MVPthe misunderstood value proposition

Eric Reiss@elreiss

EuroIA30 September 2017

Stockholm, Sweden

DISCLAIMER• Almost no children or small animals

were harmed during the production of

this presentation.

• Made entirely of recycled electrons

from sustainably maintained atoms.

• All unfair, opinionated generalizations

are mine and mine alone. Live with it!

Lots of issues and buzzwords

Design thinkingStorytelling

Lean / MVP“Awesome”“Intuitive”

AI / IoTPortfolios

MethodologiesCase studiesResearch

Lots of issues and buzzwords

Design thinkingStorytelling

Lean / MVP“Awesome”“Intuitive”

AI / IoTPortfolios

MethodologiesCase studiesResearch

i i r

n a o

i b d

m l u

u e c

m t

MVP

(Hard to read? Apparently, hard to understand, too.)

Minimum

Viable

Product (or prototype, process…)

The least that needs to be made

Something that people will actually want

The “thing” itself

Frank Robinson

Steve Blank

Eric Ries

Eric Reiss

X

Minimum

Viable

Product

The least that needs to be made

Something that people will actually want

The “thing” itself

What’s the MVP of personal transportation?

If we assume this is for basic transportation first, and enjoyment second,

what are the elementary things a car needs?

Wheels, an engine, a steering mechanism, and controls to make it move and stop.

Trabi vs. Jag

MVP

If you’re a tourist, perhaps a bike or a taxi are all you really need.

� Enough features to make it interesting now

� Enough future benefits to keep early adopters

� A feedback mechanism

Three attributes

� “Is the problem I think people have actually

shared by anyone other than me?”

� “Does the solution I am building actually solve

the problem I have validated?”

Two questions

� You’re not building a product; you’re eliciting

customer feedback:

� What are their expectations?

� Have I truly identified their “top tasks”?

One reason

The development houses

Make

Vulgar

Profits

Cool Geek!Cool Geek

Cool Geek!Cool Geek

IA UX

UI

IoT

Wireframes

AI

The Cloud

Content modeling

Waterfall

Scrum

AgileMVP

CMS

Lean SEO

Note to reader: Yes. We have to educate our clients.

But do we really want to do this during a pitch?

If we wanted our car fixed, would we really want the

mechanic to trot out and display his entire toolkit?

This is not transparency, it is confusing (and scary) to most clients.

(a miracleCMS)

(Responsive. Cool, huh?)

Research EUR 0

Strategy EUR 0

IA (sitemap and wireframes) EUR 15k

Design (visual) EUR 10k

Development EUR 150k

CMS license (per year) EUR 20k

Content strategy EUR 0

New content EUR 0

SEO EUR 5k

____________

Total EUR 200k

Typical budget at a dev house

And then there are the ad agencies…

Give us a ton of moneyand we will make

everything wonderful.

Mostly

Visual

Promotions

Research EUR 0

Strategy (creative pitch) EUR 30k

IA (sitemap and wireframes) EUR 5k

Design (visual and pasteups) EUR 30k

Development EUR 10k

CMS license (per year) EUR 0

Content strategy EUR 0

New content EUR 15k

SEO EUR 0

____________

Total EUR 85k

Typical budget at an ad agency

So, where does that leave the IA?

Most

Valuable

Player?

� We provide context for content

� If “content is king” “context” is the kingdom!

What does an IA do?

� What are the business goals?

� What are the users’ goals?

� How can I help both groups achieve these goals?

Three questions to ask yourself

� The business plan

� The marketing plan

� Any other strategic documents

Three things to read

� Conduct a competitive analysis

� Check out the analytics

� Talk to some actual users

Three things to do (research)

� What tasks are users currently struggling with?

� What are the 10 essential content pages?

� What are the relevant success metrics?

Three things to do (thinking)

Let’s talk about the IA of microwave ovens…

(what follows is a couple of goofy examples

about home appliances)

1985

2017

“This is the EU. We have 24 official languages.So, let’s use icons on this washing machine…”

So back to ovens…

What are the top tasks?

“Turning it on”“Setting the temperature”

1975

2017

My wife and I bought a new oven…

(Here’s a picture of me trying to take areflection-free photo)

I want to:

Turn it onSet the temperature

And the IA is unreal.Nice on paper but crazy in practice!

Activate knobs

Select function

Wait through

silly animation

Good to go

(sort of)

Wrong temp.

Press button

Turn knob

On the right menu…

Press button again

Turn knob again

Temperature set

Now to get back

To the first menu…

Press button again

Turn knob again

Good to go!

Oops. Gotta push

one more time…

Preheating (finally)

10separateactions!

This is a true MVP!

Most

Valuable

Player

(Here’s how. It ain’t rocket science.)

� Do your research

� Identify and verify the top tasks

� Solve them!

� Encourage feedback

� Embrace true MVP practices

Recipe for success

Two final questions:

How often have you seen

an MVP approach succeed?

It the MVP concept

actually as useful as it

sounds?

But, if you REALLY insist onbuilding an MVP…

Fine tune your Trabi

before you worryabout heated seats

in your Jag!

Tack så mycket!

The FatDUX Group ApS

Strandøre 15

2100 Copenhagen

Denmark

Office: (+45) 39 29 07 07

Mobil: (+45) 20 12 88 44

Twitter: @elreiss

er@fatdux.com

www.fatdux.com

Eric Reiss can (usually) be found at: