A hackathon is defined as an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development collaborate intensively on software projects. Hackathons are also about bringing people together for a common cause or goal. Join Raj Polikepati, Director of Application Development, as he discusses Texas.gov’s first hackathon. In addition to producing viable solutions, the hackathon: • enhanced core technical and soft skills, • identified key success factors, • modeled a lean delivery approach, and • generated team pride. This presentation will showcase exactly how Texas.gov hosted our hackathon, what the outcomes and lessons learned were, and how we benefited from the experience.
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Presented by: Raj Polikepati
Director of Application Development Texas.gov
Hackathons: Embracing Collaboration to Achieve Results
September 17, 2013
Texas.gov/Solutions
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Texas.gov helps promote government online services to constituents. We also provide solutions that help government entities streamline business processes, create cost savings, and operate more efficiently. In October 2012, we launched a site where government “do it yourselfers” who like to do their own research can learn more about the services and solutions we offer at Texas.gov. We invite you to visit Texas.gov/Solutions for: Information about our payment products and enterprise services Free demos, webinars, presentations, and datasheets about government technology topics that are important to you How easy it is to become a Texas.gov partner And much more! Now I’d like to introduce Raj Polikepati, Texas.gov’s Director of Application Development. Hi Everyone, I am Raj Polikepati. I am responsible for all things development at Texas.gov. My team develops Texas.gov applications using several technologies. .Net, Java, UX (Html5, Responsive design), Grails, SharePoint for our web applications and Portal. Mobile (iOS and Android, PhoneGap) Service layer: oracle SOA, Business Intelligence: Microsoft BI stack The technology stack has changed with lifecycle of the portal to help build the maximum value for the constituent in most efficient approach. I have worked in various roles, such as, Developer, Technical Architect, Development Manager, and Director of Development. We are an agile organization currently running 5 scrum teams.
Where?
Agenda
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What – As part of this presentation, we want to share our hackathon story Where – Also to share where hackathons may be applicable in our day-to-day jobs How – To show how the industry conducts hack-a-thons Why – What some of the benefits are with hackathons
What is a Hackathon?
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A hackathon is an event where software development teams collaborate to achieve a common goal in lean, agile, and rapid fashion. Hackathons can also be used for non-technical situations, like cost reduction initiatives.
Business
Government
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A couple of examples: White House had 30 developers working on new eGovernment solutions using the API for We The People; they worked for 9 hours with White House staff to build new tools for finding, sharing, and analyzing the We The People petitions. About 16 projects were completed and the code was made available to everyone. This is a great example of working together toward a common goal. Hack Palo Alto: as part of the first-ever and historic National Day of Civic Hacking event where technology, entrepreneurship and innovation come together to help shape the future of the community. The City’s downtown was transformed into CityCamp Palo Alto where families can enjoy the latest in robotics, maker space and art activities, food, live music and of course, innovation! There are four focus areas for this event: Connectedness - includes transportation, parking, Internet, commuting, and traffic Sustainability - includes climate change, clean environment, and energy Resilience - includes disaster recovery and cyber-security Health - includes chronic disease, nutrition, exercise, and mental health Please note that all of these areas are not technical in nature. Phonegap: The software PhoneGap began as a project at the iPhoneDevCamp (later renamed iOSDevCamp) in 2008
• Progressed to “all hands on deck” workshop 2 years ago
• Used approach for prototyping and proof-of-concept for new possibilities
• Recently held 1st 24-hour Hackathon through grass-root interest
Evolution at
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Let me tell you how we got started with Hack-a-thon. At Texas.gov, we use several technologies and we host technical sessions every month to help with cross-training. We wanted to take this to the next level and get some hands on exposure to different technologies to build a team of generalists that specialize in certain technologies. About 2 years ago, we started 1/2 day workshops to learn new technologies. We used these sessions to share our knowledge on things like Grails, Big Data, Front-end technologies and so on. This provided great team building opportunities and knowledge sharing. Also, for some of the opportunities to work with our government partners, we started building prototypes for big programs before commencing actual development. The next progressive step was to host a hack-a-thon day (24 hours). No one in the team had previously been part of a hackathon. So we began researching online and found several excellent resources.
