Agile method and project management: creating your MVP

9/10/2024
Productivity
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5min
Productivity
Article
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Agile method and project management: creating your MVP

To be more agile when creating a project, working in iterations offers several advantages: testing and validating hypotheses, identifying new user needs, and ultimately saving a lot of money.

So far so good, but once you've said that, several questions arise:

  • Adopting an agile method: which framework to use?
  • Getting started: how to make sure you focus on the real problem?
  • Project management: how to maintain consistency and avoid the tunnel effect?

Why create an MVP?

The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a minimalist version of an innovative solution. It is used to validate the potential of a product or service on a small scale, and should enable you to focus on the real bread and butter of your users from the very first stages of your project management. Beyond the startup jargon, the MVP is a good way of limiting the effort involved in creating the value you want to bring to end-users. The objective: test a first version of a product, developing only the core functionalities (i.e. those that bring value) to save time and money.

MVP success: responsiveness, flexibility and simplicity

Before implementing an agile MVP design method, you first need to adopt an agile mindset: go fast, focus on the essentials and keep things simple.

Reactivity

When you draw up your iterative schedule, tell yourself that your MVP must be brought to market in less than 3 months. After that, you may consider that you've spent too much time designing it, or invested too much money in its development.

Flexibility

From a technical point of view, the aim of an MVP is to be functional, not perfect. Don't hesitate to opt for the "home-made" approach, experimenting by hand with functionalities that don't need to be industrialized for the first version of the solution.

Simplicity 

Here again, you need to think opportunistically, and not hesitate to use existing building blocks to focus on developing the unique and innovative elements of the solution, i.e. those that determine the value proposition.

A framework that works: MVP Canvas

We don't necessarily advise you to draw up your agile manifesto, or to pull out your favorite Kanban every time you need to make a decision for your business. In contrast to these 2 techniques, the MVP Canvas can be realized in a few simple steps and fulfills your main objective: to rapidly test your product or service in an incremental way .

Value proposition

The value proposition is the main benefit of your solution for its target. 

Fundamental assumptions 

Fundamental hypotheses are the 1-3 most urgent hypotheses to test (and validate) before you can continue developing your solution. You can formulate them by completing this sentence: "Our solution will only work if...". 

Features

These are the priority features to develop for your MVP, the ones without which you won't be able to validate or invalidate your fundamental hypotheses.

Measurement indicators

This is what you'll measure to define the success (or failure) of your MVP. Your metrics should be linked to your assumptions and core functionality. Depending on your solution, you might, for example, start with the number of orders placed over a given period, and set yourself a precise target: 

"This hypothesis will be validated if we record more than 5 orders within 10 days of the MVP launch."

Going further: the case of Amazon Prime

The iterative approach doesn't just lend itself to launching a start-up from scratch in a garage. Some intrapreneurial projects or product launches also follow this method, which enables (more or less) large companies to remain agile in their project management and make continuous improvements.

Reduce technical risk with POC (Proof of concept)

The aim of the POC is to ensure the technical feasibility of the product. Before launching Amazon Prime, the question was whether the supply chain could deliver orders in under an hour.

Amazon therefore began with an initial development sprint of its "Prime Now" service for its employees, in the offices, to validate its feasibility. In addition to validating logistical coherence, this iterative, in-house approach enabled the company to benefit from qualitative feedback from indulgent employees to proceed with continuous improvement.

Reduce adoption risk with MVP

The ultimate aim of the MVP is to validate that a market exists for a solution before developing it fully, in other words, to verify that there is a demand and measure it in order to make the right decisions. The most effective way of carrying out this market research is to place the MVP in a restricted market to observe its use and measure the traction it generates. 

Having validated the feasibility of Prime delivery, Amazon then carried out a second sprint, putting its offer online only for certain areas of London close to the warehouses. The aim of this sprint was to answer the question: would users in London be interested in the solution? Where would they be? 

Putting your idea into practice with a prototype

The prototype is, in a way, the tangible draft on which to validate the desirability of the solution.

At the launch of Prime, Amazon's web designers led their third sprint: the design of a basic landing page to introduce Prime Now and advertise it on Amazon's website. By analyzing traffic in parallel, the teams were able to gauge demand and localize it with a view to extending the service outside London.

System D for agility: No-Code

There are many no-code tools that make MVP design as easy as possible for those who don't have a CIO, developer or product owner: 

  • Landing page for non-designers: Silex 
  • Define customer journeys and user stories with customized questionnaires: Typeform 
  • Automation and action chains: Zapier
  • Beta application: Bubble
  • Database for a data-driven solution: Airtable

At NUMA, no-code has enabled us to automate most of the repetitive tasks associated with our training courses: participant registration and coach staffing, enrolment, participant feedback, customer reporting, and so on. If you'd like to find out how no-code enabled us to become an EdTech and gain significant agility, without recruiting a development team, check out Anselme Jalon's podcast on Radio Contournements .

‍You've tested and validated your idea using the MVP method... To make use of the time you've invested and take your project to scale, you now need to develop its final version based in particular on the user feedback you've received. To ensure its viability, we also recommend that you create and challenge your business model using the method described in detail below. in this article. Finally, if you'd like to learn more about this method, NUMA also offers MVP training.

