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In the agile world, a product needs to ship fast and with value for his customers.
And for that to happen, companies build an MVP (minimum viable product). It is a simpler version of the product that is delivered for customers to use it. It is also for companies to validate their main business assumptions, hypotheses and objectives, and to see if they’re going in the right direction, or if the product is not good enough to reach the market.
To build this MVP is rather complicated. The business needs to decide which are the most valuable features to be launched at first, and at the same time, align with every stakeholder and active members the same vision, goals and objectives. So this is not an easy task and we had some companies that had trouble deciding which were the most important features to build in a short time.
How can this be solved?
Lean Inception is a 5-day workshop created by Paulo Caroli which can help companies decide what is the best MVP to be built. Here at Hi-interactive we used it with a big client and it worked really well. So it’s proven that it’s a great way to do it.
Basically, the Lean Inception workshop combines methodologies from lean startup, lean UX and Design Thinking, so you will have different types of exercises to align and define the MVP. These do not substitute the brainstorm sessions, the user interviews, user research, the competitor analysis, the architecture revision or the business model canvas, that are essential to do before you can start the Lean Inception week.
In 5 days your teams will have a busy schedule, full of insightful exercises that can help you achieve the MVP.
What will you get at the end of the 5 days?
- The product vision understood by all teams and stakeholders
- The objectives prioritized
- The main users, their profiles and their needs
- The most important functionalities
- The levels of uncertainty, technical effort and value for the users
- The most important user journeys
- An incremental delivery plan fueled by the MVP concept
Who needs to be involved?
Stakeholders are the ones interested in the results and direction of the Lean Inception and are directly impacted by the project. Some examples: Director of sales, Legal department, Marketing directors, CEO, sponsors.
And active members are the ones that will need to understand and implement the product. They will be needed in all workshop sessions. Some examples: Product owners, Tech leads, sales, UX designers, researchers, and others.
They are not necessary to be in every day. But this is very important! There are always difficulties in scheduling and having all the teams involved at the same time for a week, but the active members must work every day to help achieve something meaningful, and there are no drop-outs during the week for each active member. This week should be focused and everyone should be every day, for the sake of the glorious MVP!
Is this the right "tool" for my business?
Well, let me ask you this: did your business or product have or had difficulties aligning teams with the vision for the product or business and/or don't have a clue on what to build on an MVP? If the answer to any of these questions is yes...then it is the right tool for you to try out.
5 Days for Defining the MVP
Next, I will give a brief explanation of what happens in these 5 days and what you need to have in mind. You can talk to us if you need more details now!
This is an example agenda. It might change depending on business needs.
Day 1 - Monday
Morning
Kick-off
What it is:
- The kick-off meeting is the first activity, where we talk about what is going to happen for the week, and some initial concepts as well some good practices.
How much time needed:
- Around 50 min.
Who needs to be in:
- The stakeholders;
- Active members.
Product vision
What it is:
- The product vision will help you to have a clear understanding of what the product is and it should reflect a message that is clear and convincing to your clients. This activity will help to define a clear product vision in a collaborative way and it will help the next activities in the lean inception.
How much How much time needed:
- Around 75 min.
Who needs to be in:
- Active members.
Afternoon
What is, what is not - What does, What doesn’t do
What it is
- What is and what is not is an activity where we ask the participants to describe the product using 4 questions:
- What it is
- What’s is not
- What does
- What doesn’t do
- Participants describe each of the positive aspects and negative aspects of the product using these 4 quadrants.
How much time needed:
- Around 65 min.
Who needs to be in:
- Active members
Product objectives
What it is:
- Each participant individually shares what is for him the business goal. All participants share their point of views, and then arrive as a group to a clear definition of product objectives. This activity will help to raise and clarify the main objectives.
How much time needed
- 65 minutes aprox.
Who needs to be in
- Active members
Day 2 - Tuesday
Morning
Personas
What it is
- This activity can be done before, by the UX researcher or UX Designer, and then brought to the table. Personas are an archetype of users that are created by prior research and are extremely important because they represent the real users, helping the team to describe characteristics and point of views from the ones that will use the final product.
How much time needed
- 65 min.
Who needs to be in
- Active members, specially Product Owners, UX Researchers and Customer Support
Afternoon
User Journeys
What it is:
- With the personas created, this next activity will be to write a step by step journey while using the product to achieve his objectives. Some steps represent points of contact with the product, while using it.
How much time needed:
- 95 min.
Who needs to be in:
- Active members
Day 3 - Wednesday
Morning
Features brainstorm
What it is:
- Derived from the user journeys activity, this activity will deep dive on the features required for the persona to reach his goal. The feature description should be simple, aligned with a business goal, a user need and or contemplate a step of the persona journey. All the prioritized user journeys and features should be represented and clarified.
How much time needed:
- This session will be split in two, so the first part is 65 minutes and the second 40
Who needs to be in:
- Active members
Afternoon
Technical, User Experience and Business Review
example image. Doesn’t represent a real case study
What it is:
- The objective for this review is to discuss how the team feels about the confidence level for each feature in terms of business value, ux value and technical effort. After this discussion there will be new insights and all the doubts and differences will be more clear. From here the team will also decide which is the top priority to be used in the next activity.
How much time needed:
- 80 minutes
Who needs to be in:
- Active members, specially tech lead, business and sales stakeholders and user experience designer or researcher.
Day 4 - Thursday
Morning
Journeys with features
example image of a user journey. Doesn’t represent a real case study
What it is:
- Journeys with features is a combination of all of what has been done until now. The user journeys should be described as a step sequence and the features represented in post its or cards. This activity will combine the user journeys and features, re-validating and verifying the analysis that has been done since the beginning.
How much time needed:
- 65 min.
Who needs to be in:
- Active members
Afternoon
Sequencer
What it is:
- In this workshop, the features sequencer will help in organizing and visualizing the features and in the validation of product incremental.
How much time needed:
- 65 min.
Who needs to be in:
- Active members, specially tech lead, ux designer and business analyst.
Day 5 - Friday
Morning
MVP Canvas
MVP Canvas board
What it is:
- What has the team been doing all this week? Defining everything to this point. To create the MVP. So this is the resume of all what has been done until now. The MVP canvas is a graphical board that helps the team align and define the MVP, being the simplest version of the product that can be available for the business(minimal product) and that can be used and validated by the final user(viable product).
How much time needed:
- 85 minutes
Who needs to be in:
- Active members
Afternoon
Final Presentation
What it is:
- This will be the final presentation, showing the MVP canvas and all the work that has been done during the week
How much time needed:
- 85 minutes
Who needs to be in:
- Stakeholders
- Active members
Full week agenda
Conclusion
Hope we sparked curiosity in you about the lean inception. We strongly believe that lean inception might help your business to achieve your goals and to help your clients love your product.
If you need help in creating the right MVP for your business, talk to us. We can do it!
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