Improvise Voting
Problem solving
Innovation lunches
Ideation & Innovation?
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Hackathon apart, we also host monthly innovation lunches where everyone from the organization is invited. We show innovative ideas and also use the meeting to help with ideation process. We asked the team to come up with ideas for what we should build at our first hackathon. We got several ideas and voted online to select most popular idea. The selected idea was to build a native application for one of our government partners. But, on the day of the hackathon, we figured out that we didn't have all the data to build it and would have to make up the data. One of the main goals (in true spirit of agile principles) was to build a application of value in a day. So we made a team decision to build a similar, but different application. For the new idea, we had all the integration service and the data available to build a application. So when you do this for the first time, don’t panic; make decisions that will help with successful completion of the hackathon. We also had few people working on solving one of the challenges for Finance team.
• Good night’s sleep
• Large room with whiteboards, sunlight, bright lights, hydration supplies, and lots of food
• Laptops/notebooks with access to existing SDLC toolset
• Guaranteed support structure (operations) for day-to-day production support
Logistics
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People need have to have a good nights sleep. I can’t stress this enough. Especially if you are going for 24 hours. Large room conducive to thought processing. Production stability – make sure you have enough staff to cover day-to-day operations
• Product Owner
• Scrum Master
• Team
• Stakeholder
• Epics
• User stories
• Velocity
• Release Plan
• Sprint review
• Retrospective
• Sprint planning
Agile Terms & Roles
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Epics: A very large user story that is eventually broken down into smaller stories. Epics are often used as placeholders for new ideas that have not been thought out fully or whose full elaboration has been deferred until actually needed. Epic stories help agile development teams effectively manage and groom their product backlog. User Stories: A user story story of one or more sentences in the everyday or business language of the user that captures what the user wants to achieve. Velocity: Velocity measures how much work a team can complete in an iteration. Velocity is often measured in stories or story points. Release plan: Release planning refers to planning activities used to estimate when software will be released into product use. This is typically done by extrapolating the development team's performance on the basis of its velocity. Sprint Review: A meeting held at the end of each sprint in which the Scrum team shows what they accomplished during the sprint; typically this takes the form of a demo of the new features. Retrospective: A timeboxed meeting held at the end of an iteration, or at the end of a release, in which the team examines its processes to determine what succeeded and what could be improved. The retrospective is key to an Agile team's ability to "inspect and adapt" in the pursuit of "continuous improvement.” Sprint Planning: Each sprint begins with a two-part sprint planning meeting, the activity that prioritizes and identifies stories and concrete tasks for the next sprint. Product Owner is one of the key roles in Scrum. The product owner is the primary business representative who represents the business stakeholders' "voice of the customer" and the "voice of the business" to the sprint team. The responsibilities of the Product Owner include: Establishing, nurturing, and communicating the product vision Creating and leading a team of developers to best provide value to the customer Monitoring the project against its ROI goals and an investment vision Making decisions about when to create an official release Scrum Master: The ScrumMaster is responsible for maintaining the Scrum process and the overall health of the team. The ScrumMaster assures that the team is fully functional and productive. The ScrumMaster performs this role by administering the Scrum ceremonies, facilitating the organic self-organization of the team, and removing any obstacles that may be impeding the team’s progress. What the ScrumMaster is not: The ScrumMaster is not the task master, since the team is responsible for assigning its own tasks. The ScrumMaster is not the supervisor of the team, since the supervisor/subordinate relationship may impede the organic self-organization of the team. Team:In agile software development, the team refers to the cross-functional group of people that have made a collective commitment to work together to produce the work product and improve their performance over time. In addition to software development and test roles, the team may include any skill set necessary to deliver the work product. Stakeholder: Anyone external to the team with a vested interest in the outcome of the team's work.
