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What Is Minimum Viable Product In Agile? Here’s How to Build One

July 5, 2023

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WillDom
how to build a minimum viable product

Imagine launching a product that has been shaped and refined by real user feedback, a product that meets market needs with precision. This is the power of an MVP.

An MVP, with just enough features to satisfy early adopters, can provide invaluable insights into your customer’s needs and preferences.

Let’s embark on this journey together to create products that truly matter.

What Is an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in Agile Software Development?

An MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, in Agile Software Development, is a product with just enough features to attract early adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle.

In industries such as software, the MVP can help the product development team receive user feedback as quickly as possible to iterate and improve the product. Because the agile methodology is built on validating and iterating products based on user input, the MVP plays a central role in agile development.

What is the purpose of a minimum viable product?

Let’s look at an example. When creating an MVP for a dentist’s office, the dentists and their assistants can give you the feedback you need about which features are most valuable and how the software could improve before you’ve spent the time and money to develop a complete product. 

Here are the three main benefits of achieving MVP:

  • Customer Feedback: All great products are designed to fulfill the customer’s needs. The development process of building an MVP gives you a better understanding of your customers’ needs. This should result in a product that is more competitive and profitable. 
  • Flexibility: Instead of sinking money and time into features that customers don’t want and being tied down by these less-than-ideal decisions later on, an MVP is an inherently more flexible product.
  • Quick Release: Funding and investment are less of a concern when you can get an MVP out to market quickly and start using its own sales to fund its growth over time.

What are the characteristics of MVP in agile?

An MVP in Agile is characterized by its ability to provide the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. It’s a product that has just enough functionality to be deployed to the customers and observe their actual behavior with the product.

This is much more reliable than asking people what they would do.

What is needed for a minimum viable product?

For a minimum viable product, you need a concept that can be developed into an actual product.

This could be as simple as a landing page or a service with all the features and appearance of automation. The key is that it should be something that you can offer to customers and observe their actual behavior with the product or service.

How much does it cost to build a minimum viable product?

The MVP product development cost can vary greatly depending on the complexity of the product, the resources available, and the market it’s being developed for. The primary aim of an MVP is to gain an understanding of your customer’s interest in your product without fully developing the final product itself, thus potentially saving on costs.

What is the difference between MBI and MVP in Agile?

MBI (Minimum Business Increment) and MVP (Minimum Viable Product) are both concepts used in Agile development.

While an MVP is a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development, an MBI is the smallest piece of business value that, when delivered, realizes benefit for the business and the customer.

It’s important to note that an MBI can be an MVP, but not all MVPs are MBIs.

What is the secret behind a successful MVP?

The secret behind a successful MVP development lies in its ability to provide validated learning about your target audience with the least effort. It’s about finding the right balance between what is minimum and what is viable.

A successful MVP is not just about delivering something, but delivering the right something that satisfies customer’s needs.

Remember, the goal of an MVP is not just to release a product, but to learn about the business viability of the product. So, always be ready to make changes based on the feedback you receive from your customers.

How to Create a Minimal Viable Program by WillDom.

How to Build a Minimum Viable Product

Building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) involves a few strategic steps:

  1. Conduct Market research: This is the initial stage where you define your business idea and what you want to achieve with your product. At this stage, you’ll need to understand your target audience, their needs, and wants, and how your product can meet those needs.
  2. Understand Product Value: Take a look at your competitors and the overall market conditions and establish your purpose while differentiating your brand and product/service.
  3. Map User Flow: This involves defining the path that your users will take when using your product. It’s important to make this process as simple and intuitive as possible.
  4. Build Your Features: In this stage, you’ll start to design and develop your MVP. This should include just enough features to satisfy your early adopters. Make sure to test your MVP to ensure it works as expected. This can involve various types of testing, such as user testing, A/B testing, etc.
  5. Launch: Once you’re happy with your MVP, it’s time to launch. This could be a soft launch (to a small audience) or a full launch (to your entire target market).

What to do after an MVP launch?

After launching an MVP, it’s crucial to gather and analyze user feedback.

After launch, it’s important to collect feedback from your users. This will help you understand what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be improved.

This feedback will guide the further development of the product idea. Remember, the primary benefit of an MVP is to learn whether your product will appeal to your existing customers, so use this opportunity to learn as much as you can and make necessary adjustments to your product.

Based on the feedback, you’ll make improvements and adjustments to your product, then go back to step 4 (the testing part) and repeat the process until you have a fully functional product that meets the needs of your target users well.

Remember, the goal of the MVP is to learn about your business model and product’s viability in the market with the least effort. It’s all about quick learning, iteration, and improvement.

The Discovery Stage and the Value We Can Provide

When just starting out with a new client or reassessing new projects with current ones, the discovery phase is one of the most important elements because it requires you to dive into gaining a clear understanding of their goals and what they’re looking to build.

This provides the framework for how a minimal viable product can be developed so that the client can begin working towards meeting those goals. 

WillDom believes that a tremendous amount of collaboration is needed in the discovery stage, and brings together years of experience and best practices to support its customers. Here are a few ways WillDom offers support:

  • We co-create the solutions from the beginning with the client. How do we do that? To understand the problem better we involve a multi-functional team: Talent (to understand how many people and which technologies are needed), Technical (to understand or propose the best way to develop the project), and Sales (to understand the sales, payment, budget and rate needs). All of these departments will have critical insight into how it should be built and what is needed to help the company overall. This collaboration will help provide an integral solution to solve the project’s needs. 
  • The Right Hands at the Right Time. By bringing in all departments and teams from both sides into the Discovery phase, we’re able to identify all the needs and potential hurdles of the project, which leads to efficiency in solving complex problems. This will reduce any unforeseen complications and hurdles so that the project can continuously move forward. 
  • The Help of Our Vast Network. WillDom has an ecosystem of more than 3,700 best-in-class software developers, engineers, and technologists who work across different industries – such as FinTech, Healthcare, and Retail, among others – and roles to help build these minimal viable product solutions. With our network, you have unparalleled options to find the best advice for these agile projects. 

To learn more about how to get started with a minimal viable product and how WillDom can help you get there, please Contact WillDom today or follow us on Linkedin for more relevant content about technology trends.

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