A! Hack Summer - Alfa-Bank hackathon 5 and 6 August 2017
Hi, Habr! On August 5 and 6, we will be hosting the outside summer hackathon “A! Hack Summer” .
If you are interested in such things as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, AR / VR, Data Science, you know how to work with them and thought about doing something of your own or know how to make a product for a bank based on this product - go to Deworkacy ( Moscow, Bersenevskaya Emb. 6, p. 3 ) on August 5 and 6.
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And Vladimir Urbansky, the head of the Alpha Laboratory, will tell you about what we are doing all this for.
We did the first hackathon in November of 2013, at that time the word “Hakaton” itself did not come into use and seemed ridiculous to many. In the banking environment there was practically no culture of hakatons, which we can observe now.
We have this story was an element of creating a model of the laboratory. Usually in banks and large organizations there was a business and productologists who write requirements, give them to analysts, they write functional requirements and give them to developers, the developers in fact already implement the product according to the documents, not fully understanding the specific tasks.
In the lab we wanted to change this. We did cross-functional teams, where the product works together with the team - with developers and analysts, developers understand the goals and objectives of the business. And if they themselves understand these tasks - they can bring much more benefit to the business.
Indeed, in the modern world, developers are essentially a kind of production unit. As a manager, I cannot do many things with my hands, I cannot create a product — I can organize someone, but I cannot code it myself, although I used to program a little too. A developer can create a product that will even be monetized. And the likelihood that he will create a good product, if he understands the goals and objectives of the organization, will be much higher if you give him freedom of action.
Most of the time, developers are busy identifying the product owner in their backlog for them. But at the same time they have their own ideas, and if you give them even a short period of time to go and cut down what they really want to do, this can give a very interesting result.
For us, it was such a cultural history from the point of view of giving people a certain feeling of freedom, energetically recharging a breath of air, an opportunity to sip something interesting. What they wanted to do, not just what the product owner decided to do.
Therefore, we began to make hackathons. There was originally no goal to make products that earn millions of dollars, this is a story about people and culture, so that some ideas not only remain at the level of ideas, but find realization. For example, I do not really believe in the banks of ideas, in the standard idea management in organizations. Such approaches work in some cases, when a person sees a problem, but it is completely outside its area of influence. Then he can pass it on to someone, and the officer in charge of this area may be implementing it. But this does not always work.
In my opinion, it is much more effective when a person does not just gush forth with ideas, but when he is ready to fit in and do something for this idea. At least with minimal implementation. People are ready to fight for their ideas, but not for others.
We did a post-analysis of the first hakatons, it turned out that in one form or another a lot of things were implemented, just not always in the form of the original idea that was. Some of these products were then closed. One of the first products is an activism account when we linked banking to fitness bracelets. It was a cool and resonant thing, got its audience, but it was quite a niche. We did not want to further develop this, did not see global perspectives, so we decided not to blur the focus.
We did internal hakatons, in it a difference. On the one hand, we expected a slightly larger result from the internal hakatons, because the participating teams are more mature and understand what we are working with, on the other hand, the big result of the hackathon is such an energy recharge, giving strength to the teams.
In this regard, we did not have hard metrics for internal hakatons by which we would evaluate success. Of course, we were always glad if some kind of hackathon completion reached the battlefield, and we tried very hard to make the invented solutions implemented.
Part of the solutions was very premature, for example, we had a solution on the hackathon, where the refrigerator ordered products from the online store, communicating with the client in a chat using a bot. On an industrial scale, this is not yet ready to do, but the decision itself was very interesting.
In order for the team on the hackathon to take shape, it must be kindled with an idea, and already at this stage the minimum assessment of this idea takes place. If the idea is bad - the person simply will not be able to trap people in a team, people will say "I do not believe and will not go to do it."
Hackathon , which will be held on August 5 and 6 - external.
The purpose of the hackathon is to find ideas and people who can implement them.
We are interested in ideas and suggestions of services that will improve the lives of our customers. If we find any ideas interesting for our clients, this is already good. But if you have an idea + a team ready to do it with a bank, this is much more interesting.
But we are also interested in people, perhaps the idea itself will not hook us, but we will want to work with these people. Venture companies often invest in teams, not ideas. Therefore, we are also looking for people.
If you are interested in such things as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, AR / VR, Data Science, you know how to work with them and thought about doing something of your own or know how to make a product for a bank based on this product - go to Deworkacy ( Moscow, Bersenevskaya Emb. 6, p. 3 ) on August 5 and 6.
')
And Vladimir Urbansky, the head of the Alpha Laboratory, will tell you about what we are doing all this for.
We did the first hackathon in November of 2013, at that time the word “Hakaton” itself did not come into use and seemed ridiculous to many. In the banking environment there was practically no culture of hakatons, which we can observe now.We have this story was an element of creating a model of the laboratory. Usually in banks and large organizations there was a business and productologists who write requirements, give them to analysts, they write functional requirements and give them to developers, the developers in fact already implement the product according to the documents, not fully understanding the specific tasks.
In the lab we wanted to change this. We did cross-functional teams, where the product works together with the team - with developers and analysts, developers understand the goals and objectives of the business. And if they themselves understand these tasks - they can bring much more benefit to the business.
Indeed, in the modern world, developers are essentially a kind of production unit. As a manager, I cannot do many things with my hands, I cannot create a product — I can organize someone, but I cannot code it myself, although I used to program a little too. A developer can create a product that will even be monetized. And the likelihood that he will create a good product, if he understands the goals and objectives of the organization, will be much higher if you give him freedom of action.
Most of the time, developers are busy identifying the product owner in their backlog for them. But at the same time they have their own ideas, and if you give them even a short period of time to go and cut down what they really want to do, this can give a very interesting result.
For us, it was such a cultural history from the point of view of giving people a certain feeling of freedom, energetically recharging a breath of air, an opportunity to sip something interesting. What they wanted to do, not just what the product owner decided to do.
Therefore, we began to make hackathons. There was originally no goal to make products that earn millions of dollars, this is a story about people and culture, so that some ideas not only remain at the level of ideas, but find realization. For example, I do not really believe in the banks of ideas, in the standard idea management in organizations. Such approaches work in some cases, when a person sees a problem, but it is completely outside its area of influence. Then he can pass it on to someone, and the officer in charge of this area may be implementing it. But this does not always work.
In my opinion, it is much more effective when a person does not just gush forth with ideas, but when he is ready to fit in and do something for this idea. At least with minimal implementation. People are ready to fight for their ideas, but not for others.
We did a post-analysis of the first hakatons, it turned out that in one form or another a lot of things were implemented, just not always in the form of the original idea that was. Some of these products were then closed. One of the first products is an activism account when we linked banking to fitness bracelets. It was a cool and resonant thing, got its audience, but it was quite a niche. We did not want to further develop this, did not see global perspectives, so we decided not to blur the focus.
Success criteria for hackathon
We did internal hakatons, in it a difference. On the one hand, we expected a slightly larger result from the internal hakatons, because the participating teams are more mature and understand what we are working with, on the other hand, the big result of the hackathon is such an energy recharge, giving strength to the teams.
In this regard, we did not have hard metrics for internal hakatons by which we would evaluate success. Of course, we were always glad if some kind of hackathon completion reached the battlefield, and we tried very hard to make the invented solutions implemented.
Part of the solutions was very premature, for example, we had a solution on the hackathon, where the refrigerator ordered products from the online store, communicating with the client in a chat using a bot. On an industrial scale, this is not yet ready to do, but the decision itself was very interesting.
Evaluation of ideas
In order for the team on the hackathon to take shape, it must be kindled with an idea, and already at this stage the minimum assessment of this idea takes place. If the idea is bad - the person simply will not be able to trap people in a team, people will say "I do not believe and will not go to do it."
Hackathon , which will be held on August 5 and 6 - external.
The purpose of the hackathon is to find ideas and people who can implement them.
We are interested in ideas and suggestions of services that will improve the lives of our customers. If we find any ideas interesting for our clients, this is already good. But if you have an idea + a team ready to do it with a bank, this is much more interesting.
But we are also interested in people, perhaps the idea itself will not hook us, but we will want to work with these people. Venture companies often invest in teams, not ideas. Therefore, we are also looking for people.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/333784/
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