My rant from EuroIA 2017 in Stockholm, Sweden. I have incorporated some notes in these slides that were part of my oral presentation for the sake of clarity.

1. MVP
the misunderstood value proposition
Eric Reiss
@elreiss
EuroIA
30 September 2017
Stockholm, Sweden

2. 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!

3. Lots of issues and buzzwords
Design thinking
Storytelling
Lean / MVP
“Awesome”
“Intuitive”
AI / IoT
Portfolios
Methodologies
Case studies
Research

4. Lots of issues and buzzwords
Design thinking
Storytelling
Lean / MVP
“Awesome”
“Intuitive”
AI / IoT
Portfolios
Methodologies
Case studies
Research

5. 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.)

6. Minimum
Viable
Product (or prototype, process…)
The least that needs to be made
Something that people will actually want
The “thing” itself

7. Frank Robinson
Steve Blank
Eric Ries
Eric Reiss
X

8. Minimum
Viable
Product
The least that needs to be made
Something that people will actually want
The “thing” itself

9. 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.

10. Trabi vs. Jag
MVP

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

12. Enough features to make it interesting now
Enough future benefits to keep early adopters
A feedback mechanism
Three attributes

13. “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

14. You’re not building a product; you’re eliciting
customer feedback:
What are their expectations?
Have I truly identified their “top tasks”?
One reason

15. The development houses

16. Make
Vulgar
Profits

17. Cool Geek!Cool Geek

18. Cool Geek!Cool Geek
IA UX
UI
IoT
Wireframes
AI
The Cloud
Content modeling
Waterfall
Scrum
Agile MVP
CMS
Lean SEO

19. 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.

23. (a miracle
CMS)
(Responsive. Cool, huh?)

24. 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

25. And then there are the ad agencies…

27. Give us a ton of money
and we will make
everything wonderful.

28. Mostly
Visual
Promotions

29. 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

30. So, where does that leave the IA?

31. Most
Valuable
Player?

32. We provide context for content
If “content is king” “context” is the kingdom!
What does an IA do?

33. What are the business goals?
What are the users’ goals?
How can I help both groups achieve these goals?
Three questions to ask yourself

34. The business plan
The marketing plan
Any other strategic documents
Three things to read

35. Conduct a competitive analysis
Check out the analytics
Talk to some actual users
Three things to do (research)

36. 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)

37. Let’s talk about the IA of microwave ovens…
(what follows is a couple of goofy examples
about home appliances)

38. 1985

39. 2017

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

44. So back to ovens…
What are the top tasks?
“Turning it on”
“Setting the temperature”

45. 1975

46. 2017

47. My wife and I bought a new oven…
(Here’s a picture of me trying to take a
reflection-free photo)

49. I want to:
Turn it on
Set the temperature
And the IA is unreal.
Nice on paper but crazy in practice!

51. Activate knobs

52. Select function

53. Wait through
silly animation

54. Good to go
(sort of)

55. Wrong temp.
Press button
Turn knob

56. On the right menu…

57. Press button again
Turn knob again

58. Temperature set

59. Now to get back
To the first menu…

60. Press button again
Turn knob again

61. Good to go!

62. Oops. Gotta push
one more time…

63. Preheating (finally)

64. 10
separate
actions!

65. This is a true MVP!

67. Most
Valuable
Player
(Here’s how. It ain’t rocket science.)

68. Do your research
Identify and verify the top tasks
Solve them!
Encourage feedback
Embrace true MVP practices
Recipe for success

69. Two final questions:
How often have you seen
an MVP approach succeed?
It the MVP concept
actually as useful as it
sounds?

70. But, if you REALLY insist on
building an MVP…

71. Fine tune your Trabi
before you worry
about heated seats
in your Jag!

72. Tack så mycket!

73. 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: