Once an idea is on the table, there is often no stopping it. A real flow develops and innovative detailed suggestions fly wildly through the room. This is fun, good, and important. But what happens next? Often plans are made about what will be implemented, how, and when. In doing so, one thing is forgotten: Every idea is initially just an assumption. And when one assumption is based on another false assumption, companies and teams quickly end up on the wrong track. The idea diet means placing the candy cabinet where you cannot easily reach it. Instead of implementing all ideas and details immediately, streamline your innovation: Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and put anything not currently essential into the backlog!
The 4 Steps of the “Build-Measure-Learn” Feedback Loop
The strategic thinking behind developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is to obtain broad and rapid feedback from users without having developed the product to its full market maturity. A minimal set of features is defined that is necessary to find out what users want. The MVP is part of a broader 4-point strategy from the Lean Startup method by Eric Ries: The Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop.
Step 1 – Plan an Experiment
From product features to customer service practices to pricing strategies: First, develop an idea you want to test. Consider what information the experiment should provide from which you can truly learn. You do this by developing a hypothesis—your prediction of what will happen during the experiment. Next, decide what you need to measure to test your hypothesis. Plan how you will collect your data. Interviews, surveys, website analytics, and specialized software programs are common methods for data collection.
Step 2 – Build a “Minimum Viable Product”
In Step 2, you want to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)—the leanest product that enables you to test your hypothesis. This can be a working prototype or a simple landing page. Show what you offer in a video. Create a PowerPoint presentation, use a storyboard, or a sample dataset. Whatever MVP you choose, it must have just enough core features to attract the interest of early adopters—those people who will likely want to buy your product immediately after launch.
Step 3 – Measure the Results
Here you measure the results you obtained in Step 2. Compare your hypothesis with what actually occurred. Is there sufficient interest in your idea to develop it further? Do the data show that you will be able to build a sustainable business around your product or service?
Step 4 – Learn from the Results
Congratulations! You have reached the final phase and are now able to make informed business decisions. You know exactly what to do next and basically have two options:
- Persevere: Your hypothesis was correct, so you decide to continue with the same goals. You repeat the feedback loop to continuously improve and refine your idea.
- Pivot: The experiment disproved your hypothesis, but you still gained valuable knowledge about what works and what does not. For example, you can pick out a single promising feature of your MVP and use it as the basis for another product (“zoom-out pivoting“), develop it further on the same product (“zoom-in pivoting“), focus on a different customer type (“customer segment pivoting“), or find a new distribution channel (“channel pivoting“).
In any case, the Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop begins anew after the learning phase.
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At a Glance
- A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final, complete feature set is only designed and developed taking into account feedback from the product’s first users.
The Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop:
- Step 1: Plan your experiment: Learn, measure, and build—including developing a formal hypothesis.
- Step 2: Develop a Minimum Viable Product and test it.
- Step 3: Measure the results against your hypothesis to decide whether you can develop a profitable business around your product.
- Step 4: Learn from your results and decide whether to persevere or pivot.
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