Week 5 [Mon, Sep 9th] - Tutorial

Try to limit the MVP to strictly must-have user stories only i.e., it's NOT what you can or want to put in the MVP, but what you must have in the MVP. If the product can be of some use without a given user story, that user story should be left out of the MVP version, even if the omission makes the product hard to use, as long as the product is not impossible to use e.g., in most cases a product can be used without an 'edit item' feature because the user can always delete an item and add a new item instead of editing an existing an item.

Do not discuss features, UI, command format, or implementation details yet. That would be like putting the cart before the horse. At this stage we are simply trying to choose which user needs to fulfill first.

Don't worry about subsequent versions or the final version. You can design them at a later time.

Don't worry about MVP being 'too small'. You can always add more features to the MVP version if you finish it ahead of schedule.
You can also select an additional set of user stories that are nice-to-have for the MVP, to be done but only if there's time left.

In the interest of keeping the MVP small, you can narrow the scope of MVP further e.g., narrower target user, a smaller value proposition.

Suggested workflow:

1. First stage:
   • Divide the user stories among team members.
   • Each member will go through their user stories to discard (e.g., cross out, or move to a different location, but not delete) which are definitely not needed for MVP.
2. Second stage:
   • All members discuss the remaining user stories (i.e., the ones not discarded in the first stage), and try to trim the list further.

Why?: So far, we have user stories we want to include in the MVP version. But user stories simply tell us user needs. To move towards a product design, we need to design product features of the product can fulfill those user needs.

Submission: Note down the feature list in your online project notes document.