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Do you know more than 70% of upstart tech companies fail after first raising financing?
There are many factors behind this like product efficiency, features or solutions, users’ response, market positioning and many more. Hence proper inputs are required to optimize the product in the right time of the process/development cycle. So, building a Minimum Viable Product or MVP is imperative to make your business succeed. Especially, if you are working with Agile projects, doing MVP in the right way is of utmost importance.
Agile is meant to simplify the software development process by segmenting each phase into micro-projects known as sprints. Agile is built on continual client participation, inputs, and feedback at every level, ensuring that the final product meets the client's exact specifications. By creating MVP in Agile, one can avoid wastage of resources as it helps minimize the resources required in testing significantly and helps optimize the whole production process as well as the end results. While MVP is used widely in Agile projects, many ones don’t have a clear idea on it.
In this blog we will guide you about how to create MVP in Agile the right way. Before we start let’s have a look at what MVP really is, and how MVP in Agile is of so much importance.
What is MVP
An MVP is the closest version of an actual product that contains all the key usable features of the main product. Most of the start ups, and even small to medium or big businesses or product development companies release an MVP before launching the actual product.
The main goal of an MVP is- it functions exactly in the same way the actual product is meant to be and the users can give their valuable feedback about the usability, functionalities, pros & cons of the MVP. As a result, the product developers can be well-aware of how to develop and launch the main product to make it the most efficient one.
The MVP development technique helps in launching an early version of a product in the market to assess the users’ response, drawbacks and other integral factors. Undoubtedly it can save a significant extent of time, cost, and effort to develop any product such as a SaaS application/system/tool.
MVP in Agile
Agile is an interactive project & software development methodology that gives the developer enough scope to implement as per the feedback/inputs received during the process flow. Some of the main factors Agile is based on are-
Assessing and validating a product based on user inputs- Iterating products based on user response/feedback to come up with the best output
Using an agile framework for software development is becoming more frequent these days, especially if the development is being done under uncertain or potentially changing conditions . The requirements of the end product's consumers and the business goals of the product's owners are both prioritised in an agile methodology. To ensure high product quality, an agile methodology relies on testing and research. At the very least, the original product concept and key features are put to the test - often with real people - and the results are analyzed. Then we use the results to fine-tune the development process. Hence the use of feature-light 'partial products,' such as prototypes and MVPs, is common in testing.
Next we will see how to create MVP in Agile.
MVP in Agile: The Right Way to Do it
An MVP is not a complete product, yet functional with all the key features. It's more like an experiment to ensure that it meets the qualities of the product that are in the development process. The results obtained from testing an MVP are significant inputs used in Agile to obtain the best possible actual result. However, you must follow the right way to create MVP in Agile and we are going to discuss the required steps in detail.
Have a Clear Concept Behind Your Product/Solution
Behind every project or product or software development there is a concept. A concept to provide the end-users with a solution to a specific problem. For instance, the purpose of developing an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Software is- to provide a solution to manage and integrate the core processes of a business or company. Similarly, for any SaaS product or software or application, you must be well-aware about:
- Which set of queries are getting a solution through it?
- What is your target audience?
- Whether the concept/blueprint/the whole product is enough to meet the requirements?
- How is the concept different from the existing products in the market?
Do a Market Analysis
No matter how good you think your product is, until you do market research, you won’t be able to know your market position. An in-depth market analysis creates a strong base to create MVP in Agile in the best possible way as such analysis provides you with vital inputs required in the Agile methodology. Some of the must-know information and metrics from market analysis before you actually start with the MVP:
- Your competitors in the market
- The set of exclusive features of such products from the competitors
- How the audience is responding or interacting with such products
- How efficient are those products to solve some specific query/ whether there are any add-ons offered by them or not
- What are the unique features of you product that can make it high on demand in the present market
It is always the best idea to do a thorough market analysis before starting with your MVP than delaying the development process later. This stage is crucial as it can give you important information to be utilized in your Agile methodology as well as optimizing the features of MVP you are going to launch.
List Out the Features & Solutions
Now that you have a clear understanding about exactly what the concept of your MVP is going to be, you need to list out its features in detail. Here are some tips while listing them out:
- List out each feature and the respective solution or multi-solutions such as, if the feature is- scalable CDN (Content Delivery Network), then the solutions will be- unlimited content upload, bulk content management, faster content delivery and others. Here one feature implies several solutions. And hence it is easier to map each solution to a particular requirement from your audience.
- Not only rely on the inputs from your market analysis/initial concept but also incorporate related add-on features that are easy to launch. For example, if your product is a customer support system, then you can easily keep the ticketing feature too.
Remember, this is one of the most important stages as the set of features and solutions are going to determine the efficiency of the MVP.
Segregate the Features/Solutions Based on Priorities
It is not mandatory that the MVP has to include every feature of the original product. Only the main and most required ones you need to incorporate. So, you must segregate the features/solutions based on the priorities. You can simply categorize them hierarchically such as tier 5- the most important and tier 0- the least important one or vice versa. It is just to keep the transparency before the end-users get to use them in real-time. There are also a few principles that can help you execute this step such as-
Prioritization Matrix
According to this principle you can segregate features based on-
- Urgency
- Impact
In this method, you need to decide which MVP features are important to get released and which can be postponed to release later.
MoSCoW Matrix
According to this method, you need to divide the MVP features into-
- Must Haves
- Should Haves
- Could Haves
- Won’t Haves
Then you just need to skim out the most-needed features according to the-
- Entire business idea
- Product goals
- The most required features/solutions in the market
Pareto Principle
This method is based on the principle that- 80% of the consequences are originated from 20% of the causes. So, according to this principle, 80% of the end-users will use 20% of the functionalities. This makes the segregation process quite easy. You just need to keep 20% of the features that will solve 80% of the customer problems.
Build, Analyze, and Learn Cycle
This is almost the final stage to develop MVP in Agile. It simplifies the entire MVP development and launching through the following steps of the cycle-
Build
In this stage you need to build the MVP and test it on the basis of the predetermined facts, assumptions, and hypothesis.
Analyze
This step refers to the analysis process that you require to measure the progress in development of MVP and the outcome of the ‘Build’ stage.
Learn
In this stage you make a final decision on whether to keep and launch the MVP product or strategize your goals, and develop it again by following the above steps.
At the end of this stage you get to decide whether-
- You launch the MVP
- Or, iterate the above steps again
MVP in Agile: Common Mistakes to Avoid
It is equally important to be well-aware of the common mistakes to avoid while doing MVP in Agile. Some of the most frequent ones are listed below-
- Don’t keep postponing the launch of the MVP with basic features or it may delay the whole process
- Always focus more on the core features/solutions and not that much on the UX
- Never include too many/extra/unimportant features in your MVP in agile or the purpose will be lost
- Don’t target too broad audience
- Don’t forget to utilize the result as input before launching the actual product
The Bottom Line
The importance of launching MVP in Agile is more than important. As more people are getting aware of this fact, the process is getting adopted widely. No matter what type of product you are going to launch, or what target audience you have, never skip this stage as it will help you with a significant amount of cost, effort and most importantly, won’t let you compromise with the product quality.
Here at Third Rock Techkno, we have successfully completed many such Agile projects along with successful and effective MVP creations. Our services include industry-grade solutions such as web development, mobile development, and voice development using a diverse range of techniques, to name a few. You can have a look at our client testimonials from across the globe and get in touch to get competitive solutions for any product/project development.
Krunal Shah
Krunal Shah is the CTO and Co-founder at Third Rock Techkno. With extensive experience gained over a decade, Krunal helps his clients build software solutions that stand out in the industry and are lighter on the pocket.
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