I've noticed that in some projects, the MVP is treated as the first phase of the product rather than an experiment to test assumptions.
The features are set, the roadmap is ready, and the goal is to launch on time because of commitments to investors, to management, or to requirements a stakeholder needs met.
And you'll find the team discussing what goes into phase two and phase three before it has even defined what it wants to learn from the MVP.
What an MVP actually is
An MVP isn't just a smaller version of the product. It's the simplest version that lets us test our most important assumptions and learn from real usage:
- Does the value we expect actually reach the user?
- Does the problem exist at the scale we imagine?
Its real value lies in the decision we can make based on what we learned: continue, adjust, or stop.
When no decision is waiting for the result
When the next step is settled before launch, there's no decision left waiting for the result, and we build the roadmap on assumptions we haven't actually tested. What we call an MVP becomes just a smaller Phase 1 under a different name.
The question before launch
One of the most important questions we should ask before launching an MVP:
If we don't have a clear answer, we're most likely not treating the MVP as an experiment, but as a delivery phase.