Wikimedia Hackathon 2015/Lessons Learned

This page is a combination of feedback from a survey sent to participants and ideas from the organizers.

This page will focus heavily on improvements for next time and things that went poorly. However remember that 97.5% of the people that responded to the feedback survey stated that their overall experience with the hackathon was either "Positive" or "Very Positive."

Suggested changes for the next Wikimedia Hackathon

(Main suggestions for next time, more coming soon)
 * Buddy system again, will be optional not forced. Add buddy system participation questions to registration.
 * Opt in during registration for name, interests and contact information to be put on a wiki so participants can talk in advance of hackathon

Background on Feedback Survey

 * rfarrand & acella created the feedback survey
 * The Feedback Survey was sent out to participants on June 4th, 2015
 * The Feedback Survey closed on August 12th, 2015
 * The survey received 81/200 responses (40.5% response rate)

Considerations for Next Year
This section is based on the fill-in-the-blank/comment sections of the feedback form. Some of these comments will be contradictory. We are mostly trying to include common themes and issues that were felt by groups of people. This section is a bit more subjective than the #Data section below and suggestions may be paraphrased and combined with each other.

(improvements to this section coming soon)

Information from Newcomers, how could we have supported them better?

 * More sessions with information on how to actually get started instead of just an overview of what is possible would be appreciated
 * Intro sessions for each of the main areas of work would have been appreciated, or some easy way for a newcomer to understand all of their options.
 * Request for documentation about what to expect if attending a hackathon for the first time. (This has already been mostly completed since the hackathon here)
 * The buddy system was helpful, WMF staff could have been more productive in reaching out to new volunteers instead of the reverse
 * People were available and receptive to helping newcomers, but sometimes it was hard to figure out who to ask for help

Feedback on Sessions, Tracks, Schedule
(coming soon)

Most common themes:

 * Last minute “haphazard” pairing does not work, it should be done in advance or more mindfully. Don’t call people onto stange and awkwardly make poor pairings.
 * Buddy system is great, nice to work with new people, helpful
 * Make it optional, felt forced, specifically WMF staff did not like to be forced into it
 * Unclear Expectations, define goals more clearly.

Other ideas and themes:

 * Would be nice if experienced participants would reach out more proactively
 * Share a room with your buddy (optional)
 * Pair people up with projects instead of people, that way you can meet multiple new people in a structured way
 * Create an easy and positive way to hand off buddies if the fit does not work out, also provide documentation on best practices for mentorship and what to do in situations where things are not going right.
 * Add buddy system to registration form, and publicize information to  help people pair themselves by publicly providing more information about intended work at hackathon
 * Buddies might distract mentors for getting their work done or collaborating with other people
 * Newbie focused social events so they can meet each other too
 * Birds of a Feather (BoF) board instead of buddy system

Logistics
(coming soon)

Other
(coming soon)

Data
(planning to reformat this section, but if you are reading it now the data is formatted as: Answer, # of people responding with that answer, % of responses that answer got out of everyone who answered that question)

Supporting Newbies
(Only people who were attending a Wikimedia Hackathon for the first time were directed to answer this question)