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The agile world has discarded such long periods of up-front analysis, but we still recognize that there is value in setting out with an initial sense of direction.
But we do want to understand what kind of outcomes we are hoping for, the features we believe drive these outcomes, and how to assess the effectiveness of our product.
the Lean Inception workshop emerged—a sequence of activities for the creation of lean products heavily influenced by Design Thinking and Lean Startup.
the main characteristic of an MVP is being something we build in order to learn whether it is worthwhile to continue building a product. So we choose features based on our assumptions of what is valuable to our users. For this we need to understand who our users are, what activities performed by them are supported by the product and how to measure if they find the product useful.
LEAN INCEPTION - TIMETABLE EXAMPLE
Core Activities of a Lean Inception
MVP is the simplest version of a product that can be made available to validate a small set of assumptions on the business. Basically, you don’t want to waste time, money or effort building a product that won’t meet your expectations.
MVP promotes an evolutionary creation. Ergo, the architecture as well as the building tools of the product must allow this continuous and progressive evolution.
With MVP enhancements, the continuous and incremental delivery provides an increase of value of the product over time, while the creation process for traditional products does not provide any value up to the end, when the product is ready in its whole.
Each of these MVPs are designed, created and prepared to be available for some users, adding more (validated) functionality to it. In essence, the idea of a product is sequenced in a series of smaller validations, and, therefore, it is easier to understand, create, and account for.
And it is worth remembering that fortunately software is not manufacturing. In the software world, a lawn rover can be created by adding wheels, engine and a cable to simple shears.
Think big, start small, learn fast!
The product can meet more than one business objective, work for different personas, have many functionalities. But an MVP must validate a hypothesis, prove one idea, and verify that it meets what is expected.
The MVP is at the intersection between valuable, usable, and feasible, representing, respectively, business interest, acceptance (and admiration) of product users, and what can be built.
The “wow” factor is important for the success of a product. For an MVP, it’s even more important!
First impressions are very important. You want to leave a good one of your product, your MVP. You want the “wow” factor. And you absolutely want to avoid the opposite: a flaw that will leave marks.
MVP has a V. V is for viable. The minimal viable product for something. A wooden bridge that does not support five tons cannot receive any vehicle heavier than five tons.
You must think about the features that will not let your bridge fall. If it does, it was not an MVP. It was less than that, as it was not viable, and your users should not have been exposed to it. You need to validate your MVP without letting the bridge fall!
the goal of the facilitator is to support the participants so that they can perform exceptionally well in each activity planned for the Inception workshop, focusing on the process and content, and ensuring that the latter is generated according to the expectations and goals.
The Parking Lot helps to track any items, ideas and issues that are raised during an activity, but it may not be useful to discuss at that specific moment in the Inception.
Nevertheless, it is equally important to listen to and respect people’s thoughts and feelings. Therefore, the Parking Lot must be used with a pure intention, and be revisited later: “This is parked for now; but we will get back to it later.”
In such case, the participants should talk about the time tracking challenge and possible corrective actions (parallelizing activities, reducing conversations, making more use of parking lot, etc.). The good thing: such conversation takes place at an early stage, not when it is too late.
Stakeholder is anyone impacted by the project. These are people very much interested in the direction and result of the Inception, but they do not have the time to attend all sessions. These can include: sponsors, final users, legal department, sales department, and marketing department.
Active member is anyone directly involved in the understanding and implementation of the product. These are the people who should participate actively in every session of the workshop. They can be: product owners, developers, testers, project manager, and user experience.
The activity “Understanding trade-offs” helps to build and record a common understanding about trade-offs of the lean product.
This activity promotes an open and collaborative conversation on trade-offs. Clearer trade-offs avoid misunderstandings and help to make decisions quickly.
Feature is the description of an action or interaction of a user with the product. For example: print invoice, see detailed statement, and invite Facebook friends.
As usual with this kind of activity, the conversation and the understanding it generates for those taking part matter more than the final output.
