The need to learn better and faster

In today’s rapidly changing job market and constant digital transformation, efficient and targeted upskilling has become a necessity for individuals looking to stay competitive and advance their careers. The digital age requires knowledge workers to not only have good fundamentals in technology, data analytics, and people skills, but also have the ability to quickly acquire new competencies as industries become increasingly interconnected and fast-paced. In other words, knowledge workers need to adopt a learning-for-life mindset and apply it efficiently throughout their career.

But learning new skills can often be a daunting task, and it can be difficult to know where to start. How do you know what skills to learn? How do you grasp them quickly? When should you move onto more advanced topics? There are many uncertainties and doubts along the way that can discourage you and block your progress. I know because I’ve gone through that same struggle before, so I’m always exploring ways to learn more efficiently.

After participating in several hackathons recently, I realized I was able to learn a lot in a short amount of time, so I started to think about the properties of hackathon that makes it such a unique learning experience. I thought that by adopting the collaborative, problem-solving, and creative approach used in hackathons to other areas of learning, we may have a more structured way to upskill and take control of our own professional development. In part 1 of this post, I’ll introduce and explore the concept of the hackathon mindset, and in part 2 I’ll discuss ways that it can be applied in our own upskilling journey.

What’s the “hackathon mindset”?

To start, let’s discuss what a hackathon is. Simply put, hackathons are events where teams of developers, designers, and other subject matter experts come together to build a product or solution in a short period of time. The final product can range anywhere from software to hardware, to even governmental policies and educational initiatives. Some features of hackathons include:

  • Tight project scope: The project has a well-defined goal or a purpose that usually satisfies some unmet need.
  • Hands-on: The project requires more than just brainstorming and talking – you need to roll up your sleeves and actually build things.
  • Time-boxed: Project lasts for a very short amount of time, from 24 hours to a few days, meaning there is a clear starting line, a finish line, and a deadline.
  • Deliverable: A final, functional product needs to be turned in at the end of the hackathon that can be tested and evaluated.
  • Collaborative: To finish the project under such a tight deadline, a multidisciplinary team is necessary to design, implement, document, and showcase the project – this requires ample coordination and highly efficient teamwork.

In essence, hackathon is a speedrun of a normally lengthy project, with the main intent of completing it as quickly as possible, while achieving surface-level functionalities, and under tight constraints. As a general rule of thumb, to succeed under any high pressure situation, a set of heuristics or strategies are needed to enable the participant to quickly get into the flow of things, and to start experimenting and producing results ASAP.

Introducing the hackathon mindset. Hackathon mindset is a mental framework for dealing with the multi-dimensional constraints imposed by hackathons. It is a way of approaching problem-solving and learning that is characterized by prioritization, collaboration, creativity, and time management. It involves working together with others to brainstorm ideas, prototype solutions, and iterate quickly in order to solicit feedback and iterate toward the best possible solution. It also involves thinking outside the box and being open to trying new approaches, as well as being able to prioritize tasks and manage your time effectively in order to meet deadlines. By embracing this mindset, individuals can approach upskilling–or any challenge in general–in a more dynamic and proactive way, rather than simply passively acquiring new knowledge.

Why the hackathon mindset?

When I reflected on my learnings from partaking in the hackathons, I noticed these positive benefits:

  • Increased creativity and outside-the-box thinking
  • Improved interpersonal communication and collaborative problem-solving
  • A looser mind that’s willing to experiment with new ideas
  • Better prioritization and more intentional pruning of tasks
  • Unafraid to showcase an imperfect prototype to solicit feedback
  • Calmer attitude in the face of uncertainties, obstacles, and time crunch
  • Sense of accomplishment from completing multiple milestones

These observations actually echoed many popular concepts covered in books about entrepreneurship, software development, and design thinking. For instance, the Lean Startup methodology aims to help companies quickly and efficiently develop and bring new products or services to market. The approach is based on the idea that it is better to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible, rather than trying to plan out every detail in advance (e.g. Build-Measure-Learn, MVP, Validated Learning, and Continuous Innovation).

Similarly, agile software development manifesto emphasizes flexibility, speed, and collaboration. It aims to deliver working (software) products in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment, through close partnership with internal teams and external customers. Lastly, design thinking advocates for creative confidence, embracing ambiguity, and bias towards action as a way to learn. I feel the hackathon mindset is a blend of the valuable wisdoms distilled from these different subjects and studies, but with the added benefit of grounding the practice in more realistic settings by focusing on specific projects.

I’d also like to emphasize that the hackathon mindset can apply to more than just career upskilling; it can also extend to your professional work, your side projects, or even your day-to-day chores and hobbies. I think of it as a constant reminder to reframe my goals and responsibilities – no matter large or small – as mini projects with tiny milestones that I have to complete to succeed.

The ultimate purpose for embracing this mindset

All this theorizing and deep diving into the hackathon mindset are interesting and all, but at the end of the day, I think the ultimate purpose of embracing this mindset is to try to achieve one’s goals as efficiently and effortlessly as possible. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but with an ever-growing amount of information to absorb, we need to be very intentional about both choosing how we learn and what we learn.

In this part 1, I introduced the hackathon mindset and described the benefits of embracing that hacky approach to learning. In part 2, I’ll build upon this foundation by discussing the practical implementation of these ideas in more concrete terms by borrowing various popular concepts in productivity.