A hackathon is a space for innovation, co-creation and learning. Ten teams, formed on-site, were given 24 hours to resolve 4 challenges given by the 1st Norman social landlord, just one year after the 1st social housing hackathon dedicated to service quality. In total, 71 people took part in the hackathon.

Before the discussions, Isaac GETZ, Professor of Management at ESCP Europe and founder of the corporate liberation movement gave an inspiring lecture about “Managerial innovation: rethinking organisation to unleash a sense of initiative and unlock the potential in everyone”.

With the support of facilitators and particularly of Guillaume Gille, co-coach of the French national handball team, the teams then worked on the challenges they had chosen: digital transformation, the role of tomorrow’s managers, associating with employees in decision-making, collective autoregulation. A jury of experts was asked to evaluate the pertinence of ideas. The two winning teams will see their solutions incubated by Habitat 76 and will be invited at the “Fabrique du changement” in Nantes, the annual event on managerial innovation.

Four challenges were identified:

Challenge no. 1: How can we take advantage of digital development and use it to improve daily life?

With the emergence of digital technology, the manager must become a true team ambassador of these developments. How can we apprehend digital technology and transform it into an opportunity and no longer a risk?

Challenge no. 2: How can we promote collective autoregulation?

How can we succeed in fostering autonomy and responsibility in a team to enable it to organise itself? How should management be positioned in such organisations? Practically, what does this imply for a manager and the team’s daily life: collective regulation, conflict management, arbitration, team building.

Challenge no. 3: At a time when reporting lines are flattening, what becomes of the manager?

The organisational model of traditional reporting lines, inherited from scientific management, must evolve! We welcome cross-disciplinary and collaborative approaches which promote autonomy, initiatives, empowerment and trust. The manager would no longer be there to control, supervise, or say what needs to be done. So what would the manager do instead?

Challenge no. 4: Participatory governance, how to associate employees in the firm’s decision-making.

Are you convinced that decision-making bodies must be reinvented and opened-up further to durably act on the employees' involvement? How can collective decision-making principles be applied to organisations wherein decision-making abilities remain a strong sign of authority?