Examining Conflict Patterns in Hackathon Teams: A Case Study

Intragroup conflict is an important phenomenon in design collaboration, recognized to be non-uniform and dynamic with the potential of supporting team performance. This paper examines team conflict in the context of hackathons: time-bounded and accelerated design competitions. We conducted an exploratory case study of a student hackathon team over a continuous 36-hour period and identified conflict types, configurations of team members, and timing of conflict. We found that the hackathon team experienced higher rates of primarily task conflict than previous studies in more traditional design contexts. Conflict predominantly occurred between pairs, either among team leads or within subteams. We observed peaks of full-team conflict at the beginning and end of the design collaboration, and dyadic conflict in the middle. Our findings contribute to understanding of the content, people, and timing of conflict at hackathons. Ultimately, this research presents hackathons as valuable crucibles for analyzing team conflict in design collaboration.