Over 100 days of collaboration, development & fun
Recently, we marked a significant milestone in our company’s history: the 10th celebration of our Innovation Days. With over 100 days of teamwork, growth, and enjoyment behind us, we felt it was the perfect moment to share our story with others. Nina Maaß, a talented software engineer and member of the organising team, was kind enough to share insights on how our internal hackathon started and why it continues to be successful.
Nina, could you tell us about the origin and motivation behind the founding of the Innovation Days at mobile.de?
“Everything started in December 2012. At that time — inspired by a blog post about slack-time* — and under the name of ‘Consumer Slack-Day’ all Product and Tech Teams had the chance once a month to work on the topic they normally don’t have time for. Over the years the format and name changed. With big support from management and organised by highly engaged colleagues, ‘Innovation Days’ became an important part of our Product and Tech culture.”
How does the format of the Innovation Days look like today?
“Currently, the Innovation Days take place on three consecutive days once per quarter. The days are mostly joined by our Product and Tech teams, but also by colleagues from other business units. Over the years not only has the company grown but also the number of participants. Last time around 50 people contributed and over 170 people joined the presentations.”
The numbers are impressive — why do you think it’s so successful?
“One of the golden rules and basis for its long-term success has always been: ‘When you’re at Innovation Days, you’re at Innovation Days. No daily business except P1 bugs!’ The three days shouldn’t be interrupted by meetings or any other activities.”
Three days sound like a lot of time — how are the days structured?
“Innovation Days actually start long before that. We send out invitations up to three weeks in advance. From that moment on, people can add topics with short descriptions into a list of potential projects and can already set up teams.
Then, on the first day in the morning we start with the idea pitches. Every single person or team presents their topic with the request to join. It’s important to know that the pitches are not an ‘automatic’ registration for the final presentation, because ideas can also change or be discarded. The decision whether something will be presented can be decided up to the end of Innovation Days.
For newcomers we offer a brief summary beforehand: ‘Innovation Days in a Nutshell’ explains what all the fuss is about. After the idea pitches, the assembled teams or single contributors start working. What follows is, what we call: Happy Development! Two days of fun bringing your idea to life. In the Pre-Covid time everyone was meeting in the office and worked as long as there was pizza and drinks.
On the third and last day up into the afternoon everyone has still time to work on the projects until the final presentation. The topics needed to be handed in a second time up to 30 minutes before. Every team or single contributor gets the chance to present their results.”
How would you describe the presentation?
“The final presentation is about knowledge sharing and learning. Not only successful projects, but also failures or detours are given room and attention. But of course, Innovation Days are also a challenge. At the end of the final presentation the winners are selected by voting. We’ve determined two categories for outstanding achievements taking into account different team sizes: ‘Winning Team’ for teams with more than three members and ‘Honourable Mention’ for smaller teams or single contributors. With this we want to encourage and reward ideas from everyone.”
If others would like to adopt this concept, could you share some best practices organising an event like this?
“Through the years the setup was adapted to the requirements. Currently, we are two people — me and my colleague Daniel Korger. I have been in the orga team since the end of 2019 and Daniel since the beginning of 2020.
We coordinate Innovation Days with management at an early stage in order to avoid conflicts with other company events and of course, daily business. We communicate the event through Slack and — not to underestimate — word of mouth. We send out calendar invitations. We are the moderators for the idea pitches and the final presentation. We accompany the event in all aspects. Our ambition is to constantly improve the event in order to provide the community with the space to work on their projects in an undisturbed and focused way.”
You mentioned earlier that Innovation Days used to take place in the office. How is it currently being carried out?
“Pre-Covid, Innovation Days were held alternately in one of our offices in Berlin or Dreilinden. However, even then we saw a trend towards remote contribution, so we were well prepared for the ‘home office’ time.
Now Post-Covid, Innovation Days are a remote event, but we start to create more and more of a hybrid experience. That means, who wants to work from the office, is free to do so and many colleagues use this opportunity.”
Ten years of innovation — there must be a bunch of great ideas. What happened to all those results?
“What happens to the projects after Innovation Days is always different and based on the context. The spectrum ranges from exploration of technology or concepts through prototypes or proof of concepts of single features up to tools to improve our daily work. If a project result is promising, the potential is discussed with stakeholders and business owners and prioritised accordingly. And then there are also teams that use the next Innovation Days to continue working on their project in order to improve it or gain new insights.”
Do you remember a project, which made it into the mobile.de platform or the company’s strategy?
“Yes, the project ‘Green Mobility’ is now part of our roadmap.”
What is the best thing about Innovation Days?
“For me personally, the best thing about the Innovation Days is the community and the support from management. Without this, the event would not be possible and could not have become part of our mobile.de culture. Furthermore, I am always impressed by the results as well as by some colleagues, who jump over their shadows and overcome their fear of talking in front of bigger groups.
And, I will not forget the year, when the tech leadership team tried to participate despite a full calendar, but ended up in front of the whole group to announce: ‘We have failed! We did not stick to our golden rule that when you’re at Innovation Days, you’re at Innovation Days.’ I always remember this, because our Innovation Days are also about sharing learnings and that includes failures.”
Thank you Nina, for sharing these insights. Would you like to add something for our readers?
“I hope we can inspire other companies with our experiences to try out something new. It takes time, patience and iterations to let something like Innovation Days become a permanent part of the culture. Because what works for us doesn’t have to work for others.”
The next Innovations Days are taking place now, mid February. We are starting in our 11th year and there are many more to come.
Do you have a hackathon or a comparable format like our innovation days in our company or team? Let us know in the comments.
*Link to blog post about slack-time https://agiletrail.com/2012/01/09/slack-to-the-rescue-what-you-want-to-do/
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