Crafting the MVP

Estimated Time: 30 minutes

First impressions matter and in many aspects of life, carefully tending to the first impression is critical.

Yet, in software product development, we have to balance our desire for polish with our desire to learn. The only way to truly learn if a product will meet user needs is to give the product to users. So, most software teams today follow a lean approach which advocates for releasing a bare-minimum version of the product, learning from users, then iterating based on user feedback. In the last lesson, we discussed the danger of big bang delivery and advocated for small iterative releases. In this lesson, we'll explore how to craft an MVP.

The Skateboard

The drawing above is adapated from a popular blog by Henrik Kniberg where he explains how to think about the concept of an MVP. It addresses one of the most common questions about MVPs -- how to deliver value in an iterative manner. Kniberg argues that you should think about your product development like the image on the bottom, where you MVP is a skateboard, rather than the image on the top. Watch the video below to learn more about why.

We learn a few key lessons about MVPs from the video:

• The MVP is the earliest testable product. The main goal at this point is to learn
• Think big, but deliver in small, functionally valuable increments
• Iterative approach helps us find the simplest way to solve the customer's problem, and often leads to different but better products than originally envisioned

Ideate: what's the skateboard?

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