Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a business class.
Professor: OK, as we’ve talked about, when developing a new product, it’s important to make sure that you aren’t wasting dollars creating something that customers don’t actually want. In order to avoid doing this, you want to make sure you have a solid understanding of what customers actually want before you pour a lot of money into designing a product. So with this as our goal, I want to tell you about an approach to product development that helps address this concern. It is called MVP, or Minimum Viable Product.
Now, you may have heard “MVP” before in relation to sports. In sports, it means “Most Valuable Player.” But in business, it’s different. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. The idea is that you design a product that is not at all sophisticated or fancy. It only has the minimum number of features necessary to distribute to a small number of customers, so that you can learn from them. You test this very basic product with a small number of customers in order to discover what they want, and you continue development from there. ‘Cause this is great way to discover what your product’s needs are before you invest a lot of money designing features that aren’t essential… features that your customers may not want or need.
Female Student: But don’t you think it is kind of dangerous to do that? People aren’t going to want a product that is so basic, it isn’t special. Maybe they won’t even understand what about it is different from other, similar products, or see what about it should attract them.
Professor: That’s a good point. Here is the key—you are not trying to sell this product to a large number of customers. The MVP is not a strategy to attract to every potential customer in your market. That is not the point. The point is that you’re targeting a small set of customers who you think of as… visionaries. People who can help you envision what other features this product should have.
And you need to remember what the goal is, here. The MVP is not about selling a finished product. It is not about perfection. It’s about combating perfectionism early in the process of product development, because attempting perfection early on can be detrimental. First, because trying to design the perfect product before you’ve done user research can lead to many wasted hours of work. For example, your engineers spend hours and hours creating a feature that may not be very valuable to customers, or that they don’t even care about at all! And second, trying to create the perfect product typically lengthens the amount of time you spend working on the product. This delays actually getting the product into the hands of customers so that you can learn from them. Again—I don’t mean all customers. I mean select ones.
Male Student: Well, I would expect that customers don’t always know what they want anyway. I mean, how do you trust such a small sample size? If it’s only a small group of customers, they may not represent the desires of all of your customers, right?
Professor: Let’s remember that you are listening to how your visionary customers respond to your MVP so that you can decide whether to implement their ideas into future versions of your product. You aren’t obliged to do anything you don’t want to do. The point of releasing an MVP, which again, means Minimum Viable Product, is to gather information for your benefit. And also remember… if we’re talking about the number of customers you release the MVP to… that’s up to you! You want to balance considerations… how many customers do you want to hear from to feel you can rely on their responses? You don’t want to go too small, as you say, but you also don’t want to go bigger than you need to, because you aren’t trying to sell the MVP to all potential customers. That comes later. It’s important to keep in mind what your goal is when deploying an MVP.
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What is the lecture primarily about? |
Gist-content. The lecture is about a product development method called the Minimum Viable Product, or MVP. |
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| ✗ | A A management strategy in business that improves employee morale |
The lecture is not about a employee morale. It is about a product development strategy. |
| ✓ | B An approach to product development and why it can be useful |
Correct. This is the main topic of the lecture. |
| ✗ | C Two methods for maximizing efficiency in business |
The lecture is only about one method. |
| ✗ | D A tool that customers can use in evaluating whether to buy a product |
The MVP isn’t a tool that customers buying a product use. It’s a tool for managing product development. |
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According to the professor, what is a potential benefit of the MVP strategy? |
Detail. The MVP strategy is a method of releasing an early version of a product to a small number of customers to learn from them before investing more resources in developing the product. |
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| ✗ | A It can contribute to the design of a nearly perfect product early in the development process. |
The professor says the opposite is true—MVP is used to combat perfectionism early in the product development cycle. |
| ✓ | B It can help product developers avoid many wasted hours of work. |
Correct. The professor states that it can save developers from spending time working on features that may not ultimately be included in the product. |
| ✗ | C It can relieve anxiety among product developers. |
The professor does not discuss anxiety. |
| ✗ | D It drives engineers to work more quickly. |
The professor does not suggest that the MVP increases the rate at which engineers work. |
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What does the professor say about customers that use the MVP? |
Detail. The professor says that customers to whom an MVP is released can help a product developer make decisions about the future vision of the product. |
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| ✗ | A An MVP should appeal to the largest possible number of potential customers. |
The professor states the opposite in the lecture—the MVP is designed to provide the minimum number of required features to allow early users to help decide what other features to include. |
| ✗ | B An MVP is created solely for the purpose of hypothetical distribution and will not be shown to actual customers. |
The MVP is meant to be released to actual customers, not hypothetical ones. |
| ✓ | C An MVP is designed for release to a small number of select customers. |
Correct. The professor is clear that an MVP is not meant to appeal to a large number of customers, but is meant to be released to a targeted group. |
| ✗ | D An MVP evaluation always produces conflicting requests from different customers that must be resolved. |
While users of the MVP may have different ideas about what features to add, it is not the case that conflicting requests “always” occur. |
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Why does the professor mention that in sports, MVP is used to mean “Most Valuable Player?” |
Organization. At the beginning of the lecture, the professor mentions that in sports, MVP means “Most Valuable Player.” This definition is given to contrast its meaning in a business context. |
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| ✗ | A To give an example of another industry that uses an MVP |
The question asks why the professor mentions the definition of MVP in sports. The reason is not merely to show that MVP is a term used in another industry as well. |
| ✗ | B To illustrate the usefulness of the concept across multiple industries |
The professor’s point is that MVP is a different concept in the sports industry than it is in product development. |
| ✗ | C To emphasize that MVP means essentially the same thing in both sports and product development |
The professor states the opposite—MVP in sports has a very different meaning from MVP in product development. |
| ✓ | D To explain that the meaning of MVP in the context of product development is different |
Correct. The professor’s point is that in business, MVP means something very different than it does in sports. |
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Why does the professor use the term “visionaries”? |
Organization. The professor describes the select group of customers to whom the MVP is released as “visionaries,” in that they can assist in furthering the vision of the product. |
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| ✓ | A To identify the kind of customers an MVP should target |
Correct. These are the people that should be targeted by an MVP. |
| ✗ | B To name a group of customers who would prefer an MVP over a more developed product |
The point is not that these customers prefer an MVP over a more developed product. |
| ✗ | C To offer an example of how an MVP can originate from anywhere within a company |
MVP is a product that is released to visionary customers. |
| ✗ | D To emphasize the importance of inspired engineers in product development |
Engineering is not relevant to this part of the lecture. |
Narrator: What does the professor imply when she says this:
Professor: And also remember… if we’re talking about the number of customers you release the MVP to… that’s up to you!
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What does the professor imply when she says this? |
Inference. In this quote, the professor is reminding students that the number of customers to whom an MVP is released is not predetermined. |
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| ✗ | A The MVP is exclusively designed by the product manager. |
“Exclusively” is a strong word. Furthermore, this quote is about the decision of how many customers to distribute the MVP to, not who designs the MVP. |
| ✗ | B It is unlikely that anyone but the product manager would have a strong opinion on the number of customers targeted by an MVP. |
The professor does not contrast various roles within a project, and does not imply that only the product manager would have an opinion on this issue. |
| ✓ | C The MVP approach can be customized by whoever is managing product development. |
Correct. The specific decisions within the MVP approach, such as how many customers to target, is up to product developers. |
| ✗ | D It is concerning that the MVP would be released to more than a few customers, but ultimately that is the product manager’s decision. |
She does not convey concern about the issue of MVP customer group size. She is making a more neutral point. |