Breakthrough event strategy: How a hackathon activated the event attendee experience

Breakthrough solutions wouldn’t come from the typical sales rally. Empowering strategic change required an experiential learning workshop.

group of attendees participating in hackathon event

Biotechnology company executives needed their annual summit to support a strategic reset. They had two goals in mind: reclaim a thriving team culture and inspire sales leaders to share accountability on organizational goals. 

Sales leader input guides event

Instead of a typical motivational speaker, executives were looking for meaningful content delivered within a collaborative experience. The solution? An immersive hackathon concept to inspire immediate change. During discovery, ITA Group met with decision-makers one-on-one and in focus groups to uncover key summit objectives. Insights from those conversations guided the event strategy.

What’s a Hackathon? 

Hackathons bring teams together for a scalable ideation workshop to creatively solve problems without distraction.
The structured breakouts help sales leaders hack away at old beliefs and ways of working. 

The hackathon process creates solutions to: 

  • Center on user needs
  • Align to organizational values and goals
  • Collaborate cross-functionally
  • Create a sense of ownership to outcomes
  • Demonstrate leadership commitment to innovation
happy employees participating in hackathon event

Hackathon event design creates immediate outcomes

A credentialed leadership coach facilitated the event and set a positive tone for a four-hour ideation workshop designed to maximize in-person connections. Team-based immersive activities uncovered “quick win” solutions by following the hackathon process.

  1. Empathize: Bring employee and customer perspectives into a mapping exercise. 
  2. Align: Clearly articulate the challenge the hackathon teams will address. 
  3. Ideate: Use “blue sky thinking” exercises to develop ideas, then evaluate and prioritize. 
  4. Prototype: Select and refine the best idea, detailing the how and why of their solution. 
  5. Test: Share progress and integrate feedback into a model that can meet real-world applications. 

Breaking the event into five fast-paced phases kept the energy high, while a “Shark Tank”-style pitch opportunity tapped into sales leaders’ competitive spirit. They produced well-aligned proposals given the ideation time and prompts used during the hackathon.

With the help of a post-hackathon coaching session, executives created an action plan the next day. They announced immediate changes that benefited sales leaders and supported the company’s goals. Championing new approaches and taking swift action showed leadership is open to team member-led ideas. It re-established comradery and trust between executives and sales leaders, which brought new energy to the culture.

Sales leaders left the summit feeling empowered and eager to implement their learnings. 

Hackathon takeaways

1

Empowered sales leaders who felt heard through the process  

2

Modeled ownership and accountability by the executive team 

3

Strengthened connections among participants across leadership levels

4

Demonstrated sales leaders’ willingness to act on top priorities 

 

…your support helped us deliver exactly the summit that our organization needed during a challenging time. ... You helped executives demonstrate that our leaders are listening and prepared to roll up their sleeves as a team for meaningful change. And we have a set of concrete actions that we are already committed to.

Executive leader on client team