To be more agile when creating a project, working in iterations offers several advantages: testing and validating hypotheses, identifying new user needs, and ultimately saving a lot of money.

So far so good, but once you've said that, several questions arise:

  • Adopting an agile method: which framework to use?
  • Getting started: how to make sure you focus on the real problem?
  • Project management: how to maintain consistency and avoid the tunnel effect?

Why create an MVP?

The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a minimalist version of an innovative solution. It is used to validate the potential of a product or service on a small scale, and should enable you to focus on the real bread and butter of your users from the very first stages of your project management. Beyond the startup jargon, the MVP is a good way of limiting the effort involved in creating the value you want to bring to end-users. The objective: test a first version of a product, developing only the core functionalities (i.e. those that bring value) to save time and money.

MVP success: responsiveness, flexibility and simplicity

Before implementing an agile MVP design method, you first need to adopt an agile mindset: go fast, focus on the essentials and keep things simple.

Reactivity

When you draw up your iterative schedule, tell yourself that your MVP must be brought to market in less than 3 months. After that, you may consider that you've spent too much time designing it, or invested too much money in its development.

Flexibility

From a technical point of view, the aim of an MVP is to be functional, not perfect. Don't hesitate to opt for the "home-made" approach, experimenting by hand with functionalities that don't need to be industrialized for the first version of the solution.

Simplicity 

Here again, you need to think opportunistically, and not hesitate to use existing building blocks to focus on developing the unique and innovative elements of the solution, i.e. those that determine the value proposition.

A framework that works: MVP Canvas

We don't necessarily advise you to draw up your agile manifesto, or to pull out your favorite Kanban every time you need to make a decision for your business. In contrast to these 2 techniques, the MVP Canvas can be realized in a few simple steps and fulfills your main objective: to rapidly test your product or service in an incremental way .

Value proposition

The value proposition is the main benefit of your solution for its target. 

Fundamental assumptions 

Fundamental hypotheses are the 1-3 most urgent hypotheses to test (and validate) before you can continue developing your solution. You can formulate them by completing this sentence: "Our solution will only work if...". 

Features

These are the priority features to develop for your MVP, the ones without which you won't be able to validate or invalidate your fundamental hypotheses.

Measurement indicators

This is what you'll measure to define the success (or failure) of your MVP. Your metrics should be linked to your assumptions and core functionality. Depending on your solution, you might, for example, start with the number of orders placed over a given period, and set yourself a precise target: 

"This hypothesis will be validated if we record more than 5 orders within 10 days of the MVP launch."

Going further: the case of Amazon Prime

The iterative approach doesn't just lend itself to launching a start-up from scratch in a garage. Some intrapreneurial projects or product launches also follow this method, which enables (more or less) large companies to remain agile in their project management and make continuous improvements.

Reduce technical risk with POC (Proof of concept)

The aim of the POC is to ensure the technical feasibility of the product. Before launching Amazon Prime, the question was whether the supply chain could deliver orders in under an hour.

Amazon therefore began with an initial development sprint of its "Prime Now" service for its employees, in the offices, to validate its feasibility. In addition to validating logistical coherence, this iterative, in-house approach enabled the company to benefit from qualitative feedback from indulgent employees to proceed with continuous improvement.

Reduce adoption risk with MVP

The ultimate aim of the MVP is to validate that a market exists for a solution before developing it fully, in other words, to verify that there is a demand and measure it in order to make the right decisions. The most effective way of carrying out this market research is to place the MVP in a restricted market to observe its use and measure the traction it generates. 

Having validated the feasibility of Prime delivery, Amazon then carried out a second sprint, putting its offer online only for certain areas of London close to the warehouses. The aim of this sprint was to answer the question: would users in London be interested in the solution? Where would they be? 

Putting your idea into practice with a prototype

The prototype is, in a way, the tangible draft on which to validate the desirability of the solution.

At the launch of Prime, Amazon's web designers led their third sprint: the design of a basic landing page to introduce Prime Now and advertise it on Amazon's website. By analyzing traffic in parallel, the teams were able to gauge demand and localize it with a view to extending the service outside London.

System D for agility: No-Code

There are many no-code tools that make MVP design as easy as possible for those who don't have a CIO, developer or product owner: 

  • Landing page for non-designers: Silex 
  • Define customer journeys and user stories with customized questionnaires: Typeform 
  • Automation and action chains: Zapier
  • Beta application: Bubble
  • Database for a data-driven solution: Airtable

At NUMA, no-code has enabled us to automate most of the repetitive tasks associated with our training courses: participant registration and coach staffing, enrolment, participant feedback, customer reporting, and so on. If you'd like to find out how no-code enabled us to become an EdTech and gain significant agility, without recruiting a development team, check out Anselme Jalon's podcast on Radio Contournements .

‍You've tested and validated your idea using the MVP method... To make use of the time you've invested and take your project to scale, you now need to develop its final version based in particular on the user feedback you've received. To ensure its viability, we also recommend that you create and challenge your business model using the method described in detail below. in this article. Finally, if you'd like to learn more about this method, NUMA also offers MVP training.

FAQ

What is the agile method?
Why create an MVP?
How do you create an MVP?

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