Create dedicated program management and identity.Nanci and Sarah offered five thoughtful tips to teams and companies looking to host their own hack weeks. The benefits of Hack Week-providing opportunities to collaborate outside of one’s everyday team, giving employees flexibility to improve upon the product, offering ways to stretch beyond comfort zones-are endless. Hack Week has also expanded to include non-R&D employees and now has “a long legacy throughout the company.” “What has been great about the intentional scaling and effort behind the program is that it’s created a space for Hack Week to exist all year round rather than just being an engineering event that happens somehow every year,” said Nanci. As Spotify matured, its teams turned Hack Week into a full-scale experience with a dedicated internal website, Skill Exchange portal (itself a Hack Week project), a developed visual identity, and an internal communications campaign to generate excitement and spread knowledge. “Each year it had the same skeleton-a kick-off event, a week of hacking, a fair, and local People’s Choice awards, but no repeatable format from a project management perspective,” Sarah shared. But developing Hack Week into the massive event that thousands of Spotify employees participate in annually is a feat in itself.Īccording to Sarah Gänsicke and Nanci Veitch, Spotify Project Managers for R&D Communities, Hack Week started out as a “hot potat o” in the early days of the company. Now Spotify employees across functions worldwide look forward to the annual week where they put their regular work aside and collaborate on ideas that combine their passions, creativity, and skills. The beloved Discover Weekly playlist originated as a Hack Week idea, as did the ability to exclude select playlists from your Taste Profile. Hack Week has become something of Spotify lore.
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