Story: Time is money
I am sure that everyone knows this phrase, time is money. I did not think about where it comes from.
The phrase was already in print in 1719 in the Whig newspaper.
The saying is intended to convey the monetary cost of laziness, by pointing out that when one is paid for the amount of time one spends working, minimizing wasted time also minimizes the amount of money that is lost to less frivolous pursuits. – Wikipedia
I found the roots on Wikipedia. So, it looks like universal philosophy. I searched on Google, Minimum Valuable Products lank higher than Most Valuable Player. It’s 2021.
We learned from history. In the business, especially the recent product(APP or SaaS) business, our clients have to move forward quickly. Iterating an assumption, execution, and feedback. Generally speaking, it’s 8 to 10 weeks for the initial product. How long can we spend time on website development as a web/graphic designers?
Michael Seibel – How to Plan an MVP
©Y Combinator
– Launch (something bad) quickly
– Get initial customer
– Talk to a user, get feedback
– Iterate, improve a product
Lean MVP
– Build fast (I don’t want to make a website in a week though…)
– Limited functionality
– Solve a small issue
Heavy MVP
– Regulation
– Hard tech
– Biotech
– Moonshot
The launch is not special, get customers quickly
– Timebox(time limit) and spec
– Write spec
– Cut spec
– Don’t fall in love MVP(your vision)
Making sense of MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
©The CRM Team
The drawing above is not the order, 1 → 2 → 3 → 4, I think. At first, the company has to complete 4 as a blueprint. Otherwise, they cannot make parts. If I apply MVP thinking, I made blueprints somehow, but 1000 components. The budget is tight. What can I do with 100 components?
– 4 while to 2 while
– 4 seats to 1 seat
– Keep engine, but small
– Should be automotive
Then, an auto skateboard or bike is made.
In the drawing below, I don’t know a company knows the final product, a car, when they make a skateboard. I don’t know a company can deliver a skateboard if a customer knows what they need, a car. I feel that a company creates a skateboard somehow. Then, they came up with new ideas and apply them continually. At last, they reach a car.
I agree on an explanation, the product first or purpose first. Start prototype.
Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell
©Henrik Kniberg
Agile is an iterative approach to project management and software development that helps teams deliver value to their customers faster and with fewer headaches. Instead of betting everything on a “big bang” launch, an agile team delivers work in small, but consumable, increments. Requirements, plans, and results are evaluated continuously so teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly. – ATLACIAN
– Making a decision what we don’t do
Risk
– Business = right product(market fit)?
– Team = Technical and scalable
– Schedule = cost
Trade-off
– Value = Knowledge value + Customer value
– Short term goal and long term goal
– Focus = building right thing / building thing right / build it fast
– New product development and old product improvement
– Capacity management
– Communicate with stakeholders
– Feature decision
– Backlog grooming
– Short feedback loop, etc.
This is very business and management thinking and designer should know it.
The Lean Startup | Eric Ries
©Talks at Google: The Lean Startup | Eric Ries | Talks at Google
©rypple: Watch Eric Ries Discuss “The Lean Startup”
– Product development is the cycle of build, measure, learn
– Entrepreneurship is management
– Choose customer and prioritize product feature
– Startup = create something new under extremely uncertain
– The pivot = changing strategy without changing the vision
The textbook of startup.
Conclusion: Weak point of ordinary designer
Web/graphic design is a service business. A client has a business idea and needs to introduce their service/product to the market. So, the designer responds to demand. We may be good at design, but we are not good at business. We need to learn it to understand a client’s situation.
In 2021, the value of visualization is not great compare to before 2000. If you still focus on it, your business will be unstable. The industry has changed. We need to catch up with it.
