📓 Your guide to getting your manager on board for the next hackathon ✨

Samuel Pais

Another great hackathon is coming up and you're dying to attend, but there's another battle you need to win first: convincing your manager! ⚔️

That's why we created this guide. With its help, you can create your game plan to make sure you attend the next hackathon. By the way, these steps are not limited to hackathons, so you can use them for other events too :)

Introducing the opportunity 💬

This is all about how you introduce the hackathon opportunity. Pitch it engagingly.
Instead of "I would like to attend this event", say something like "I have been invited to this great opportunity", "Spryker is organizing this special tech event that we can participate in".

Additional arguments you can use to communicate the value of a hackathon include:

• Face-to-face learning experience - Teaming up with others and facing a challenge is an experience that can't be replicated in a virtual meeting.
• Spryker experts at your fingertips - attending a hackathon is a great opportunity to interact directly with key technology stakeholders.
• Engage with your peers - A few event formats give you access to your peers when it comes to the technology you use. Networking with them is a great source of inspiration.
• The chance to make a difference - hackathons feed Spryker's innovation pipeline, meaning your ideas can become part of our technology.
• Spotlight on you and your company - the icing on the cake: the best ideas have the chance to be promoted and showcased at Spryker Excite.

Remove doubts & fears ❌😱

Participating in an event can create a sense of risk in your manager, as your valuable time will be allocated to the hackathon, which could negatively impact open to-do's. Here's how you can combat these doubts and fears and ensure that everyone, including your manager, can sleep at night while you enjoy a slice of pizza while coding with other developers.

• Check if there are any clashing dates around the time of the hackathon. If so, find ways to make sure they don't interfere with each other.
• Ask your colleagues & team if there's a chance that some of your tasks could be done by someone else.
• See if some of your activities could be done in advance to create the opportunity to participate in the hackathon without compromising.
• Illustrate how spending a few days at the hackathon will have a long-term impact that's worth pursuing.

Landing the eagle 🦅

Your initial pitch was great, and being aware of the consequences shows a great deal of self-awareness. Now it's time to take it home by going the extra mile and demonstrating the value of the hackathon to your manager and team.

Suggest to your manager that you would be happy to give everyone a quick summary of the hackathon in the following stand-up. Explain that, as a delegate, you can act as a multiplier internally, sharing the knowledge and passing on your new-found insights to everyone else.

You can also offer to do a bit of employer branding at the event: share your experience on LinkedIn, for example, while wearing your company T-shirt.

And there you have it: a guide to help you persuade your manager to let you attend the next hackathon 😁

Let me know what you think and share any additional tips on how you convince your manager to attend great events!

Cheers - Sam 🧑🏻‍🚀

Lauren Kulwicki

Love this!! 🤩