32 hours until TGIF part II
Behind the scenes

32 hours until TGIF part II

Patrick McEvily
10.10.2019
Pictures: Thomas Kunz
Revision: Eva Francis

In part I, 11 teams made history by taking part in the first digitec hackathon. In the end, it was the team with the most elusive name that won. But before that, there were a few highs and lows, along with a discerning audience and two special jurors to persuade us.

Thursday, 9:20pm: I’m cycling home, turn into my street in front of my block of flats… and bam. That’s when it happened. I realised I’d left my key at the office. There was nothing for it but to retrace my steps, or rather bike tracks. Once I get back to com.west, I see there are still about 20 people there. The first sleeping bags have been rolled out, and I found my key somewhere between «Chuchichäschtli» and «Magic Like».

Day 2

8:30am The next morning, everything looks like it’s more or less back to normal. There’s 90s music blaring out of the loudspeakers. Sweet Dreams, R.E.M, Meat Loaf… Eros Ramazzotti!?

9:38am: a deployment from another department leads to a temporary blockade at checkout and search. It’s annoying but not absolutely out of the ordinary. For the sake of efficiency, each of the different areas are given a lot of freedom. After a few minutes, they’re back in touch with their colleagues again and the problem is resolved.

10:20am: It has got quiet. You can really tell that everyone is concentrating and you can sense how much they all want to get their project finished.

Krzysztof and Marius are in cheerful spirits – or at least, better than yesterday. A lot of things are working now. The «happy flow» works. By that they mean the path the customer takes from the home page to the checkout – including all alternatives and additional options. Translator Anne has to convert all these points into Swiss German. In case you’re wondering, she opted to write «Schwiizerdütsch», Swiss German, with two «i»s.

Christian from the Magic Like team doesn’t have much time. They only managed to get the model working for the first time yesterday evening. But that was still using «fake» data. There are even more bugs in the «real deal». And yet the team have already got started on the presentation for the pitch this afternoon.

While we’re on the subject of checking in with teams, yesterday evening I had a chat with Michael from the organising committee and I asked him who would win. «That’s almost impossible to answer. It will probably depend on how many of the 150 expected guests at the pitch come from engineering an engineering background. The digitec Galaxus (DG) browser extension, for instance, is a cool project but it’s difficult to put it into practice. I don’t think your average user will be that interested in it.»

When I go over to the DG Browser Extension team, the guys show me their design. They’re on a competitor’s website at the checkout, where it says next the cart «This product retails at digitec for XY» Wow. «How’s that possible?» I ask. The developers explain that it’s relatively easy to filter the product’s manufacturer number.

12 noon: I finally get round to chatting to other teams.
I wonder what the DG Careers team are doing? Tobias did tell me yesterday that they were already at the final sprint. Christoph takes a few minutes out to give me an update. He begins by explaining how important the HR page is for employer branding. «If we want to get the best people, we have to give a good first impression.»

That’s why the team didn’t spend so much time on elaborate technical solutions. It made more sense to dedicate their hackathon to tweaking design and building in new features. They even went off to film a short video. There are also graphics that link with it, such as little «pills» for every job ad, which show which skills are needed. Christoph reckons:

«We could be in with winning the founders’ prize.»

4pm: The hackathon lab continues to fill up. Some of the participants look quite tired. The long hours are obviously taking their toll. Meanwhile, the first of the guests arrive, and the beer goes down a storm.
Hackathon aficionado Tobias welcomes everyone and outlines what’s up for grabs. There are «community prizes» for the top three teams as well as the «founders’ prize». First of all, the guests cast their vote. Then it’s up to our experts, founders Florian Teuteberg and Oliver Herren to decide.

Tobias and organisation committee member Alicia kick things off with a brief review of what has gone on over the last few hours. Once again, Tobias tells us about the standard two-day turnover. «This morning, a deployment put a spanner in the works.» He shows us an interim dive between 9:15 and 9:45am. «Fortunately, we were able to even things out over the course of the day.»

The pitch

My old friends from Chuchichäschtli are first up. They’re met with a cautious response and the talk is very tech-heavy. «You’re not going to get any thanks for that,» I think to myself. Give it more energy! And even then, they had tech issues. We later found out that maintenance work was going on in the next building, which meant our network was temporarily down. What bad luck.

