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Engineering

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The smallest version of a product that delivers real value to a user, scoped narrowly so the idea can be tested against real use before the full build.

A minimum viable product is the smallest thing you can build that a real user can get real value from. The point of which is to learn. It exists to test the riskiest assumption in an idea against reality as cheaply as possible, before large amounts of time and money are committed to the full vision.

The word doing the work is "viable". An MVP is not a broken or unfinished product; it is a deliberately narrow but genuinely useful one. Getting that scope right, enough to be worth using, little enough to ship and learn from quickly, is the actual skill, and it is easy to get wrong in both directions.

Related terms

Working out whether you need Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

Definitions are the easy part. If you are trying to decide whether Minimum Viable Product (MVP) belongs in your system, describe what you are building and a senior engineer will give you a straight answer, including when the answer is that you do not need it.

  1. 01A senior engineer reads it. Not a form queue, and not an account manager.
  2. 02We reply either with questions or with a straight answer that we are not the right fit.
  3. 03If it looks like a fit, a technical call with the person who would actually run the delivery.
  4. 04Then scope, effort and risk in writing, before anyone signs anything.
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