My Grand Prix Experience

[clmc9601]

What is the Alteryx Grand Prix? I’d describe it as a wild collision of professional sporting event and coding competition.

Imagine with me: an auditorium fills with thousands of excited spectators, sporting all kinds of Alteryx swag, of course. Lights flash overhead, upbeat music plays in the background, and the room buzzes with excited chatter and clinking of bottles and cans from the open bar. On the keynote stage stand five computer workstations, their Alteryx workflows shared on the big screens. One workflow is mine!

How did I get there, you ask? Great question!

Preparation and the qualifiers

I signed up for the Grand Prix qualifiers about six weeks before Inspire (every year, there’s a community post with registration information). I spent the next three weeks preparing for the qualifying round.

During the qualifying round, I was at home racing live virtually (camera off) against the other competitors. We received 10 or so starting workflows and one hour to complete as many as we could. The workflows were worth different amounts of points based on their solution difficulty, and they covered a variety of topics like prep and blend, spatial, and predictive analytics. The goal is to earn as many points as you can in an hour.

In the qualifiers, time management is crucial. I knew I should self-impose a time limit—after an allotted amount of time, I forced myself to pause and move on to the next workflow. Since the goal is to earn the most points, I couldn’t afford to spend a large portion of my time on any single workflow. It’s hard to move past the time and effort I’d already put into that workflow, but I knew those were sunk costs I had to ignore.

I enjoyed the qualifiers because I love to problem solve and to think fast. I don't normally get rewarded for speed, which is understandable because fast solving is usually not helpful for long-term, maintainable solutions. The qualifiers are a fun way to try out your speed-solving from the comfort of your home office. Plus, there’s nothing to lose!

I was thrilled when I got the news that I had made it to the finals. One of five finalists! I couldn’t believe it! I knew I would have to practice solving with distractions. My normal focus environment is in complete silence… which is basically the opposite of the Grand Prix stage in front of thousands of cheering spectators. In an attempt to simulate that environment, I assembled a playlist of loud cheering noises and some random sounds like clown horns, anything that would distract me. I listened to that playlist while I practiced.

The crowd at the live event—lots of cheering!

There are a few previous Grand Prix workflows and other similar workflows (< 15-minute solutions) available as weekly challenges on the Community. Usually, the solutions will flow, so aim to be efficient in understanding the problem and guessing what to try next. You don't want to get stuck and waste time doing nothing. If you find yourself stuck, you just have to try something else.

For me, this practice was helpful for preventing creative block. If I got stuck, I had to ask questions like what other tools or strategies are typically used in this case? What next baby steps could I use to nudge the data closer to my intended outcome?

The finals

On the day of the Grand Prix, our call time was about an hour before the race. They gave us 30 minutes to read the prompts that would be in our workflows. We didn’t get to see the data (we could imagine!), but reading the prompts beforehand helped level out any reading challenges.

Then they whisked us backstage, and we waited for the next 30 minutes. My excitement and nervousness grew as I heard people filling the auditorium! They started calling the racers onto the stage. One thing I learned from acting in theater in high school is that at curtain call, you always run, not walk. Even Broadway stars run when it’s time to bow. And so naturally, when they introduced my name, I ran out on stage with a big smile and waved.

We had five racers on stage, and we each had a respective pit crew member. The pit crew told us when to start and stop, and they opened each workflow since we were not allowed to touch the computer until it was time to race. The announcers were talking, and I was looking out over the audience, but I couldn’t see many people because the stage lights were shining in my face.

We wore noise-canceling headphones with music during the race, in part so we wouldn’t hear the announcers explain the answer. I knew I wanted to assemble a playlist of fast-tempo music to increase my solving speed. I'm a classically trained pianist, so I easily align with the music’s beat. Listening to the fast playlist also probably increased my heart rate and adrenaline.

And we were off!

I was in the middle of the pack for the first two rounds of the competition. I was putting 100% of my focus into solving each problem step by step. Enjoying my experience was more important to me than winning. I used up all my brain energy—after the adrenaline wore off, I could barely form coherent sentences for the rest of the evening.

The third round was very, very close. I knew it would be important for me to cache my workflow with the predictive tools because calculating each model takes a long time. Everyone on stage was qualified to win, so I was honored and excited to be a part of it.

And then… I finished first! That was one of the most exciting moments of my life so far. It was so meaningful to get to win in front of most of my analytics mentors and my parents—people who have been cheering me on for a long time.

Conclusion

The Grand Prix is my favorite event of Inspire, so I hope you'll consider attending and joining in the fun! And if you haven’t been to a Grand Prix before and are unsure what's happening once you're there during the solving time, feel free to walk up near the front. There will be clusters of noisy, excited people who usually know what's happening. You can ask any of them for their commentary, and I'm sure someone will be happy to let you in on the fun,

If you haven’t registered to attend Inspire, you can do so here. See you there!