• 9:00 am start time; offsite conference room
• ~20 people – web services, user experience, BI, and server-side web developers
• All-hands standup to discuss goals
• Input from team on execution approach – chose Agile Scrum
Hackathon Itinerary
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All-hands standup to discuss the goal Decided to build similar application to original one Sought input from the team for creating an execution approach Went with Agile Scrum approach Finalized to do four 4-hour sprints
♦ Build a mobile app that use bar code scanning technology to renew service
♦ Build a tool to help Finance team with monthly close
♦ Things under control: renewal service, payment service, technologies, financial knowledge
♦ Unknowns: Scanning technology
Initial Standup
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Reiterate team working toward common goal – very close working relationship
4 Scrum teams to handle:
• Bar code scanning work (biggest unknown)
• Creating/utilizing web services needed
• Web design & development activities for app
• Financial tool for monthly close
Team Formations
• Release planning – 4 sprints, 4 hours each
• Sprint planning – Select features from product backlog – Finalized acceptance criteria
• Sprint standups – Discuss progress across teams
• Sprint review & retrospective – Teams demonstrated functionality – Discussed new findings & solutions – What worked, what didn’t – Improvements for next sprint – Food breaks
Hackathon Day Ceremonies
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First sprint activities: Research the bar code scanning tools Finalize the technology for bar code scanning Complete wire frames and html Develop/modify web services Second sprint activities: Started work on coding the bar code scanning Started integration between web interface and services Developed few features for financial tool Third sprint activities: Integrate the bar code scanning code into application Continue work on the payment and integration services Continue work on financial tool Fourth sprint activities: Cleanup and finalize on the functionality
Sprint Activities?
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Sprint activities White boarding Collaboration for best solution Coding – Pair programming – Club Experiences, Real-time peer review, QA, Usability, and focus on task at hand. Testing Integration of different parts Show & tell
• Beware of preconceived ideas • Quick screen flow charts • Technical integration touch points • Known assets and known problems • Unknown’s • Tactics for known and unknowns
• Scaffolding – Ruby on Rails – Groovy on Grails – ASP.NET Dynamic Data Scaffolding – Spring MVC Scaffolding
• Mobile first technology • Mock capabilities • Contract interfaces
Technologies for Success
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We used current, cutting edge technology to build Mobile DR Renewal app.
• License procurement for scanning software
• Bullet-proofing • Security scanning • Show & tell for overall team • Coordination with partner for production
release plan • Celebrate!!!
Follow-up Activities
Team building
Employee satisfaction
Learn execution experience
Solve problems
Prototype for new opportunities
Reduce investment risks with proof-of-concept
Improve culture by demonstrating a “can do” attitude backed by results
Hackathon Benefits
• New project execution plans
• Emergency handling
• Sustained annual planning
• And more ….
A New Tool in Your Toolbox
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Hackathons can add a new tool to your IT toolbox - they are not just about software development; it teaches people new ways of thinking. They can be used for new project execution plans, emergency handling, sustained annual planning, and much more If you’re interested in doing this yourself … contact us; we’re here to help.
♦ Red Raiders
Look Who’s Hacking
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Texas Tech held their own hack-a-thon after meeting with Texas.gov staff about using GRAILS and hearing about their hackathon. It was very successful.
• Host 3 hackathons every year
• Team-up with state partners and constituents
• Two day hackathons
• Budgetary considerations
• Idea backlog
Future Plans
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Hackathons can add a new card to your deck - they are not just about software development; it teaches people new ways of thinking They can be used for new project execution plans, emergency handling, sustained annual planning If you’re interested in doing this yourself … come find us, we’re here to help <EW Notes: possible updated title for this slide along the lines of “New hand in the deck”; will also weave in following points: Not all about software, teaches people about new ways of thinking Come find us if you’re interested in doing this yourself … we’re here to help if you’d like>
• Fosters blue-sky thinking
• Entire organization can participate
• Teaches effective decision making
• Can deliver results in astonishingly short timeframes
