The benefits of the Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) method

Digital transformation can have a strong impact on the internal organization. It may be whether in terms of processes, tools, the KPIs of actors, such as management and direct users. These have to be taken into account as a natural brake on the project. This requires a strong support for Businesses in order to reassure them, and to define with them criteria allowing to have a common and clear vision of the milestones. The key to successful digital transformation also requires to establish a relationship of trust. This is where we use the Minimum Marketable Feature Method.

3 goals of the Minimum Marketable Feature Method

 – This provides a method and tools to “contract” with the business.
– This makes the scope of development more reliable in order to obtain full support from the business during the product launch.
 – Finally, this allows to have a global vision of the product (big & small picture) and to go quickly with the MMF method.

But before launching 

It is important to fully master the process to be transformed, the tools used and the persona who act in this “end to end” process. 

Above all, forget the “it already exists! Look at the knowledge base” or the “You are not going to redo the work twice, it’s a waste of time.” 

Take the time to do “life my life” throughout the process chain in order to soak up each task carried out by the teams; of each interaction between the IS. And lay down everything you may have seen. 

Profits of the Minimum Marketable Feature Method. 

At the end, you have an up-to-date operational process and you:

– Master it perfectly from start to finish.
– Know exactly where in the chain are the persona and the tasks they perform.
– Are able to upgrade the Dev team, with a clear operational mapping.
– Have built your knowledge network within the process chain (facilitating future workshops).
– Have, potentially, already been able to detect value axes.  

Being accompanied by a UX when possible is of great importance, because it helps users and management to project themselves and to be able to give a short, medium and long term course of the product, via its models or video animation that will afterwards give this vision small and big picture. 

When validating the mockups and redesigning the processes, depending on the business value they bring, it is important to ask the question of a need to use the tool (s) on tablet type terminals / PC / Mobile, because it will be necessary to make the application fully responsive (compatible). 

Otherwise, in case of backtracking during the project, it would take additional time of re-design and rework for the redesign of the screens to make it compatible. 

Proceed to the definition of switchover criteria 

Now we can move on to the contracting stage with defining the criteria for switching users in the application. 

This step consists of going over the entire process and the models, then defining and validating the priorities. Ideally a first phase allowing a pilot. Then a second which will be officially used by all users of the product. This is for experts the establishment of an Minimum Viable Product (MVP). 

Usually a file is used in order to integrate this MVP and follow its progress but the Jira application can quite act as a follow-up of the progress of the project via the piloting of the portfolio management (but this will be the subject of ‘a different article). 

 
Example MVP Tracking Table 

Validating this reference table during a committee by also integrating it into the report of this one allows an officialization and a contractualization, a commitment of all the business and DSI stakeholders. 

We can on this basis build a product roadmap with in P1 the prerequisite for pilot launch and in P1 the prerequisite for switching all users. 

Switching to the Minimum Marketable Feature method 

It allows to : 

– Structure the perimeter, population by population (persona by persona) 
– Identify the business value for each user flow of personae 
– Orient the models in MMF vision 
– Break down the EPICs in order to be able to structure the defined perimeter 

Once we defined the MVP, we switch to MMF mode which is an “MVP of the MVP”. We work on the MVP mockups in order to redesign it to keep only 100% of Business Value and at the same time go very quickly in development time. 

To summarize

The Minimum Marketable Feature Method allows:

– A precise vision to pilot the landing of future deployments
– The project team decides to be fully user-oriented
– To “embark” users (they commit to their expression of needs)
– To structure an MMF (Minimum Marketable Feature) in a very operational way, population by population. 

Written by Aziz Lasri