A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is defined on Wikipedia as follows: “In product development, the minimum viable product is the product with the highest return on investment versus risk. It is the sweet spot between products without the required features that fail immediately when shipped and the products with too many features that cut return and increase risk. The term was coined and defined by Frank Robinson,and popularised by Steve Blank, and Eric Ries] It may also involve carrying out market analysis beforehand.” In short, it is a (often first) product with all fundamental features, from which to elaborate, and which can grow into a full product.
Here, Gerry Claps, very nicely illustrates it with a donut. Beautiful.
Still on twitter, every now and then the following image passes by (for example in this tweet by user testing). Can we please trash this image, or at least stop sharing it? It is wrong. Misleading.
Yes, developing a MVP is not the same as developing a sequence of elements which eventually combine into a product. A wheel does not excite or interest a user wanting a personal transporter like a car, as illustrated by the first line.
Instead, developing a MVP is about developing the vision. This is not the same as developing a sequence of intermediate visions, especially not, of these are valuable products in itself. I am not sure a skateboard will excite or interest a user wanting a personal transporter like a car, as illustrated by the second line. Basically, if you develop a skateboard as MVP, and test it with customers, you would be overwhelmed about the response, trash original vision (or at least stall it) and become skateboard-king.
So, in my opinion, developing a MVP means developing a sequence of prototypes through which you explore what is key for your product idea and what can be omitted. This means that if you are planning to develop a personal transporter like a car, the very first item you develop will be a personal transporter like a car, but stripped down to what you think at the time of developing the prototype is the bare minimum. Testing and sounding may result into a new prototype etc until you have your product which you feel is minimally viable.
Nowhere in developing a personal transporter like a car, you end up developing a full motorcycle, and I seriously doubt that the starting point will be a skate-board or a children’s scooter. In my vision, a MVP is as shown below. What do you think?
I asked the same question, ‘what do you think’ to my friend Tom, and he answered simply; ‘well, that depends on whether you look at the UX or not’. This resulted in a bit of discussion, and the outcome basically was that if you are developing an end-user product, then the user experience should be key from the start and any technical considerations not directly related to the user experience can be – for now – ignored. To illustrate that important point, I changed the first image of the last row and replaced it by a situation where there is not yet an engine, and instead, people are pushing the care. Basically, applying the Wizard of Oz methodology to car design.
So, what do you think?
OK. Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
Totally agree and thank you for this post. I have also been slightly annoyed with the widely used \\”skateboard-MVP-analogy\\” which is about throw-away prototyping. Software development however is much more about evolutionary prototyping.
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It depends what the requirements were. For example, was it essential to have weather protection or the ability to transport multiple people? If not then then first example (scooter, bike, motorbike, car) would make sense. If yes, then the second example makes more sense. For me this highlights how important it is to understand the requirements and ask the customer not to provide a solution. Instead of saying \”I want a car\” I want my customers to express the behaviours they need. E.g. \”I want to be able to safely transport at least two people distances of up to 100 miles within 3 hours with full protection from the elements\”. This opens up a questioning mindset that is free to explore all options, rather than a mindset that is fixed to building a car.
You are correct, it could happen that at the start of a project the brief is not clear and that you end up designing something like a skateboard whereas the actual need is a car. But this you discover during the initial prototyping process and first customers sessions. These prototypes are not Minimal Viable Products (see e.g., here). An MVP is what is developed enough to distribute as first product-release to a wider audience, The brief, by that time, I assume is specific enough that the project will not shift anymore from ‘building a skateboard’ to ‘building a car’. Does that make sense? And yes, it is tricky to find out what the requirements really are and how they relate to what customer says. Luckily here the designer is in control and can steer it.
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I think you misread or read too deeply into the metaphor of skateboard to car. Of course it doesn’t involve building a complete motorcycle or turning a skateboard into something more than an MVP to become skateboard king. The whole idea of this analogy is that you need to focus on business value and start with what’s most important (the wheels and actual transportation) and then build upon that.
Whether this looks like half of a car or a skateboard, as long as you’re focusing on features which have the greatest business impact for the least work necessary, and upon which you can iterate, then you’re on your way to a good model of working.
That may be, but I found myself in having to explain that over and over again. I fear I have not been the only one, and it seems such a simple problem to solve if you would use different visualisation.