32 hours until TGIF part I

Thursdays are undeniably hard. Everyone wants to clear up any loose ends before the weekend. That’s why I don’t like Thursdays. But there’s a different kind of mood in the com.west building in Zurich West today. Even though the clock is only showing a bleary-eyed 7:55am, there are a surprising number of UX designers, engineers and product owners bustling into the offices. They’re all kitted out in white T-shirts emblazoned with the word «hacker» in preparation for the imminent showdown.

Tobias Quelle-Korting, Head of Product in the online shop area, is bubbling with energy. He explains that the crew had converted the whole floor yesterday within just a few hours; the teams switched places; and organised themselves into project groups. «We» is almost a sacred word for him. And he likes to repeat it over and over. There’s definitely something coming together here.

From nappy subscriptions to checkout hacks

Getting the event up and running involved a fair bit of persuading from Tobias and his kindred spirits. Assigning nine developer teams to two full development pipelines for two full days is a daring idea. There’s even something for real pirates. We ended up with over 30 ideas. To keep things democratic, each person with a concept presented their ideas in front of the whole group and vied for the best hackers. The ideas could be separated into three main categories: those that were similar to ideas already in the pipeline; ideas that are difficult to bring to life in just two days; and ideas that boast a good mixture of ambition and pragmatism. 11 of them finally managed it. Here are a few examples:

• Subscription Model: we sell a lot of products that customers reorder. For instance, nappies or diapers are one of our bestsellers. Shit really does sell – again and again.
• Magic Like: forget the invention of the bike or the Internet. It’s Tinder that revolutionised our society. So why not swipe on products as well?
• Next-century Ticketing: the ticketing system in our shops is somewhat outdated. You have to stab each number in to get your ticket. Now the team is trying it with barcodes.
• DG Careers: how could we better present Digitec Galaxus AG and highlight our strengths? The team got straight to work on redesigning our jobs page.
• Over 50 - Cart-fillers: the extra charge for small orders is not so popular (to put it lightly). To help customers out, the team developed a system that automates everyday product suggestions to fill their cart with.

Day 1

8:25am: A not unsubstantial amount of beer gets delivered to the hack lab. Whatever... it’s already 4pm somewhere in the world.

9am: Tobias opens the event, where there are about 60 to 70 people present. As so often when there’s there’s a big project ahead of you, it can seem a bit matter-of-fact at first. Or the quiet before the storm. When Tobias mixed up million with billion when talking about the estimated turnover for the coming days, everyone burst out laughing. And yet I can sense how serious the subject is. After all, the shop is a sensitive ecosystem. The smallest changes can have a significant impact – both positive and negative. And it’s important to remember this isn’t a dry run. We could potentially be laying the foundations for our future growth.

I look around me and notice that not all my colleagues are taking part in the hackathon. Those who aren’t part of the event will be taking care of other things for the next two days. The world won’t exactly stand still just because we’re organising a hackathon. Respect, people. Respect.

9:25am: Some of the participants cut to the chase: cup of coffee in hand, headphones out and down to business. Others stand around, discussing their approach first. I overhear one team saying this: I overhear one team saying this:

9:30am: the first station is a team called «Chuchichäschtli» (the Swiss word for a kitchen cupboard). They want to create a Swiss German website for digitec and Galaxus. To my surprise, the first person I speak to on the team isn’t Swiss. Krzysztof is Polish. When I ask what the biggest challenge would be, he replies with a grin: «Have you ever seen a Swiss German dictionary? Yeah, me neither. We can’t even agree on whether you spell ‘Schwiizerdütsch’ (Swiss German) with one ‘i’ or two.»

2:45pm: The white T-shirts are still sitting around. But in the meantime, the first few beers have been cracked open. In case you’re wondering, it’s a locally produced, isotonic drink from the LägereBräu brewery in Wettingen that contains similar levels of sugar and salt as those in the body.

The hectic feeling of the morning has vanished and the first strategy sessions have been checked off the list.

Christian and Yannick from the Magic Like team take the time out to speak to me. Christian shows me the statistics from the tables product group. The ten bestsellers are flying out the warehouse but after tenth place, sales drop. Customers rarely order the 60th most popular table. But who’s to say that this isn’t exactly the table you want? The biggest challenge is in narrowing down the product features: for instance, deciding which products are similar and which are completely different. At the same time, the customer journey still has to make sense. Features have to work within these and not just link to a digital black hole.

3:30pm: I ask Zara from the Cart-filler team why these things haven’t been implemented before now.

7:30 pm: It’s autumn and the sun set long ago. Outside, the world feels like it’s already fallen asleep. But I’m looking for light so I fight my way through noisy cars and the wind back into com.west. It feels like time has stood still in here. Almost everyone is still there. The pizza delivery came about an hour ago and put everyone in a good mood.

I head up to Krzysztof and ask him how it’s going: «There’s good news and bad news. The good news is we’re about to build the Swiss German version. The bad news is the thing keeps crashing. It’s almost 8pm and at the moment it feels like one step forward, one step back. His colleague Marius shows me where the problem lies. Given DeepL translation software doesn’t recognise any Swiss German, it often returns error messages. And as a result you get horrendous loading times. Both of them are only allowed a brief moment to rejoice when the tab loads the Swiss version of «About us». Their parting phrase is:

7:40pm: I go past the DG Careers team’s posts and there’s no one else there. «Where are they?» I ask Tobias.
«They’re already on the final sprint and deserve a little break.» Wow. I’m finding out how it really works. «Everyone is in hack mode. It’s unbelievable how palpable the productive atmosphere is in the newly cobbled together teams.»

8:45pm: Even the most courageous fighters need a break. Some are treating themselves to a beer, while others are doing a spot of gaming.

That’s when I realise you can cut out some of this frontend-backend-architecture stuff. Sometimes you just need to let off steam and you can still have an overall productive atmosphere. The teams go from one flow to another. It’s all straightforward. And the atmosphere is one of mutual respect. Everyone knows they’re bringing something to the project and that each person has their own skill set. Over the course of the day, I notice how each team always questions, challenges and improves their colleagues’ work. It’s a kind of positive doggedness.

9pm: I head off home but some of the others are going to stay here overnight. I notice how much I’ve submerged myself in another world that’s faster paced than mine. I’m just as tired as the others, have eaten just as many Snickers I shouldn’t have and yet somehow feel delirious… in a good way. I’m excited to see what tomorrow brings.

Find out more in part II.