india.next*

How to enable a successful hack day? Well success is different for different people and we have hacked with our hacking model to achieve different outcomes - all positive.

Y! Bangalore has adopted a particular model for the last 3 hack days and it addresses several issues we have seen in the past. The model guidelines are particularly:

• No Theme for Hack  Days: Absolutely critical to allow hackers a free reign. Hackers don’t  hack on a platform but use the platform to enable their hacks. We have  explicitly messaged this on every hack day.
• Product & Platform  Team Sponsors: Our model is to get product and platform teams invested in  the hack day before hacking. This includes commitment to:
  • educate hackers on their  platform and apis
  • provide a hacking or  staging environment for hacks
  • provide a judge who is  able to evaluate and cherry pick hacks to be prioritized into their roadmap  pipeline
• Hack Tech Talks:  Over the last 3 hack days we have had several product teams give tech talks.  Mobile Blueprint, Glue, Buzz Index, Maps, Local, OpenMail, BOSS, YUI. This has  resulted in broad awareness of the various platforms from Yahoo!
• Hack to Products: As  a result of the product team investment (#2) 5-6 hacks have gone live on those  pipelines and several others have been adopted into the roadmap. We did not  knock on any doors post hack day for this.
• Detailed Hack  Tracker registration tool: An internal hack registration app that  collects info on the hack including which product / platform it might be  related to. This allows for other product teams & IP Council to review  hacks on their own.
• Hack Screencasts:  Screencasts and Video Recording of Hack Demos to archive for posterity the  hacks being built and evaluated

Additional support we plan to enable for the future:

• Hack Gallery: CVS  repository (already exists) and Hack Servers to promote and evolve selected hacks open source style (internal & external)
• Internal Open Source Projects: support internal open source, staging and production pipeline  for a few high-value areas of focus with support from relevant product teams.
• Industry / Domain  Talks: To help hackers understand the state of the industry and challenges  and focus areas for hacking
• Hack storm sessions:  Ideate around few areas to enable hackers creativity

This may or may not be the right model for other companies but you are free to adopt anything from this that works for you. Let our hack statistics speak for themselves:

• The last 3 hack days the  hack team has not knocked on any product doors (no post-hack-day activities by  me)
• 121 hacks in Feb, 127 hacks  in Jun & 204 hacks in Oct
• 5-6 hacks have become live  from the first 2 hack days and few more have been put on the product roadmap
• handful of hacks have been  approved for patent filing and others being reviewed
• hackers now know which product groups to approach and contact within and approach them directly
• 20% of Oct hacks were on  OpenMail, similar numbers for mobile in Feb...
• We are building out an internal open source project pipeline with engineers / hackers driving it. These efforts will have a pipeline to production using a rapid alpha proto model.
• The trend I have seen is  moving from feature enhancement hacks (which still is the majority) to hacks  that are crossing our product / platform boundaries. Even internal tools. This  is a great trend when our engineers / hackers can cross the BU boundaries and  create value.

Feedback, Suggestions are all welcome

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