Brief examples: hiring challenge, internal hackathon, business game.
A good brief covers nine items on one page: situation, problem, constraints, materials, deliverable, essential rules, weighted criteria, timeline and prize. Below are three complete briefs to adapt, for a hiring challenge, an internal hackathon and a university business game. Each is followed by a short note on why it is built that way. The companies are fictional and the numbers are made up.
What goes into a good brief?
Nine items, always in the same order. How to write the first five is covered in section 4 of the step-by-step guide; weights are covered in the guide to judging criteria.
| Item | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Situation | Who the company is and what is happening |
| Problem | What the question is, in one sentence |
| Constraints | What cannot change |
| Materials | Which data and documents teams receive |
| Deliverable | What gets handed in, in which format, within which limits |
| Essential rules | Teams, use of AI, deadlines, ownership of the work |
| Weighted criteria | How submissions are judged, decided before publishing |
| Timeline | When it opens, when work is due, when results come out |
| Prize | What the winners get, and what everyone else gets |
Example 1: a hiring challenge for customer service
Example, fictional company.
| Item | Content |
|---|---|
| Situation | A sports goods e-commerce business in Bologna with 40 employees receives about 600 support requests a week. Since it started selling abroad, average response time has gone from 1 day to 3. It is hiring a junior customer service specialist. |
| Problem | How do we answer the most common requests within 24 hours without doubling the team? |
| Constraints | Same helpdesk software; no new paid tools; the brand's tone is direct and informal. |
| Materials | 50 anonymized requests, today's 5 standard replies, last quarter's response times. |
| Deliverable | A 2-page analysis with the 3 main causes of delay; 3 rewritten standard replies; a one-page proposal for one change to test for a month. |
| Essential rules | Individual. About 6 hours of work over 7 days. AI allowed if you state what you used it for. Ownership of the submitted work stated in the rules, visible before sign-up. |
| Weighted criteria | Analysis of the requests 30%; quality of the replies 30%; feasibility of the proposal 25%; clarity 15%. |
| Timeline | Day 1 brief out, questions open; day 3 answers posted for everyone; day 7 deadline at 6 pm; week 2 review and invitations. |
| Prize | A final interview with the head of customer service for the people selected. For everyone who submits: a verifiable certificate and individual notes. |
Why it is built this way. The deliverable is individual because a hiring challenge assesses how each person works. The hours are few and stated up front: candidates are not paid, so the task has to fit the time given. The criteria mirror the job's daily work: understand a request, answer it well, improve a process. More on the hiring challenge page.
Example 2: an internal hackathon on quotes
Example, fictional company.
| Item | Content |
|---|---|
| Situation | A window and door manufacturer in the Veneto region, with 220 employees, sells through 150 dealers. A made-to-measure quote currently takes 4 working days on average; dealers ask for 2. |
| Problem | How do we bring made-to-measure quotes down to 2 days without more measurement errors? |
| Constraints | Current ERP system; no customer data leaves the company; proposals must be testable within 3 months. |
| Materials | 30 anonymized quotes with the time spent at each step, the process map, last year's most common errors. |
| Deliverable | A 10-slide deck and a prototype (on paper, in a spreadsheet or in a no-code tool); a 5-minute pitch. |
| Essential rules | Teams of 3-5 from at least two departments. Everything happens in working hours, with the deadline at 5:30 pm on day two. AI allowed only with company-approved tools. The rules say from the start that the two proposals picked will get an owner and a decision within 45 days. |
| Weighted criteria | Effect on turnaround time 30%; feasibility with current systems 30%; value for dealers 25%; pitch 15%. |
| Timeline | 3 weeks before: announcement and sign-ups; 1 week before: materials; days 1-2: work from 9 am to 5:30 pm; day 3: pitches to management; within 45 days: decision. |
| Prize | The winning team presents its pilot to management and gets half a day a week for a month to build it with the owner. For every team that submits: a verifiable certificate. |
Why it is built this way. The problem has a starting number and a target, so the jury knows what "it works" means. Feasibility weighs as much as impact because the idea has to move forward. The owner and decision date are set in advance, so the follow-up does not depend on someone's goodwill after the event (see after the hackathon). Working hours keep the event inside normal work rather than on top of it. See also the internal hackathon page.
