Another blog on MVP
Quick thoughts on how we can rethink MVP
I know what you are thinking — “wow another article on MVP, just what we need”. But bear with me, I’ll try to keep this short, sweet, and to the point and hopefully you’ll think a little differently about MVP next time you hear it!
Vision, Strategy, and MVP
These are the big three things I’m going to cover here. I always hear Product Owners, business owners, team members, etc. talk about MVP but they rarely understand the larger vision and how the product they are building fits into it! I’ve found working at large companies, the vision is usually lost within the many layers of an organization, which is just a shame. Vision should be something that leaders want to shout from the rooftops and have every employee be shouting it too! Now maybe it’s not because of the layers of an organization, maybe it’s because a vision is only thought of as a “product vision”, where I would argue that it should be much broader than that. The vision should be what you are trying to achieve, it needs to be aspirational and inspirational. The product is part of how you plan on delivering towards that vision. Then the strategy is how you will get there, which is where MVP finally comes into play. Let’s break this down some more with examples.
The Vision
Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Now this is what I’m talking about! This vision is kickass for several reasons. This vision isn’t just about what Tesla wants to accomplish, it’s about the change they want to see. Their vision is problem centered, the world is going to run out of non-renewable resources, their vision is focused on fixing this problem. Their customer is pretty clear in their vision, it’s the entire world, which is amazing. And lastly, it’s concrete, they want to accelerate our transition to different forms of energy.
Not sure where to start with a vision? Identify a problem you are trying to solve, who you are solving this for, and how you are going to solve that problem. These are the key factors in making a vision. A great toolkit to get started I’ve found is the RadicalProduct toolkit, check it out here! https://www.radicalproduct.com/toolkit
The Strategy
Let’s take a look at the cheekily named, “Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan” https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me, specifically the very end:
So, in short, the master plan is:
Build sports car
Use that money to build an affordable car
Use that money to build an even more affordable car
While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options
This strategy is also pretty awesome. If we keep the vision in mind, accelerating the world towards sustainable energy, this is Musk’s plan to get the world there. Each step in his strategy is a deliberate step towards delivering on the vision. Each increment isn’t set in stone, but it’s a guideline towards what he is working towards. This strategy explains (simply, more in the actual article) what value is slowly being delivered over time.
The MVP
I’ve seen lately, we’ve recently began using the term MMP instead of MVP. We might as well start using MRC. The term MVP had just lost it’s meaning, we had been using MVP to just describe what the first iteration of our project would be, and then our next deliverable in our project plan would be building onto MVP. This isn’t what MVP should be at all, so it’s no wonder why people have a bad taste in their mouth after working this way! So what should MVP really mean? I believe at organizations, big or small, MVP should define the smallest product a customer can interact with (and fall in love with!) that begins delivering on the vision. Henrik Kniberg (maker of the famous Spotify engineering culture video) makes the claim:
“Some people think Viable means “something I can test and get feedback from”, others think it means “something the customer can actually use”
I love this quote. This is where Product Owners get to shine. It’s the Product Owner’s responsibility to determine what the customer can actually use and at the same time continue to get feedback and test with! Making an MVP product that a customer looks at for the first time and doesn’t even want to use is worthless, but making too many features and functionality is overkill, so it’s the PO’s responsibility to make this balance and create the MVP. This is also one of the hardest parts of the Product Owner role. You constantly need to keep the vision in mind and let it guide your MVP decisions.
Alright, enough rambling, let’s wrap this up.
Key Takeaways
- Make an awesome vision, let everyone know what it is and let it inspire them to do great stuff
- Create a product strategy, build this incrementally and make sure it has some boundaries but is a little flexible
- Define an MVP that customers will love using, but is still open-ended enough to continue to test and learn with
- Make awesome products & have fun
Thanks for reading!
Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
