How many of us actually understand these terms? We are certain that most people have heard these terms, but know very little or nothing about them.
Let’s look at these terms:
The synonyms Minimum Viable Product and Minimal Market Feature refer to a product’s baseline that contains enough features to be presented to clients as a first cut.
It will contain the core business case that product stakeholders are trying solve. Although the product will only have the most basic features, it will still be able to solve the core business problem.
Let’s take an example to illustrate this:
A website for a casino is the minimum viable product. It should have a layout, color scheme, and style.
It is not necessary to show all of the website’s functions.
Mike Griffiths has provided the following definition of Minimum Viable Product.
This term refers to a package of functionality that is sufficiently complete to be useful to users or the market, but not enough to represent the entire project.
Cell phone basic is another example of MVP. It can only be used to call another person. It is a useful product that solves the main problem of not being able to call someone when you move from one place to the next.
Agile is all about the Minimum Viable Product. Agile demands continuous delivery and minimizing risk. An agile team will always focus on the Minimum Viable Product first. This increases client satisfaction and minimizes gold platting. This agile team reduces waste by only developing what is needed by customers. It gives the team basic information about the business problem and validates their results. It is the cheapest way to gain insight into the product. It can help the business and team understand the product and determine if it is viable and sellable in the marketplace.
It is important to understand that Minimal Marketable Feature can be used so that the team can deliver the project quickly and get all changes from the client. This will ensure that there is no wastage. It helps in reducing wasted engineering/development hours. It can help us gain a deep understanding of the product as well as what the end user thinks about it.
Minimal Viable Product can be described as a Proof of Concept or prototype in Waterfall model, but it is very different. The MVP will be functional for the features chosen by the team, unlike a POC or prototype where the output is discarded at the beginning of development. The MVP will be built upon by the team, adding new features.
This concept is universally applicable and can be used to optimize your product to meet client needs.