Summary: 🚀 Hackathons offer product managers a unique chance to level up their skills and vibe with cross-functional teams. This article dives into seven key takeaways for PMs: identifying customer pain points, educating colleagues about their role, experimenting with new ideas, boosting communication, scoping MVP solutions, user testing, and celebrating team contributions. Hackathons are the perfect playground to test innovative solutions and focus on delivering results. 🌟
What hackathons can teach you about your role, your team, and yourself
Hackathons have exploded in popularity lately. 🎉 Despite what Hollywood might suggest, they're not about masked figures and green text on dark screens. Instead, hackathons are thrilling events where tech-savvy folks come together to "hack together" solutions for real-world problems within a super-tight timeframe. ⏰
While hackathons were traditionally developer-centric, they've now evolved into vibrant, cross-functional events. Today, they welcome developers, QA testers, hardware enthusiasts, designers, and yes, even product managers (PMs)! 🙌
Enter product managers
Recently, I had the amazing opportunity to participate in a hackathon with my team at Koodoo. It was an incredible experience to collaborate outside our usual work scope and reflect on the PM role within a team. Here are seven epic takeaways on how hackathons can help PMs hone their skills:
1. Collaboratively identify and validate customer pain points
Hackathons are relentless in their focus on the problem and the user. PMs, with their talent for identifying, validating, and prioritizing customer pain points, are crucial here. It's a fantastic chance to align user value with business needs, pitch ideas, and get your team pumped up! 💡✨
2. Help your team understand what you do
PMs often sit at the intersection of the 'what,' 'how,' and 'why' of product development. Hackathons are a golden opportunity to show your colleagues your unique contributions and squash that imposter syndrome for good! 🚀🌈
3. Experiment with moonshots
Ever wanted to test a wild new feature or validate a crazy assumption? Hackathons are your playground! Even if it doesn't pan out, you've only invested 24 hours and gained valuable insights. Let your creativity run wild! 🌙🏌️♂️
4. Improve communication with the test of your team
Communication is key in any team, but in a hackathon, it's absolutely crucial. Clear and concise communication can make the difference between a mind-blowing solution and having nothing to show. Hackathons are the perfect time to try new ways of working together and enhance team interactions! 🤝💬
5. Scoping and planning MVP solutions
Producing a valuable solution in a short time is challenging. Teams often struggle because they don't plan, prioritize, or check progress regularly. In a hackathon, focusing on essential functionality ensures you have a working product before moving on to enhancements. 🎯🔧
Regular check-ins help review progress and adjust the scope as needed. Stay agile and keep moving forward! 🏃♀️💨
6. User testing and reprioritising features
While your team builds, get out there and test your proposition with rough prototypes or completed work. You only need five users to catch 85% of usability problems. Share your findings during check-ins to inform ongoing prioritization and resolve any issues. 🧪👥
Your regular team check-ins provide you with a chance to share your findings with the rest of your team. These can then be used to inform your ongoing prioritisation of work and, if necessary, shift focus to resolving any glaring usability issues that you've identified.
7. Appreciate the value your team brings
Hackathons provide an intense environment that highlights each team member's contributions. You'll gain a deeper appreciation for their decisions and trade-offs. This empathy fosters respect and leads to more productive relationships both during and after the hackathon. 🤗💪
Conclusion
Hackathons come in all shapes and sizes, and not every PM can contribute meaningfully to each one. However, the right hackathons offer freedom to hone skills in a low-risk environment, test creative solutions, and prioritize done over perfect. They're a valuable exercise in product development's core principle: that done is better than great. 🏆✨