With such positive experiences in MLH hackathons and running my own, I know how fun these can be, so craving one, I joined forces with two amazing people from the product team who had independently started organizing a hackathon, and our respective managers.

One of my co-planners had also started a MLH Hackathon while in university, and while we didn’t fully replicate the MLH-style, our foundation helped a ton. My organization is well-established, with a couple of hundred people and a solid focus on selling data. While we have technical teams, most of our employees are client-focused or work in other non-dev roles.

Here’s how we turned a typical hackathon idea into something that got the entire company buzzing.

What Were Our Goals?

We weren’t just here to play around with tech. We had a few clear goals in mind:

  1. Foster cross-department connections: Many people never interact outside their immediate teams, so this was an opportunity to break silos.
  2. Generate ideas with real potential: Whether it was boosting revenue, cutting costs, or just making life easier, the aim was to walk away with tangible outcomes.
  3. Give existing ideas a shot: You’d be surprised how many people already have great ideas but never get the time or resources to explore them.

Turning a Hackathon into an “Idea-thon”

Here’s where we got creative. We wanted everyone to feel like they could participate—even if they didn’t have technical skills.

To make this event more accessible, we rebrand it as an “idea-thon”.

Making It Inclusive

  1. We emphasized that you didn’t need to be technical to join. In fact, we wanted a mix of people from client-facing roles, sales, and ops to bring their unique perspectives.
  2. People could sign up as individuals or with one partner. This way, we could match them with folks from other departments but still let them bring a buddy if they felt anxious.
  3. Marketing focused on problem-solving over coding, which helped draw in a crowd that might have otherwise stayed away.

Judging Criteria

Instead of focusing on hardcore demos, our judging was based on:

  1. Business Value - what is the ROI? Does it tie into current objectives? Is this a real problem for our clients or employees?
  2. Feasibility - has implementation been thought out?
  3. Design - is it well thought out and are the ideas accessible and intuitive?
  4. Presentation - how well was the project communicated?
  5. Creativity - bonus points for out of the box thinking.

The only thing that teams needed to provide at the end was a presentation of their idea. This turned the event into an opportunity for people of different skillsets to shine, a seasoned salesperson’s client knowledge and presentation skills became as valuable as the skills a senior developer provided.

We didn’t include anything about a working demo or MVP, but many of the teams ended up building these anyway, so in reflection this would have been a useful addition.

What We Did

We planned for it to be over two days, with the second day being just the morning to work then presentations and a public “project fair” in the afternoon. This limited timeframe at the end of a workweek and around other major company events helped us sell it to upper management and get people to sign up.

We also made sure to let people know it was a flexible event and they could leave for meetings if necessary, but also had upper management support for letting people take time away from their day jobs to work on the projects.

Day 1: Kick things off, brainstorm, and start working. Provided lunch and snacks throughout the day, so people didn’t need to leave.

Day 2: Wrap up in the morning, followed by presentations and a “project fair” where teams could show off their work to the whole company. Judging happened during the fair with the judges walking around in a group and listening to each presentation.

Outcome

The event exceeded every expectation. Many of the most senior managers, including the president, were present or acted as a judge which was a huge morale booster.

But the success didn’t end with the event:

  1. Spin-offs: Several departments have since launched smaller initiatives inspired by the ideas presented.
  2. Excitement: People are already asking when the next idea-thon will happen.
  3. Connections: Teams that had never worked together had an opportunity to share knowledge and collaborate more often.

What I Learned

  1. Executive buy-in is critical: Having leadership understand that this is a generator of work—good, impactful work—is key. They need to commit resources to make sure ideas don’t just sit on a shelf.
  2. Non-technical people hold the key: Often, they know exactly what needs to improve but lack the capacity or tools to make it happen. Pair them with technical folks, and magic happens.
  3. We know so little about other teams: The cross-functional aspect was one of the most surprising and rewarding parts.
  4. Demos aren’t everything: Judging on ideas over execution means more people can participate, and it’s often the ideas themselves that lead to long-term changes.

Final Thoughts

Running a company-wide hackathon (or idea-thon, in our case) is like throwing a party where everyone gets to contribute to the future of the business.

You’ll discover hidden talent, connect teams, and uncover ideas that might never have seen the light of day otherwise.

So, if you’re on the fence about organizing one—do it. The results are well worth the effort. Everyone has the capacity to solve problems and do excellent work when provided the opportunity.