Editorial
The Gist
- Prioritize functionality. MVP mindset speeds development by focusing on core functionalities and leveraging real-world feedback for improvements.
- Cross-functional importance. Exceptional customer experiences demand collaboration across all organizational levels, not just customer-facing teams.
- CIOs drive innovation. By fostering agile environments, CIOs align MVPs with business goals, ensuring adaptable and successful product strategies.
A minimum viable product (MVP) mindset is integral to digital transformations including for transformations focused upon customer experience. An MVP mindset emphasizes rapid iteration and continuous learning. It prioritizes delivering core functionality to meet customer or user needs quickly, allowing for real-world feedback and iterative improvements, which can dramatically speed up the development process. While aesthetics are important, the primary goal of an MVP is functionality; it must be robust enough to fulfill basic requirements while remaining flexible for future enhancements.
Unified CX Demands Cross-Functional Collaboration
In “Customer Experience Is Everyone’s Responsibility” the authors Rebecca Hinds and Sarang Gupta say, “Companies have tried to adapt to this digital-first, omnichannel environment for years. But many have failed to create great, unified customer experiences.” The authors find that “Standout customer experiences are fueled by new, cross-functional collaborations across organizations. Customer experience can no longer be driven by the frontline sales representative or even a dedicated customer experience team — everyone in your organization has a role to play.” I would argue as well that organizations with a great customer experience have also adopted an agile and minimum viable product mindset to efficiently drive the customer experience that customers want.
Related Article: The Power of Minimum Viable Products (and the Key to Their Success)
CIOs Drive Minimum Viable Product Success and Innovation
CIOs play a vital role in guiding the MVP development process. They ensure that MVPs align with business objectives and customer needs while managing resources efficiently. This involves setting clear criteria for success, fostering a collaborative environment and leveraging data-driven insights to refine product offerings. For many, adopting MVP and agile methodologies necessitates a significant cultural shift. It requires that teams embrace change, prioritize user feedback and adopt a learning mindset. Agility and flexibility become core values by fostering an environment where rapid development cycles and cross-functional collaboration are the norms rather than the exception. This shift over time will drive innovation and competitive advantage.
Related Article: Why You Want to Be Market-Driven Rather Than Marketing-Driven
Digital Transformation Accelerant
An MVP mindset is a powerful catalyst for digital transformation, harnessing the principles of agile to foster a culture of innovation. It prioritizes rapid delivery of workable solutions, placing them in users' hands swiftly to harness feedback and direct further development. This approach emphasizes progression over perfection, enabling organizations to iteratively refine and evolve their systems and processes. By focusing on the essentials, the MVP approach not only accelerates development and reduces stress but also validates design and agile methodologies.
To work effectively, FIRST CIO Deb Gildersleeve says, “CIOs should look at what are the most important things to do first and then work to get them done. This puts the solution in front of users faster and allows for early feedback and improvement.”
MVPs Foster Agility, Demand Business Alignment
Yet, this mindset is not without its risks. Manufacturing CIO, Joanne Friedman says, “An MVP mindset can be a double-edged sword; if a proof of concept fails, it can stall initiatives as being of little value. If an MVP aligns with or supports an articulated business outcome, even in raw form it may create a groundswell of support for further funding and development.”
Clearly, when an MVP aligns with clear business outcomes, it can rally substantial support for ongoing development and funding. By embracing a "test and learn" ethos over constructing inflexible monoliths, organizations can remain agile, responding effectively to feedback and continuously improving. The underlying philosophy is simple: Starting somewhere and prioritizing progress will lead to more substantial achievements than striving for unattainable perfection.
New Zealand CIO Anthony McMahon argues, “MVPs enable test and learn mindset instead of building a monolith and finding it wasn't the right answer, organizations can adapt to the feedback received through the MVP process.” University of California – Santa Barbara Deputy CIO Joe Sabado adds, “It is important to get the solution into the hands of the customers for actual feedback should quicken the path to adoption or feedback to maybe pivot.” Hopefully, CMOs are on the same page as CIOs here.
MVPs Balance Usability and Design
The minimum viable product strategy walks a tightrope between functionality and aesthetic appeal — leaning too far toward either can be problematic. The critique of an MVP as a "pig with lipstick" encapsulates the dilemma: Should the MVP impress with its look, or is basic functionality enough? The consensus among tech leaders suggests that an MVP should not sacrifice usability for the sake of expediency. While it need not be a masterpiece of design, it must offer a user experience that encourages adoption and feedback. This balance between usability and aesthetics is vital in avoiding the pitfall of creating solutions that are 'effective-ugly' — usable but uninviting.
Manhattanville University CIO Jim Russell says, “MVPs should not be more ugly than effective. Modern shops or platforms should commit to a user experience or design standards that does not alienate users even if it falls short of perfection.”
MVP Proves Direction, Engages Stakeholders
Additionally, Constellations Research VP Dion Hinchcliffe says, “A good MVP will have usable features that demonstrates the approach is valid, but not necessarily all or most functionality. It must demonstrate enough to show it is heading in the right direction plus likely to get the job done eventually. There should be bonus points for high-risk features. Early usability proves the team can deliver something customers want to adopt. It's key to ROI. And now a critical point, disengaged stakeholders that don't evaluate the MVP or engage with it in a timely manner. This is one of the greatest risks to an initiative.”
