this time around and teamed up with the MBA students at Insead Singapore to co-hack for our theme “Proptech 2020: Tech innovations that can disrupt the real estate industry.”

We have learned a lot from running these hackathons. So, here are some of these lessons and tips to consider when planning your own.

Logistics matter

In this particular hackathon with Insead, there was one logistical challenge we needed to overcome: our product and development teams reside across Singapore and Bangkok, and we planned to hack at the Insead campus.

Working remotely brought a whole new dynamic to the event. It allowed students to work with experienced product managers and engineers to bring an idea to life, and it allowed our team to get exposure to some different perspectives across industries and functions.

To make sure the event was well-structured, we had a regional kick-off with a keynote from our CEO, Hari V. Krishnan, and the director of advancement and campaign communications at Insead, Maureen Murray.

To ensure that time was well spent, we set up a WhatsApp channel, a Slack channel, tech support, video conferencing, VPN access, refreshments, and an allocated space.

Structure your awards around business outcomes and have a diverse judging panel

Structure your awards around what is important to your team and your business.

When thinking about your awards, try to use them as a vehicle to really cement what your business strategy is. For example, if your business is looking for hyper-growth in a particular sector or vertical, create a prize aligned to that goal. If your theme is operational efficiency, create a prize like “the most time saved through technology” or something similar.

At the judging sessions, each team presented their ideas to our panel of judges from across the business, consisting of our CEO, our co-founder Jani Rautiainen, and our CTO Manav Kamboj. Most teams co-presented with one student and one Guru.

We structured our judging panel and process to be regional by:

Know what success looks like and celebrate your successes

Engage all of your thought leaders, not just your product and tech teams

Some final tips