Example 3: a university business game for a gym chain
Example, fictional company.
| Item | Content |
|---|---|
| Situation | A chain of 9 neighborhood gyms between Naples and Salerno has 7,000 members. 40% of new members do not renew after the first three months. |
| Problem | How do we cut non-renewals at three months by a quarter, with €15,000 and without lowering prices? |
| Constraints | Prices stay the same; €15,000 over six months; current staff. |
| Materials | 12 months of anonymized data on sign-ups, attendance and renewals; the price list; results of an internal survey of 300 members. |
| Deliverable | One per stage, each with its own deadline on Friday at 6 pm. Week 1: a diagnosis in 5 slides. Week 2: two options compared on cost and risk. Week 3: a response to a twist. Week 4: final plan and a 10-minute presentation. |
| Essential rules | Teams of 4-5 students from the university, who sign in with their university email. AI allowed if you state what for. No contact with real members. Each stage builds on the previous one. |
| Weighted criteria | Reading the data 25%; quality of the options 25%; response to the twist 20%; feasibility within budget 20%; presentation 10%. |
| Timeline | Mid-October to mid-November, outside exam periods. Four deadlines, one per stage: Friday of weeks 1, 2, 3 and 4 at 6 pm. The twist arrives by announcement on the Monday of week 3: a low-cost gym opens 300 meters from the biggest site. |
| Prize | An internship interview for the members of the winning team. For everyone who submits: a verifiable certificate and a portfolio. Course credits only if the course allows it. |
Why it is built this way. The stages show how a team reasons over time, and the week 3 twist shows whether it can change its plan. The timeline sits inside the semester, away from exams. Anonymized data and the ban on contacting members protect the company and its customers. The format is explained on the business game page. The university side is in the guide to university hackathons.
A blank template to copy
Situation: [who the company is, what is happening, one number]
Problem: How do we [verb] [what] for [whom], with [constraint]?
Constraints: [budget, time, tools, what cannot change]
Materials: [anonymized data, documents, access]
Deliverable: [what, format, page or minute limit]
Essential rules: [alone / teams of N], [AI: banned / declared / free],
[deadline with date and time], [who owns the submitted work]
Criteria, weights: [criterion] [weight]%, [criterion] [weight]%, [criterion] [weight]%
Timeline: [launch], [questions], [deadline], [results]
Prize: [interview / internship / day with the team]
For everyone who submits: [certificate, individual notes]
Write your own brief with MARA
If you would rather not start from a blank page, open the MARA builder. Paste a job description or describe the problem. MARA AI asks a few questions, proposes two directions and writes the full challenge: story, brief, rules, evaluation criteria, deliverables and timeline. The first draft arrives in minutes. You edit everything and nothing goes live until you approve it. Drafts are free and unlimited. Your people judge the submissions on criteria fixed in advance: MARA gives no scores and does not rank anyone. Back to the home page.
Frequently asked questions.
01What should a hackathon brief include?
The situation, the problem as one question, the constraints, the materials and the deliverable. A complete challenge also needs the essential rules, weighted criteria, a timeline and a prize, all decided before publishing.
02How long should a brief be?
Long enough for a team to start work without asking for context. Each of the three examples on this page fits in one table; data and documents go in the materials.
03Can I use these examples for my own challenge?
Yes. The companies are fictional and the numbers made up: replace the context, figures, constraints and prize with your own before publishing.
04Is a hiring challenge brief different from a hackathon brief?
Yes. In a hiring challenge the deliverable is usually individual and in proportion to the role, because you are assessing how each person works. In an internal hackathon, what matters is the company's problem and who will take the idea forward.
05Will MARA write the brief for me?
It writes the first draft: MARA AI asks a few questions, proposes two directions and writes the full challenge. You edit everything and nothing goes live until you approve it. Your people judge the submissions: MARA gives no scores.
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