When creating a product that we are excited about, we might already start to think about how to get it out to the market as soon as possible. When taking a lean approach if we were looking at it in terms of project methodology (agile vs waterfall), it is certainly quicker than waterfall. This however raises the question about what the primary features of your product will be. If you or your team have already wandered off into the abyss of creativity, and started to think of every possible feature, it’s fine to do so (without wasting too much time). But ultimately to get started, it’s important to get back to thinking about the core.
The first step to accomplishing this is to think of scaling your product with a list or series of MMFs (Minimally Marketable Features) to create your MVP (Minimum Viable Product). This could be more difficult to do than you might think. If your team has already gone really far in the amount of features your product will have, you’ll have to take a few steps back, and do some agile release planning with the intent of categorizing them (or backlog items) in the following order:
1 – Is this feature adding to necessary working functionality?
As part of scaling back your product to be a minimum viable product, you have to think about the basic features and functions. In today’s technology enhanced world, we may feel blinded to the extreme amount of features that we get when buying something like an electronic device. Some may come with a user guide that, let’s admit, only 10% or less of buyers will actually read. Many just need 5% of features that the product can provide. That is not to say that the other features aren’t useful, but you can easily appeal to the larger part of the market that is looking to use the product for the majority of uses. For example, think of a product like the smart-phone and think about how many people actually use it just for talking or dialing numbers to call people. Most consumed the majority of the device’s use by texting and emailing, and reading. Imagine if you spent 90% of product development time (or project management life cycle) on a feature that is only used 5% of the time. You wouldn’t be attracting much of the market. But we have to admit, if you bought a smart-phone, it’s very basic function would be to make or receive calls. Using iterative deliveries such as what we find in sprints, can allow for those quicker more frequent releases.
2 – Is this feature marketable once implemented, and what is the perceived ROI?
There should be some considerable market research for the product you are willing to produce. More importantly, the research should also be able to provide the level of market demand. With that level of market research, the Product Owner and Agile Business Analyst should be able to determine the short to long-term benefits of that product once begin it is released to the market. This could be listed out as ROI for each of the features being planned to include in each iterative release of the product. For example, Feature 1 = $10,000 returns, Feature 2 = $5,000, Feature 3 = $100. By looking at the list you will immediately know that developing Features 1 and 2 will give you a return of $15,000. Especially if you knew that your project could only budget for development of 2 features.
3 – How soon can it be completed? implemented?
The time to develop and release a new product will ultimately determine how fast you can get your product out to the market. The key will be to take the features that would provide the highest level of return for the lowest amount of development time or cost. This might not be a simple exercise, but with proper analysis and calculations, your agile team, should be able to decide which those features give the highest result. This reduces risks in multiple forms. Primarily the risk of waste is reduced, such that the possibility that the product feature becomes obsolete before it is ever released is diminished being sold and in the hands of your consumers.
4 – Is there a foreseeable or complimentary enhancement release that can easily be added to this feature?
If you are working on Version 1 of your product, you may already realize that a few more plug-in features can be added to the product with minimal effort in future releases. Your competition may already be looking at those added features before you get them out to the market, so it would be important to consider carefully before you develop your first version. Having a well laid out agile release plan, would allow you to see if the market will be looking for an update to your product relatively quickly. This would also depend on the nature of your product, since software is relatively more easy and less costly to update and distribute than a piece of hardware.
5 – Can the product be easily adopted or used?
With reference to point 1 above, if you are developing a product that the market can use right away, that is certainly a plus. The other side of the coin is, whether or not the consumer-base is able to use your product right away and would it fill an immediate need. The intent to having your product out to the market quickly, is to be the first product that the market will adopt and hold on to for future updates. If there are many competitors out there producing similar featured products, you have to compete on the level where you are releasing the most amount of updates or upgrades in the form of additional features so that the perceived benefit of your product is the highest among your competitors. If you keep in mind, the higher the perceived benefit, the market value will go up. With a higher perceived value, there is an automatic willingness for the market to pay more for your product, and that gives higher ROI.
Taking all points into consideration with an agile mindset and lean tools can more easily facilitate the team’s ability to get your product out to market. Since after all, the best way to consider simplifying all product options and how to simplify them further, is more easily attained by engaging the experts themselves.
[Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]
