Managing within a very short time to go live with your product, offer your client major added value, all with minimal effort: that’s the dream, right? It’ll be no secret to you that what we are talking about is the MVP, a Minimum Viable Product. An experimental product that is ‘good enough’, and which minimally meets your client’s requirements and is a direct success.

The power of a Minimum Viable Product is the speed with which you can achieve something tangible to present to your client. That is exactly what makes an MVP so appealing to every IT employee. It also appeals to Serge Smit, Pega System Architect at BPM Company. “When you know what your client’s exact problem is, you’ll be able to solve it within a very short time with an MVP. That quick time-to-market always make a big impression on a client. And I get a lot of satisfaction from that as a creator, too. It’s so cool to be able to quickly and satisfactorily achieve something. It’s a win-win.”

Then the question remains: how to create an MVP that is as good as possible? To do so, use these 3 tips.

  1. Create the right expectations

A noteworthy pitfall is expectation management. You know what an MVP is, but does your client know that an MVP is not a ready-made, spick and span solution? If your client’s expectations are too high, they’re likely to be disappointed. So be sure to make it clear to your client – well in advance – what an MVP is exactly and what they can expect. A misunderstanding relating to this is that an MVP is the same as a prototype or proof of concept. Many clients think that. So create the right expectations here: tell them that an MVP is absolutely different than a prototype. Even though an MVP is also an experimental product, it does meet the client’s requirements and can actually be used. Then, it is improved based on user feedback.

  1. Also test your MVP

It might slip your mind as an MVP is ‘just’ a minimum product, but also always thoroughly test an MVP first before showing it to the client. This often goes wrong in practice. Put yourself in the user’s shoes: how would they use certain functionalities? This will prevent you from going to your client with a fallible instead of a viable product.

  1. Check the application landscape

This will go into more depth, but whether the MVP fits in your client’s application landscape as a whole is at least as important for an optimal MVP. You can neatly build something that meets your client’s demands, but if it then turns out to not be a good fit with the other (components of) applications, you’ll still have a problem on your hands. To prevent a sprawl of MVPs, it is thus important to keep an overview. Will you build a stand-alone solution or go for the right approach: a flexible MVP that fits with what applications are already available?

If you follow these 3 tips, you’ll be guaranteed to create a wow effect with your client. So: let them know beforehand what to expect, present a thoroughly tested MVP and build an MVP that fits with other applications!

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