How Hack Weeks Can Boost Morale and Innovation in 5 Days

For some people, the idea of “group projects” causes a reflexive spasm of dread, complete with unpleasant flashbacks to high school assignments where one person always seemed to drop the ball and tank everyone’s grade as a result.

In my opinion, workplace collaboration is unfairly maligned. Consider a different image, say, the movie Armageddon, or even Ocean’s 11, in which a crack team of experts combines their unique strengths to tackle a daunting task (saving mankind from an asteroid and robbing a trio of casinos, respectively). It’s with this latter scenario in mind, minus the criminal activity, that I present a possibly controversial take: every company should have hack weeks.

Hack weeks can take various forms, but for us at Jotform, they look like five-day sprints that give our product teams the opportunity to focus on a single idea, free from the distractions of their day-to-day workloads. Hack weeks have produced some of our most important innovations, including a revamped Jotform Enterprise and Jotform Cards.

If you’re considering incorporating hack weeks into your business, or even if you’re just curious about why hack week evangelists like me are so wild about them, read on.

Single versus multi-day sprints

I implemented the idea of hackathons in the early years of running Jotform, when we were only a fledgling team with a handful of people. The original concept was to spend just a single day laser-focused on a project. But these frenzied days turned into nights, and by the time our laptops were finally shut, the team was exhausted. We experimented with adding a second day, but these two-day episodes began to swallow weekends, too. What was supposed to be a creative exercise was beginning to feel tiring.

So instead of trying to squeeze everything into the shortest amount of time possible, we expanded the sprints into a full five days. This gives everyone time to fully develop their ideas, kick the tires and come up with something genuinely useful, rather than half-baked and rushed.

Five days has proven to be the sweet spot for us, but your mileage may vary. The key is to find a timeline that sparks new ideas without creating burnout, which is all dependent on the size of your company, your teams and the culture of your business.

The anatomy of a hack week

Hack weeks work because they are focused on answering a single question or tackling a particular problem. Narrowing the scope in this way is helpful because constraints breed creativity, and we’ve seen firsthand that leaving things too open-ended is actually worse for productivity.

The first day of a hack week is usually dedicated to brainstorming ideas and settling on a project to tackle. By the time the middle of the week rolls around, ideas have been made tangible and teams are ready for feedback. Then it’s back to finalizing and polishing up before Friday, otherwise known as demo day, when teams present the fruits of their week’s work. This last part is an essential element of hack week: You have to feel you’re building to a conclusion, or else the whole exercise feels unfulfilling.

Why hack weeks?

Hack weeks are a core part of Jotform’s culture for a reason. I’m a big believer in the innovative potential of in-person, cross-functional teams, and hack weeks are a great excuse to break out of everyday thinking and tackle a big idea.

Recently, our hack weeks have been all about AI, and they’ve had a massive impact on how we’ve deployed it across our company. Giving our teams the chance to really explore and get their hands dirty is one of the great benefits of these sprints, but they’re also an opportunity to dive into something new without fear of judgment. Anyone who has ever been confronted by the terror of a blank page knows how hard it can be to get started. Hack weeks are condensed enough that there’s no time for waffling or panic; you just have to act.

Hack weeks are also a great source of teambuilding, especially because they come with a light air of friendly competition. In our early days, when the team was smaller, we’d gather around and watch the demos around a few bowls of popcorn; these days, we’re known to have a full spread of food and snacks. Working hard toward a goal and celebrating your wins are the bedrocks of a good company culture. Hack weeks remind us why we do what we do, and bring everyone together to reconnect with the sense of purpose that drives our work.

Group projects don’t have to be terrible. In fact, they can be incredibly rewarding. Whether your team is planning to blow up an asteroid or simply release a new product version, what matters most is empowering people to combine their talents and create something they couldn’t have built alone.

For some people, the idea of “group projects” causes a reflexive spasm of dread, complete with unpleasant flashbacks to high school assignments where one person always seemed to drop the ball and tank everyone’s grade as a result.

In my opinion, workplace collaboration is unfairly maligned. Consider a different image, say, the movie Armageddon, or even Ocean’s 11, in which a crack team of experts combines their unique strengths to tackle a daunting task (saving mankind from an asteroid and robbing a trio of casinos, respectively). It’s with this latter scenario in mind, minus the criminal activity, that I present a possibly controversial take: every company should have hack weeks.

Hack weeks can take various forms, but for us at Jotform, they look like five-day sprints that give our product teams the opportunity to focus on a single idea, free from the distractions of their day-to-day workloads. Hack weeks have produced some of our most important innovations, including a revamped Jotform Enterprise and Jotform Cards.