2011-era CodeDay was 10% of the event it is today; we've only managed to be so successful through making incremental improvements over the course of hundreds of events.

The best way for your event to be a part of that is by debriefing your team. Here are some questions you can ask to help completely debrief the event:

Event Planning

• Venue
• How organized was the process of finding the venue? Can we speed it up next season?
• What criteria did we use to decide on this venue? Should it be changed?
• Promotion
• Which outreach channels got the most students to register?
• Which partnerships might be valuable for next season?
• Anyone we tried to partner with but couldn't? How will we outreach to them next season?
• Sponsorships
• How many sponsors did we reach out to? What was the success percentages in:
• Getting a response to your email?
• Getting someone on the phone?
• Getting a "yes?"
• Logistics
• Did we stay on-budget?
• Was there anything we forgot to buy?
• How closely did the schedule match reality?
• What should we schedule for next time?

Attendee Experience

• What was each person's favorite moment of CodeDay?
• What stressed you out/worried you the most this CodeDay?
• Setup
• Was everything ready by the time attendees arrived? Did we have too few/many volunteers for setup?
• How was the signage? Any confusion for students trying to find the venue?
• Was the venue ready for us?
• Doors through Kickoff
• How fast was kickoff? Do we need more check-in stations next time?
• What did students do while they were waiting for kickoff? Did they meet each other?
• How did the pre-kickoff icebreaker go?
• Did we start on time?
• What should be changed about the kickoff deck/video?
• How did pitches go? How could we encourage more pitches next time?
• How many students worked with pre-formed teams vs met new ones? Can we encourage these students to meet new people?
• Early Event
• How was lunch? Was there enough food?
• How were the workshops? Did they run on-time?
• Were workshop presenters prepared?
• Did students have any trouble finding ideas to work on?
• Were mentors effective? What should we train them on for next time?
• Mid-Event
• Which activites went well, and which do we want to change for next time?
• How well did our activities bring people together?
• What did attendees think of the dinner and midnight snack? Were they enough food?
• How do we encourage attendees to take more breaks?
• Did students get enough sleep? How about staff? How can we increase this?
• End-Event
• How many groups ended up presenting? Can we encourage more?
• What were the advantages/disadvantages of how we did signup?
• How quickly was A/V setup between groups?
• Did we run on schedule?
• How well did the judges understand the criteria? Did we agree with how they decided on awards?
• Post-Event
• How fast was clean-up? Is there a way to get attendees to do more?
• Did attendees take good care of the venue?
• What did the venue think?

Update Documentation

Anything go particularly well or poorly? Let us know so we can update this guide!