Planning and chaos - reflections from a hackathon

Hi Reader

A couple of weeks ago, the phenomenal team at BabesGotBytes approached me to run some webinars for their Innovation Challenge2025 hackathon teams.

They wanted to help their teams get better at planning — for an extremely short project with a significant number of unknowns — and then to get the most out of their presentations, after very little sleep.

I love helping people make sense out of messiness — and hackathons tend to be very messy, before it all comes together at the end!
And this is one of those scenarios where specific instructions won’t help — so we need to base the thinking in principles.

In the planning webinar, we explored how to see all the work that needs doing, using wireframes as a guide. And from the tasks, how to find what we don’t know, and need to learn in a short space of time!

We also talked about sharing the load when the team has uneven skills — which is always the case: that’s what makes a team!

In the webinar on presentations, we discussed telling the story rather than explaining the tech: how do we make sure the audience can connect with the solution you worked so hard to deliver?

I don’t always get to see the outcomes of skills webinars, so it was truly an honour to participate as a judge on Saturday. I loved the innovation I saw.

• Making website vulnerability easy to understand and check — absolutely essential in the age of vibe coded apps.
• Escrow for Facebook marketplace — solving the trust issue is brilliant!
• Spaza shop / informal trading payments utilising in-person facial recognition — solving the device challenge and the fraud element.
• An on-hover browser extension that categorises risk before you click on a link — solving the uncertainty/trust issue for phishing and trackers (and I wasn’t unhappy to see a well known search engine with many trackers flagged amber!)

Seeing the stories come alive — centred on very real scenarios, with risks we’re all exposed to, and very viable solutions — was a joy!
And a testament to the effort, focus and connection the teams put in, in an amazingly short space of time.

When we go into a chaotic space, we need a mechanism for navigating, guided by patterns for success — rather than a rigid process that falls apart under pressure.

And huge congratulations to

​Phindiwe Nqanqaru and BabesGotBytes NPC for the amazing impact they are making!

If you have any questions about running a hackathon - or you're interested in other innovation resources, get in touch!

Cara Turner Innovation & Agile Coach M: +27 84 500 4425 ​E: coach@caraturner.com | www.caraturner.com​

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