The New MVP - Minimum Valuable Problem

Over the last few weeks I have been listening to some new (to me) Product Management podcasts and have been uncovering some gems that beautifully articulated something that I have been thinking about for a while.

The latest snippet was from the Masters of Product Management Podcast with Steven Haines and Scott Sehlhorst who I would gladly call friends and co-conspirators in the Product Management universe.

It was a discussion about MVP – generally known as Minimum Viable Product. This is a term that never fails to generate sighs of exasperation with many of the product people that attend our training courses, because it is used in so many bad ways and mostly misses the original intent.

Well at the 11 min 30 second mark, Scott re-positions the term as the Minimum Valuable Problem. Boom. Mike drop. There is the gold.

This captures all the original intent of the term Minimum Viable Product and flips it to where it needs to be. Back with the customer.

If you take time to understand what the customer needs, considering all the competing alternatives available to them, what is the minimum set of problems that you need to solve to solve that will create value for that customer?

If you haven’t done that then you haven’t reached minimum.

Thanks, Steve, for your podcast. I still have 3 years of listening to do to catch-up to 2019!