This year I’ve been spending much less time programming and much more time thinking. That sounds like a good thing but only if you’re thinking about all the right things. And I’m not sure about that.
This is a repost from my old blog that is now lost to time and carelessness. I found some of my drafts and reedited a handful that might be interesting to read.
So you might have read it before but it's not like I have a massive following so you probably haven't ;)
A big part of my job is now coming up with a plan for MVP and cutting and cutting features. And I just got handed a good lesson.
Who is on your team?
If you’re programming by yourself then you can skip this post. I think I won’t be able to convince you. But if you have a team, I bet their skills vary. And the thing with early stages of development is most tasks are quite difficult and, more importantly, have far reaching consequences.
- Your 10x tech lead will blast through them.
- Your footmen mids will pick them off one by one at a steady pace gradually closing on to the release.
- Your junior devs will get stuck at it for a month and probably come up with suboptimal solutions.
Which of these sound like viable strategies?
Your team needs focus for an MVP and it’s your job as a product owner to help them focus on the right things. But overwhelming your junior developers won’t help.
- It won’t help them learn. Well, maybe just a little if you believe in sink-or-swim teaching methods (I don’t).
- It will take lots of their senior co-workers time.
- It will lead to them losing motivation when they don’t see their work as meaningful.
Junior developers are an investment. Keep them in mind when planning and let them grow.
What kind of feedback do you want?
Besides, let me remind you that an MVP is a version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development. What kind of feedback do you want?
Remember, your core functionality is expected. It’s what goes above the core functionality that counts. A minor tweak to the UI to save a click or two? Sounds good. A simple mobile adaptation? Thoughtful. Clear error messages? Great.
It’s alright for an MVP to not have any of those. You can afford to lose here. But these are exactly the kind of tasks that let your rallying devs take a much needed break or give your juniors an opportunity to hone their skills.
Next time you’re grooming the backlog, make a point to strategically keep a few of high-impact low-effort tasks in your MVP. Your team and your customers will appreciate it.