The archive · Work & Ways of Doing · Operational decision · 2014–2015
Microsoft's //oneweek turns a global hackathon into its idea engine
New CEO Satya Nadella replaces the annual all-hands with a two-day global hackathon; 12,000 employees vote the winners into the product.
Microsoft
What it had to solve
When Satya Nadella took over Microsoft in 2014 he wanted to change how the company worked, not just what it sold. The old ritual was a single September all-hands beamed from Redmond; he replaced it with //oneweek, a global week starting with a leadership forum, a company-wide hackathon and a product fair.
How it works
In July 2014, three months into Satya Nadella's tenure as CEO, Microsoft held its first-ever companywide hackathon as the centerpiece of //oneweek. Instead of the usual single annual meeting streamed from Redmond, the week combined a leadership forum, two days of hacking and a product fair, deliberately global in scope.
The invitation was to everyone, not just engineers. Frank X. Shaw, then corporate vice president of communications, argued that growth hacking 'applies to people in marketing, finance, engineering and sales too.' Teams of all sizes formed across divisions — one accessibility team of 20-plus members drew people from Xbox, Surface, Cloud and Enterprise, and Microsoft Research in China.
At the finale, employees had submitted more than 62,000 votes and over 3,000 teams had participated, with 12,000-plus registrants from 230 cities and 80 countries. Nadella announced Ability Eye Gaze as grand-prize winner: a project using Surface and Kinect so that people living with ALS could power their own device on and off instead of asking for help.
Leaders framed the event as a cultural instrument. 'The hackathon gives us the opportunity to build that muscle,' said Shaw, and Jeff Ramos of Engineering Excellence called it 'the ultimate suggestion box' — an idea hub where projects could move from hack to product.
Why it lands
- Opening the hackathon to the whole company let ideas cross division lines — the winning team mixed Xbox, Surface, cloud and research talent.
- Employee voting (62,000+ votes) made prioritization democratic, so the outcome reflected the company's own sense of what mattered.
- Tying it to a new fiscal year and replacing the old all-hands gave a cultural change a concrete ritual instead of a memo.
- The winner addressed a real human need, giving the event a story that made the practice feel worth repeating.
What it did
More than 12,000 employees registered from 230 cities in 80 countries. Grand-prize winner Ability Eye Gaze — a team of two dozen people using Surface and Kinect to give people with ALS control of their own device — went on to shape Microsoft's accessibility roadmap, and the hackathon became an annual institution.
What you can take
Give every employee the same open stage and let peers vote: a company-wide hackathon surfaces ideas no strategy meeting would, and shipping winners turns the event into culture.
Since then
Ability Eye Gaze's win fed into Microsoft's accessibility work, and the hackathon became a recurring institution: //oneweek returned annually, grew into Microsoft's OneWeek with tens of thousands of participants in later years, and inspired similar company-wide hackathons across the industry. Internally it evolved into a standing source of product ideas, with winning teams getting resources to carry their hacks forward.
Sources
- Microsoft kicks off //oneweek and you won't believe the hacks!
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reveals grand prize winner of //oneweek Hackathon: Ability Eye Gaze
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