MVPs Grow Beyond Initial Impressions
Where this occurs, shadow IT emerges, where internal clients bypass official channels for more user-friendly turnkey solutions. An MVP, for this reason, should validate the approach by showing enough progress in the right direction and engaging customers early to secure return on investment. The MVP's future is as much about evolving through stages of development as it is about proving a concept. A piecemeal approach to development can result in costly backtracking, especially when scaling up.
Thus, an MVP must be more than a proof of concept — it must have the potential to grow and evolve beyond the first impression, challenging the outdated mindset that hinges on making a perfect initial impact. Art and Wellness Enterprises CIO Paige Francis suggests, “How about it just being a piglet — with additional stages as it grows? MVPs need to minimally work and look ‘fine’ but for innovation you must tackle the archaic; we have one chance to make a great impression mindset.”
Ensuring Critical Business Requirements Are Met
CIOs play a crucial role in steering the MVP development to meet critical business requirements. To ensure success, they must ensure MVPs focus on key user requirements, constructing features that are viable, valuable and directly aligned with the overarching business objectives. Think expansively, initiate with the essentials, and deliver rapidly, ensuring a cycle of continuous improvement. Hinchcliffe says, “The single most important tool to ensure an MVP meets key critical requirements is a sorted list of requirements by priority in descending order. Though the devil is in the details, if this is done well plus adhered to, the MVP has the best chance to succeed.”
CIOs Guide MVPs Toward Future Goals
CIOs need to strike a balance between being facilitators and visionaries, working collaboratively while focusing on enabling, not dictating, business outcomes. By actively listening to organizational needs, learning where immediate impact can be made, and effectively communicating the joint narrative between IT and early adopters, CIOs can guide MVP development from its current "is" state toward an aspirational "will be" state. McMahon stresses, "The CIO is there to enable business outcomes — not to be the outcomes. MVP is no different to any other project methodology, it must be done with and not done to.”
MVPs Connect Dots, Drive Business Goals
This narrative should not only connect the dots but also tell a compelling story that underscores the MVP’s role in achieving business outcomes. To do this, Russell says, “CIOs should listen, learn, and communicate. Listen to the wants and needs of the organization and its customers. Learn where your team can make a difference quickly. Communicate the vision, the steps and the partnership between early users and IT.”
For this reason, Friedman says, “The best MVPs tell a story that connect the dots between current and future state. CIOs must act as the conductor. Gain deep understanding of the why of the requirements, show overall alignment with higher level outcomes to be achieved, and select the right team.” At the same time, Gildersleeve believes CIOs need to make sure teams working with business partners define the right problem and solution. As well, they need to work with their teams to narrow down the most important areas to tackle with the MVP.”
Cultural Change
The integration of MVPs and agile methodologies can signify a substantial cultural shift within IT landscapes, challenging long-standing practices. The traditional linear development mindset, preferred by many project managers and some developers, is upended by the agile insistence on flexibility and the possibility of revisiting and revising work — a concept that can lead to resistance among those accustomed to a more sequential approach.
Agile Adoption Hinges on Cultural Fit
The journey to adopting agile and embracing MVPs varies in its impact — it can be disruptive or enriching, contingent on the efficacy of communication and change management. Years ago, the shift to agile was met with skepticism as it was perceived to bypass proper project estimation. However, over time, businesses began to appreciate agile's adaptability, although the constant flux of requirements remains a challenge for some.
To facilitate a smoother transition, it's crucial to align the language and concepts of agile and MVPs with the existing organizational culture. When cultural change is synonymous with improvement and the process is underpinned by a foundation of trust within the team, the shift becomes more manageable, and the concepts more readily adopted. Building this trust and demonstrating the tangible benefits of agile and MVPs are essential steps in cultivating a receptive environment.
Agile and MVPs Challenge Traditional PMs
Hinchcliffe says, “MVPs are still a big change for PMs, who still crave a linear journey. Even development leads hate going back + building them again if it's wrong. We use MVPs because we might have to create many of them to get a good answer. Development organizations mostly have adopted the agile, highly iterative MVP route. It's the operations people, managers, and PMs that are still struggling with this approach. Even stakeholders and CMOs struggle. So, there's still plenty of work to do with education, culture, and process change.”
Gildersleeve says, “When I made the shift to agile, it was a massive change for me personally. It started off seemingly to not have to estimate projects and the business was skeptical and did not buy into the MVP idea. Then they started to like the idea of agile but that translated to changing requirements all throughout the project. It is more accepted now and often better managed but still a big shift in thinking for any company that hasn't already changed to this way of working.” Francis says, “Honestly if cultural change equals improvement it’s much easier to manage. Build the trust with the environment first.”
Parting Words on the Minimum Viable Product Mindset
The cultural transition to agile and minimum viable product frameworks represents a significant shift, one that continues to challenge traditional workflows and mindsets. Resistance persists particularly in sectors less exposed to agile methodologies, with skepticism often stemming from a misunderstanding of these principles.
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Despite this, the agile approach, with its iterative nature and emphasis on user-centric development, is gaining ground as organizations recognize its value in fostering adaptability and delivering targeted solutions especially for customer experience. The key to navigating this shift lies in effective communication, aligning new methods with existing values, and building trust within teams to showcase the tangible improvements that agile and MVP strategies can yield. Francis says, “You get nowhere if you don’t start. Keeping an attainable MVP mindset helps you focus less on perfect, more on progress.”
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