How would you feel if you hire a handyman to make a custom bed for you, and on the first day, he assembles few wooden pieces into a platform and then never returns because he got busy with other things… Not very happy, right? Sure, the platform can be used to put a mattress and sleep temporarily but you certainly wanted much more! I personally would not only be upset about it, I will also never hire that handyman again.
Well, same happens with many MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) some times. MVPs are core to the Lean Startup principles of product creation and many times people use the term (as it is fashionable to do so) to just cut the scope – which is not what it is supposed to be. Reducing scope is definitely a big part of creating an MVP, but only a part. It requires a lot of (often) additional thinking. Let’s look at few examples –
- Your goal was to create a mobile app which works on all major Platforms, but the MVP only works on iOS. Is that a good MVP? Maybe or maybe not. Depends on how much thought was given on how the MVP – if successful – will evolve into a full product. If there was absolutely no thought given to cross-platform considerations and iOS was done only because of lack of time and resources it may require a lot of (re)work to build the full cross-platform app. Was that a good MVP then?
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- Your SaaS application was supposed to be a full multi-user program with lots of complex multi-user usecases, but the MVP you have works only in single user mode – again with no thoughts given to the various very important scenarios of a multi-user environment. I think that may not be a good MVP either.
- Your mission-critical application that deals with customers’ financial data is supposed to work in online as well as offline mode. Your MVP only solves for the online usecase with no plans whatsoever to solve for the offline mode – which for sure has a very different set of problems to deal with. Not a good MVP in my opinion.
Few months ago I came across this nice article by the fastmonkeys.com team (http://bit.ly/V0R6Dv) which talks about MVP in detail and also demonstrate the concept by this awesome image from the spotify product team. It’s worth a read.
MVPs are supposed to be Minimal (Minimum) and Viable both – and often times these two requirements are at odds with each other. Truly minimal may not be viable and truly viable may not be minimal. And that is the hard part. But many times the Minimal part is given a lot of emphasis and the Viable part is ignored. Focusing only on Minimal helps us have the Prioritization/ Resourcing conversion in the short term, but ignoring Viable will almost always cost in the long run.
Let’s also see how the Lean Startup Gurus who popularized this concept talk about it.
Eric Ries defines MVP as –
that version of the product that enables a full turn of the Build-Measure-Learn loop with a minimum amount of effort and the least amount of development time
Steve Blank defines MVP as –
a concise summary of the smallest possible group of features that will work as a stand-alone product while still solving at least the “core” problem and demonstrating the product’s value
In other words, MVP is a mini version of the product that has only a select few features of the envisioned product and can help validate one or more hypotheses.
So the key things here to think through for an MVP are –
- Are there hypotheses that you are trying to test and validate with it?
- Have you built (or do you have) a mechanism to measure the results?
- Do you plan to iterate through the “Build-Measure-Learn” cycle in your effort to the final product creation?
If the answer to these questions (and especially to #3) is “no”, you may just be using the term MVP to call what should be otherwise called a ‘reduced scope’.
In addition, there are some other implications of the thought process behind MVPs. From one of the earlier examples above, say you create a new feature for single-user mode of your existing application and don’t solve for multi-user usecase. Who are you leaving behind? Chances are: your higher value customers (assuming multi-user implies higher value); which is so counter-intuitive.
If we are cutting scope only because of lack of time or resources, and not to follow the lean model of development iterating from MVP on to the full version through learning cycles, let’s just not use the term MVP.
MVP is not the same as ‘reduced scope’.
Your thoughts?
Thanks for an insightful comment Ashu. MVP is being abused/ misused a lot and so are few other good concepts/ paradigms, an example being ‘Design Driven’. Hope we will start distinguishing a right usage from a wrong one with some awareness and practice.
Peace !
Great article Abhishek!
Till the last century software engineering methodologies believed in huge upfront design and planning with a lot of details thought out well in advance. With an intent that engineering could be done with precision and quality be measured for 100% conformity to design.
Those were the days when reliable software engineering was still in infancy and the principles had been adopted from construction and industrial production which were the best reference point at that stage.
But that approach had a cost involved “opportunity cost”. The upfront analysis was time consuming and a delay to market meant loosing out the entire market to the first mover in the segment. Because users once impressed are doubly difficult to re-convince.
The approach also had the risk of predicting the consumers expectations and behaviour, way off the mark .. as Steve Jobs once said the “users most of the time don’t know what they want”. I ( as user ) may beg to differ, but its often true, especially when the product is a novelty ( path breaking ) and as a user you don’t know the possibilities and potential. Clarity comes with time and in the light of prior experiences.
And then came the concept of Agile development that was about incremental development and adaptability. The idea was to collaborate with users and go to them early with the core functionality “the breakthrough innovation” and then grow organically as the user demands and as the market forces shape it.
Agreed that MVPs is about minimal and viable but it should be designed for scaling, re-factoring, redesigning, optimizing and reshaping with least future cost and ability to keep running while its being recreated.
aka Robert C. Martin’s SOLID design principles.
YAGNI or KISS or GRASP or whatever other jargon, it all boils down to understanding where the fine boundary of requirement and over-engineering is.
I feel that any new initiative needs to start with a desire to solve a core + pertinent user issue upfront. That’s the crux. That’s what the solution stands for. Like Google is for search … with frills attached.
People like you “PMs” are needed for their knowledge of how the market is shaping up and make sure the design and engineering team are aware of future prospects and areas of variability so that the design is flexible enough to accommodate that from the very start.
Minimum Viable Products are “Minimum Viable Products” not at the cost effectiveness, efficiency or a loss of user value.
Every release counts. One release to market with a substandard product and the loss is not just monetary .. it’s a loss of faith, the brand value and as as you mentioned in your article’s beginning .. loss of relationship with the customer / client.