Hi there,
This week I wanted to do a deep dive on the technique of minimum viable products (MVP) and also touch on creating minimum viable features (MVF).
Understanding the concept of the minimum viable product was one of my key “ah-ha” moments in product management, it was really when things started to make sense. I can’t remember exactly when I first heard about MVPs, it was probably when I read The Lean Startup and then continued to read everything I could find on the concept.
The way I look at it is that a lot of companies build products, or specific features that they think their customers will want, but often in reality they discover (usually the hard way) that people don’t use the feature (or the entire product), or the customers use the feature in an unexpected way.
By building just the minimum viable product or feature it helps a product team learn and iterate at a fast pace, so they can learn as quickly as possible if a feature or an entire product is worth fully building out and pursing.
Here’s six articles which dive deeper into this topic:
