teamlaserbeam / hackshop-playbook

A playbook for leaner and more impactful hackathons, using Waffle.io. Co-created in collaboration with the U.S. Census Bureau

About this repo

This is a playbook for running a hackshop -- part hackathon, part lean workshop. We're developing this as part of our partnership with Code For America, for Code for America brigades who want to run 1-2 day events for the purpose of recruiting new brigade members, for hackathons, or for kickstarting new projects within their brigades.

Get Started

As a first step to running a Hackshop event, we recommend forking this repository, editing the README to be specific to your event. Then go to Settings-> GitHub Automatic Page Generator and loading your repository's README.md to stand up a quick website for your event.

Examples

See HackshopNC for an example from our pilot event.

This is a work in progress

Note that this playbook is in beta, and is a work in progress. As we continue to run hackshops and spread the word to Code for America brigades, we'll be iterating and expanding on the content.

Table of Contents

• About Hackshops
• Recommended Tools
• Process

--

--- Sample content for forks ---

# Getting Started - [Create Free Account at Github.com](http://github.com) - [Create Free Account at Waffle.io](http://waffle.io) - [Kick off Your Project at Hackshop.waffle.io](http://hackshop.waffle.io) - Join our chatroom - Lean Canvas (Provided to teams) - Use [Hackpad](http://hackpad.com) to Document Your Team and Problem

Event Information

Join us for a Hackshop-- part hackathon, part lean workshop.

Throughout the course of the event, teams will be guided through a lightweight framework guided by Hackshop organizers that instills principles of running lean and maximizing limited resources using elements of agile and lean startup principles. Teams will learn best practices for delivering a product from idea to prototype in less than 24 hours.

Teams can come prepared with their current projects or as individuals looking to pair up with others to tackle hard problems.

Sound interesting? Head over to Eventbrite to save your spot!

Example Schedule

Friday, September 11

• 6:00 pm - Welcome Dinner & Networking
• 6:30 pm - Introductions to organizers and specialists from the field
• 6:45 pm - Overview of event goals
• 7:00 pm - Problem Pitching - What Problem do you want to Solve?
• 7:30 pm - Team Formation
• 8:00 pm - Getting Started with Waffle & GitHub
• 8:30 pm - Lean Canvas & Hackshop introduction
• 9:00 pm - Team Sprint 1 (Customer/Problem/Promise) (45 minutes)
• 9:45 pm - Wrap up

Saturday, September 12

• 8:30 am - Breakfast, Hackshop intervention: Lean Canvas Review
• 9:00 am - Team Sprint 2 (problem/solution) (1 hr)
• 10:00 am - Customer Advisor/Feedback Panel
• 10:45 am - Hackshop Lesson: Iterate/Pivot/Persevere
• 11:00 am - Team Sprint 3 - Adjust Canvas (30 minutes)
• 11:30 pm - Hackshop Lesson: Running Lightweight Experiments
• 12:00 pm - Lunch
• 12:00 pm - Team Sprint 4 begins (1 hr)
• 1:00 pm - Hackshop intervention: Review team experiments
• 1:30 pm - Team Sprint 5 (build) (2 hrs)
• 3:00 pm - Hackshop lesson: How to build your pitch
• 3:30 pm - 30 Minute warning/tech test
• 4:00 pm - Pitches Begin
• 4:30 pm - Judging & Prizes