Why and How to prioritize features in MVP?

42% of the startups fail because of the lack of market understanding and 29% due to the cash burn rate according to the CBINSIGHTS report. This shows the importance of having the right Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Most of the startups fail because they tend to ignore the aspect of having an MVP first. They end up spending a lot of time and capital on developing products that aren’t required by the users. While developing an MVP try not to spend resources on ideas that are already explored. Don’t complicate the functionalities of the product, try to create a simple and easily usable software product. As you might be aware that MVP is a basic version of a product that you can deploy for tests in the market, comprising of basic functionalities. MVP requires fewer resources, less time, and even less amount of effort to develop. Thus, it is advisable to use MVP to get feedback from the customer that’ll be helpful in the future. Now, let’s talk about feature prioritization in MVP.

Feature Prioritization?

It is a method where you are supposed to identify the features that would support your MVP’s core functionality. To fulfill the objectives of your product use feature prioritization and test certain cases as well. Use this to identify not only the priorities but also to set up your project roadmap, identify work boundaries, and classify the needs and demands. Find out how you can define features for your MVP.

Things to keep in mind while defining features for MVP:

Many factors influence the functionality of your MVP. Find out the things to be aware of while successfully defining the features of your MVP to be able to deliver the customer’s needs:

1. Know your target audience: One of the most crucial steps in a business is to be able to identify the target audience. Before creating your software product, first, analyze your target audience and then try to understand their requirements based on the demographics like gender, age, designation, and education.
2. Identify the problems: Any user would use a software product to solve a certain problem, understand your target audience’s pain points. Understand what the end customer is struggling with within its everyday life. Identify the pain points through interviews, extensive researches, surveys, etc.
3. Know how your product is a problem solver: You should be aware of how your product is going to solve your customers’ pain points. Focus on creating a software system that allows any user to get the required solution with minimal effort. The efficiency of your product solving a problem should be high to generate valuable results.
4. Know your competitors: You should be aware of the companies that are offering similar services to your target audience. Analyze their products and create an extensive report on how they are solving the problem, what unique thing they are doing, and their strengths as well as weaknesses.
5. Find out the indirect competitors: Look for the competitors who are offering different products but might have the potential to fulfill the customer’s needs. Analyze their product’s advantages and disadvantages to be aware of the things related to their product.
6. Focus on forming a unique value proposition: Make sure that your product has something that makes it stand out. Prioritization at this point helps you to identify and choose the right product. Customers will always have a proper reason to use your product.
7. Always keep the end-users in mind: While developing a product adopt a user-centered mindset that is beneficial to the clients and your business as well. It will help you to understand your target audience and their requirements.

Once the functionalities are defined, now prioritize them. Read below the approaches you can follow to prioritize your MVP.

MVP Prioritization:

1. MoSCow matrix: Divide MVP features into four different categories that are must-have, should have, could have, and won’t have. Based on these categories define the functionalities in each section and then prioritize them accordingly.
2. Numerical assignment: It is also called grouping, distribute your product’s functionalities n the priority groups of critical priority, moderate priority, and optional priority. Define these groups clearly and explain them well to all the stakeholders.
3. The Kano model technique: It is a user-centered approach outlining three different types of product features that are threshold attributes comprising of basic features your product should have. The next one is the performance attribute which isn’t that important but somewhere influences the user’s satisfaction. The last one is excitement attributes that aren’t expected by a user but get it as a bonus.
4. Bubble sort technique: With the help of this technique, you can sort functionalities varying from most important to least important. You can write down the MVP functionalities in an array, where you can compare two adjacent arrays and change the place in the array depending on their importance. This procedure would involve multiple iterations. As the iteration takes place the highest priority functionality will be at the top of the array.

With this, you can try implementing MVP prioritization as it is highly important in the development of an MVP. This will surely help you to create a successful fully-fledged product. No matter how many strategies are available having their pros and cons, the team also plays a crucial role in contributing towards making an MVP successful. Even though carrying out the procedure as mentioned above isn’t an easy task, but it surely is rewarding. So, make it hygiene to carry out this MVP features prioritization while developing your MVP.