How to Organise a Great Hackathon: 5 Tips That Work

A great hackathon starts with a theme narrow enough to focus effort but open enough to allow real creativity. “Smart Cities” or “Sustainable Development” work better than an unfocused “innovation” brief, because participants need a concrete problem space to build against. From there, four things consistently separate a hackathon that produces usable outcomes from one that’s just a fun day: mini-challenges that keep energy up during long build blocks, judging criteria set before the event rather than improvised on the day, mentors who rotate through teams instead of sitting with one group the whole time, and a clear plan for what happens to the winning idea after the closing ceremony.

That last point is the one most hackathons skip, and it’s the one that determines whether the event was worth running. We build a short follow-up plan into every hackathon brief before the event starts, so a winning prototype has an actual next step (a pilot, a follow-up sprint, a stakeholder review) instead of disappearing into a slide deck. We’ve applied this structure across 600+ events in 20+ countries since 2017, and the pattern holds regardless of company size or industry.

If you’re planning an internal hackathon specifically, see our dedicated guide for how the structure changes when your own employees are the participants. Our agency page covers the full end-to-end process.