Continuing from the last post, I want to finish the MMF thoughts…

Caution: There is Minimum. Then there is Viable

There’s a wonderful Harvard Business Review blog article [iii]where David Aycan discusses additional nuances associated with the notion of an MMF. He makes the point that quite often today, in our fervor to hit the ‘minimum’, we over-simplify features and products and lose customer and business viability.

I haven’t seen this pattern that much myself; I usually see the reverse, or teams incessantly trying to build “too much”. But, he connects it to Eric Ries’s Lean Startup work and I have been around enough people who are passionate about those ideas that I can see it happening. Regardless, I’d recommend you read his post.

I think the key is for us to focus on minimal and viable as much as possible when we’re framing reactions to our customers’ needs.

Finally, a Trip to MoSCoW

I first encountered the MoSCoW method for prioritization within the DSDM agile methodology[iv]. DSDM lies within the agile family of methods, but is nearly unused in North America. It is much more popular in Europe and leveraged mostly for traditional, larger-scale projects. It has some interesting dynamics that are similar to RUP-style methods.

MoSCoW[v] prioritization is a technique for breaking requirements, or stories & features, down into four specific categories for consideration, discussion, and execution. They are:

• Must Haves – will not release without these features and  capabilities being present
• Should Haves – high priority features
• Could Haves – moderate priority, fit if time allows, but deferrable
• And Won’t Haves – features negotiated out of this release for now

When prioritizing your backlog, it helps to place these four ‘buckets’ on a wall or table and to visually discuss and move stories around from one to the other.

Many groups come up with some sort of ratio that helps with this. For example, out of 100 stories, perhaps only 10-20% should effectively be Must Haves and 20-30% might be valid Should Haves. This gives you some general guidance on how to compose stories into an MMF or, more often, an MMP definition.

You might want to try Moscow as a facilitative technique when you’re prioritizing. My experience is that it helps to drive discussion and encourages the team to wrestle with truly “must haves” versus everything else.

Wrapping Up

There is never enough time nor sufficient team capacity to do everything. Yet, today’s leaders always seem to be pushing teams beyond their abilities; creating unhealthy tension and the possibility of team’s disastrously committing to more than they are capable of delivering.

Instead, the notions of Minimal and Marketable help teams and stakeholders define a clear set of value-based functionality that can be negotiated before committing to a release plan. Another attractive aspect is that they form a ‘baseline’ understanding that can be adjusted based on the teams challenges and changing business needs.

Whether you are part of an agile project or not, consider leveraging MMF’s as part of your project chartering and commitment processes to focus in on the minimal set of customer expectations that still provide high value.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.