What to consider when building an MVP

I am a consultant now. I am also still surprised. I am on a train to go to a client for a show and tell. We work agile so we build things within a two weeks period and our project manager will arrange a show and tell for us to demonstrate the value of our built. We get feedback, we evaluate it and we make changes to the existing product and add additional functionality. That's the product cycle.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

As a consultant, you may or may not need caffeine. I definitely enjoy consuming coffee and most certainly fall into the train-trap: OMG I am on a train for the next 1.5h so I need tons of refreshments because you never know. On a Virgin train, you may actually never know but it all went well.

I get my coffee at the train station, we board the train, find our seats and get comfortable. I am looking at my coffee cup. Maybe I took the wrong cup from the counter? This one is for a person called "Stafinea" and that's certainly not me.

At this point, let's talk about assumptions. When I moved to the UK, I was convinced there will be lots of challenges but spelling my first name will not be one of them: Stefanie. Simple and lots of people carry that name. It's a well-known name. I then realised that in the UK the most common way to spell my name is with ph: Stephanie. Internationally there are indeed lots of ways to spell my name: here a short collection: Stefanie, Stephanie, Stefania, Estefanie, Stephania, Stef, Steph, Steffi and many more. 

So what does that teach us about a minimum viable product? We want something. We ask someone to help us with that and we explain what we expect. The person we talk to will have their own experience, knowledge and background. They will listen and some listeners are definitely very good. But the listener is not the person setting the requirements and asking for help. They might still interpret things slightly different from what was actually requested. I still got my coffee. It was hot, it was tasty just my name was spelt wrong. The core of the product was right but the overall experience wasn't quite the thing I was asking for. 

The user story. Something that the group agrees upon to determine what the actual built should look like. For example, as a coffee buyer, I want to be able to get a freshly made, hot coffee in a cup so that I can walk to the train and consume it there. I never mentioned anything specific about the packaging and that I expect that my name is spelt correctly. Does it impact the taste of the coffee? Does it impact the functionality of carrying my coffee to the train without spilling it? No, it doesn't. Nevertheless, we discussed it on the train and my project manager made a beautiful comment: "This is what happens when you have a feature request. You say something but the outcome is totally different." We both laugh. In the coffee case, it wasn't so bad. Just the labelling was wrong, the rest of the experience was fine. 

But people can really get hung up on labels. So, acceptance criteria. I could have confirmed the spelling of my name if the labelling is that important to me. We should communicate as clearly as we can on what the expected outcome of the built should look like. Acceptance criteria are there to test if the product meets the requirements and can go into production. They are not meant to discuss new features, e.g. I am in the coffee shop and after getting my coffee I am asking to also have tea. I can certainly have one but that's a new project and I will pay for it separately. 

Overall learning? Product cycles are tough because there is very likely more than one person involved. This can lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. Trying to resolve these as early as possible and always communicate clearly and honestly will help to avoid getting wrong labels or a product that doesn't do what to you expected it to do. We also will never get to a point where things won't go wrong. So embrace it, speak about it and solve it. Finally, yes I will definitely get my reusable coffee cup, not just for the label and to avoid misspelling. Cheers!