What I Learned When Our Hackathon Project Fell Apart

Not every project is portfolio-perfect. This hackathon was messy, chaotic, and full of surprises,  and I’m proud of what it taught me about resilience and leadership.

48 Hour Hackathon - Leading Through Uncertaintity

The Situation

I joined a 48-hour hackathon with a distributed team I had never worked with before. From the beginning, we faced significant challenges, technical platform issues, conflicting expectations, and varying skill levels. Tasks were delayed, collaboration was inconsistent, and several participants disengaged or left entirely. By the final stretch, only three of us remained working toward a deliverable.

Role: UX Designer & Team Leader  

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‍Duration: 48 hours  

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‍Team: 8 participants, multiple time zones  

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‍Challenge: Design a mental health app in a high-pressure, remote hackathon environment

Overview/TL;DR

I led a multi-timezone high-pressure hackathon team through extreme uncertainty, using structure, clarity, and adaptability to deliver a cohesive MVP presentation despite losing most of the team in the 48 hour span of the challenge.

Established clear communication, workflow, and priorities to stabilize a disengaging team

Defined a realistic MVP and shifted focus from perfection to cohesion under time pressure

Filled skill gaps and facilitated accountability to maintain progress

Delivered a clear presentation of problem framing, user flow, core features, and design vision

The Challenge - Create an AI Therapist App.

To stabilize the uncertainty and create forward momentum, I focused on clarity, structure, and achievable scope.

Create Structure

Set up Discord for communication, FigJam for planning, and pin key tasks.

Prioritize MVP

Define the minimum viable product features and focuse the team on achievable goals.

Create Structure

Run quick check-ins to clarify responsibilities and progress.

Fill Gaps

Take on critical tasks, including prototype elements, when others can’t complete them.

Defined MVPs

Assigned tasks

Painpoints, for the users and the team.

As we applied structure, our team made progress, confusion decreased, tasks were reassigned realistically, and the MVP became clearer.

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‍However, at this point, we were losing members, teammates were forgetting about the MVPs and working on their own things.

Competitor Analysis

Somehow We Managed - Adaptability

The final result wasn’t what we initially imagined, but it represented resilience, adaptability, and collaborative effort under highly constrained circumstances.

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Although we didn’t produce a polished final prototype, we delivered a clear presentation outlining:

Our problem framing and target audience

MVP user flow and core features

The design vision and reasoning behind decisions

My high fidelity subscription screens

General User screens