Minimum Viable Products

What is an MVP?

Minimum Viable Product is a concept we've stolen from the world of startups. Instead of developing a software solution with all the bells and whistles the MVP approach means you solve one or two of the most necessary requirements first, then add additional functionality as it is required (and as budgets are made available).

Development Lifecycle Non-MVP

In a non-MVP environment a typical development lifecycle might look like this:

• Identify project
• Perform complex, expensive, cross department requirements analysis (a lot of projects die here)
• Get quotes to get project built, get board approval to proceed, confirm vendor
• Start build, have complex change control process for any variations, have large amounts of overhead in project management and testing
• Often end up with what was asked for, which somewhat varies from what is actually needed
• Elapsed time from project identification to first usage is 6 to 24 months

Development Lifecycle MVP

When we develop with MVP the lifecycle looks like this:

• Identify project
• Get $5,000 to $20,000 funding signed off
• Identify initial key deliverables
• Deliver first working version in 2-4 weeks
• Get management approval to continue to spend money based on results already achieved
• Iterate

Benefits of MVP Approach

There are several key benefits of this approach:

• Users are typically using the system in weeks rather than months, so the benefits of doing the project are realised immediately
• Initial budgets are an order of magnitude less, which is normally easier to get signed off
• Enhancements are made iteratively as the system is being used, meaning unnecessary features are rarely added
• Project management and other usual project overheads are reduced

MVP Cost

Every project is different and there can be complications around access to data etc, but we generally deliver the first phase of an MVP for $5,000 to $20,000.

Further iterations are similar.