Extra MVP: How to Start Using Software, Even When It Is Under Development

Any software development project has a major drawback: it requires time and resources, and does not allow business owners to start using solutions under development. In other words, most clients of outsourced software product development services can’t use the planned software application or system at least for the first few months.

As a result, any such from-scratch development will drain your business resources without providing your team with any software. However, what if it is possible to deal with such an issue?

 

Minimum Viable Product Explained

 

Choosing an MVP development approach is one of the most popular and efficient ways to cut the software delivery expectation date. Basically, such products are “beta” versions of the final result, providing users with only basic features and services.

Cutting the number of developed functionalities to the bare minimum helps significantly reduce the time and resources required to create a working software system. For example, the most basic version of the Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) can take around 2-4 months, while full-fledged CRM development is expected to require 6-18 months, depending on multiple factors like:

• Complexity of the system
• Software specifics
• Desired functionality
• Project Scale
• Other factors

On the one hand, creating an MVP helps to satisfy the basic business goals and demands much faster and cheaper. As a result, businesses can access expected solutions in just a few months and continue scaling the functionality gradually, while using the basic version of an app.

However, building an MVP usually requires the engagement of the whole software team, leaving no space for the parallel implementation of extra features and services. Nevertheless, our Incora team found an ideal solution that can deliver the basic system’s functionality without interrupting the development process itself. Let’s call it “Extra MVP”.

Extra MVP as an Alternative to The Rest of The Approaches

 

So, what is so special about this development method? Long story short, during the discovery phase, when we discuss the future project, we pinpoint the core features or services that are essential for our clients and required as soon as possible.

However, traditional MVP solutions are still quite complex applications that require front-end and back-end development, IT infrastructure creation, UX/UI design, etc. Alternatively, we suggest creating a less sophisticated solution that can deliver the core functionality even faster (under two months).

 

How to Cut The Development Time?

 

Simply put, our team agrees with the client on only a few (2-3) core system features or services that must be delivered immediately. So, we choose 1-2 dedicated developers, responsible for creating an “extra MVP” project. At the same time, the rest of the team is responsible for the traditional software development approach, including all the steps and stages like planning, coding, testing, etc.

Therefore, in terms of the same software development agreement, our team is responsible for two parallel developments:

• Full-fledged software application development
• Creating a small, autonomous system that satisfies the most essential or urgent features within 2 months.

The beauty behind such development is its simplicity: “extra MVP” aims at the heart of the functionality, allowing developers to set up the infrastructure for expected features and use third-party services (for instance, Excel) as interfaces.

 

How “Extra MVP” Actually Works?

 

For a better illustration, let’s consider the case of a custom CRM development. During our research and discovery phase, we managed to pinpoint two vital CRM services that can be designed and developed without a custom UI/UX or frontend development:

• Contact and Lead Management
• Activity Logging and Interaction History

They require database schemas and back-end development, yet only two niche specialists can fulfill these requirements. So, we choose the most suitable experts and have them create a working infrastructure based on third-party software like Excel, custom-built scripts, and data scrapers. The core goal of their work is to create an autonomous background pipeline capable of covering these two services.

At the same time, the rest of the team proceeds with the next steps of traditional development, like planning, analyzing software requirements, participating in the system’s design, etc.

Hence, we can manage two separate software development processes that don’t affect each other. After creating an “extra MVP”, these two software engineers will join the main software development, empowering the rest of the team and continuing the main software development.

Eventually, our client will get a straightforward yet working solution covering two vital CRM features while the actual and custom CRM system is still under development. The most astonishing fact is that such an approach won’t require noticeable budget changes, hiring extra developers, or performing many other additional steps.