Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been lecturing at UK universities giving a practical overview of how we use the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach at Next Jump. I like Eric Reis’ definition but it doesn’t quite describe how the MVP process works for us in practice, so I thought I’d share how I described it:

The Minimum Viable Product is one which only allows features that are absolutely required, to be released to a population of real users from which measures of success and failure can be observed, feedback gathered and iterative improvements made.

They key concepts are:

• The Minimum number of features, and the minimum is probably fewer that you think.
• Measurable results, which enable you to statistically analyse and quantify performance of iterations.
• User feedback, which gives you a true insight into how users are interacting with your product, what works and what doesn’t.
• An Iterative Process, as without iterations your product will never move from minimum viability towards an optimal solution.

A while ago I purchased an FM transmitter from eBay so I could play songs from my Nano on the radio in the car. However when the transmitter arrived, it wouldn’t work! So I sent it back and got another one (months later).

The second transmitter just about worked for about 10 min of use, and then killed itself. So I have decided to give up on it.

Apparently these devices are illegal because of archaic radio licensing legislation, but I doubt the one I had was illegal because if didn’t actually transmit anything!

Anyway, don’t buy one of these!

My V3 razr seemed a fairly good phone until the other day when it committed suicide. Now its about as much use as most of my debit cards, easy to fit in your pocket but otherwise useless!

I went into O2 today to get it fixed and in return I got a brick for a courtesy phone. Unfortunately I forgot to take the numbers off my old phone before sending it away, pants! So if you sent a message and I haven’t replied, sorry it Motorola’s fault!