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Great questions for Product Development and MVP definition

Most of people I work with understand the concept of MVP and believe on Lean Startup paradigm to build products. I found that an agreement on how to evaluate and choose which features must be part of the MVP is harder to achieve.

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I believe there are several attributes a requirement should be graded to became part of our MVP, thus using a more analytical approach instead of just an empirical/intuitive method, with phrases like I believe or I want.

Those questions can vary a lot from industry to industry, my concerns on Social Analytics are very different from my friends’ on Mobile Gaming.

As inspiration and to guide a better communication towards product development, I compiled phrases from thought leaders that helped me to create my own list. The original was published by Inc: 100 Great Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask

I hope it helps you:

  1. What is the smallest subset of the problem we can usefully solve? -Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator.

  2. Is this an issue for analysis or intuition? -Tom Davenport, author and professor at Babson College

  3. To whom do you add value? -Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, co-founders, The RBL Group

  4. Do they use it? -Howard Tullman, CEO, 1871

  5. What should we stop doing? -Peter Drucker, management expert and author

  6. In the past few months, what is the smallest change we have made that has had the biggest positive result? What was it about that small change that produced the large return? -Robert Cialdini, author and professor emeritus of marketing and psychology at Arizona State University

  7. What counts that we are not counting? -Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and head of global hospitality for Airbnb

  8. Added 2014-05-12: Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. -Saint-Exupéry

What quote did you like most?