The next speaker starts their pitch with a subtle potshot: «I’ll show you something that actually works.» Burn! But even they have issues. They can’t get into the system. It should only be a matter of hours. And then people shout other tips from behind. This is a nightmare presentation scenario for anyone. But they manage it, and what they show strikes a chord.

The secret favourite in the line-up – the DG Browser Extension team – are up next. They've divided the functionality of their plugins into three control stages. When they show the example with the button on the competitor’s website, the audience explodes.

Meanwhile, the DG Careers team highlight a current problem. Part of their work included looking at analytics. «That’s clever,» I say to myself. A considerable amount of traffic on our site is apparently lost between the first page and the individual job post pages. Everyone listens with rapt attention. That’s a good sign. The team also finish up with a summary. Pretty cool. I think we have a winner.

Then it’s time for Chuchichäschtli to try again. The audience can now finally see what the team worked so hard on. When they show the first examples, the team are met with amused applause.

Meanwhile, Christian from the Magic Like team stresses once again that: «Everything is live. Nothing has been faked.» They also explain how many extra purchases a tool like this could generate. They say it could be built in two sprints. Everyone looks at the bosses. Not bad feedback – it’s looking good for the Magic Like team.

The subscription team – aka shit sells – are up next. I’m a fan, even though I don’t have any kids. They also show the business case. This is the first time a team has made a rather shameless appeal to the audience to vote for them.

We finish up with the Cart-filler team. Yesterday Zara told me she’d planned this strategically. «People will remember the first and last presentation.» Clever cookie. I have to give it to them, the team did a good job of incorporating the customer perspective. And they had strong graphics and statistics on their side.

5:15pm: The five-minute time limit was more of a recommendation that a hard rule. Tobias now encourages everyone to vote via the app. What we’ve been building up to for a while will be over in a flash. It’s ruthless: thumbs up or thumbs down. The reactions during the presentation were mixed. Respectable disinterest traded places with vocal amusement and rapt concentration. I’m not sure if I bet on the right horse any more.

5:20pm: Tobias switches the microphone back on and announces that’s it. Voting is closed.

…Drum roll, please...

And the winner is: Magic Like! They won 25% of the vote. Like I say, Tinder always wins. But what’s probably more important is the relevance to the products. Everyone nods. Nothing beats the feeling of endorphins when you buy something. This is exactly what the team responded to when they built an efficient solution for our customers.

DG Careers also made it into the top 3. The team impressed the audience with a ready-to-use redesign, which also looks great.

The «Founders’ Prize» also goes to the Magic Like team. Founders Florian Teuteberg (CEO) and Oliver Herren (COO) see development potential in it. What impressed them the most was the integration of their idea in the current user journey.

The pair came up with something special for the prize… a challenge cup. But not just any cup. It dates back to 2000 and the holiday reading Florian took to Greece. It was a 500-page tome on access data banks. Once he got home, they’d both got started on building the data bank, which formed the framework for digitec. And a challenge cup emerged from the book.

5:45pm: I didn’t think it was possible but Tobias’s chest is more puffed, he has more of a twinkle in his eyes. The event was a resounding success. So what happens now? The event was intentionally dubbed «version 1». Tobias can envisage it developing in various different ways. But the online shop area isn’t alone in creating our infrastructure. Not all of the product development team were there this time. What’s more, external teams could be brought in to collaborate on future iterations.

By definition, a hackathon is something temporary that takes place in a different environment. (For real. Everything was built and implemented in what was known as the «dev area»). Once Monday comes round, we’ll all be going back to our normal job roles, where nappy subscriptions and cart fillers are something of the past.

…or are they? Tobias told me that some projects might be discussed in the coming weeks at management meetings. In other words, we’ll just have to wait and see.

6pm: Time flew by ridiculously quickly. We’ve already finished for the day. And it’s just occurred to me how much I like to have finished work. Now it’s «Friday Beer» time. That’s another of those things we do.

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Be it at our warehouse in Wohlen, in our shops or among the accountants: In this jungle that is Digitec Galaxus, I swing from vine to vine, combing through the undergrowth on the lookout for juicy stories.


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