The AndPlus Software Development Blog

It's wonderful when startups succeed and burst into the limelight, but one of the sad facts of entrepreneurial life is that startup companies often fail. The biggest reason, according to some observers, is lack of a market for the product or service the company is building. But even in those companies that have a compelling idea and large, strong market, startups often fail to deliver a product that lives up to its expectations—or, sometimes, any product at all—before the cash runs out and investors become disenchanted. Many great ideas have withered on the vine for want of a solid product launch.

Today, it seems that almost every software development organization employing more than one programmer subscribes to the Agile methodology. In fact, it’s difficult to find one that doesn’t. Given its pervasiveness now, it’s hard to remember that only a few years ago, Agile was a newfangled idea that only a few development shops were trying, while others dismissed it as a passing fad or were “waiting to see…”

“What!? Can’t you see I’m busy? None of project development's stories are getting done on time and user features are still lagging behind.”

“I‘m sorry, sir. I know you're busy, but Mr. Petrov is on the phone. He says he may be able to help.”

“Who?”

“Sergei Petrov, our contact in Moscow.”

“Oh, that's unexpected. What’s he want?”

“He said it’s for your ears only. And it’s terribly important. Something about the MoSCoW method.”

Software developers are a funny bunch. Not necessarily “ha ha” funny—you don’t see many developers on the stand-up comedy circuit—but they have certain peculiarities. Although they are generally amenable to learning new things, such as shopping for books, buying airline tickets, and meeting people in “chat rooms.” Witness, for example, the great struggles some development teams had when switching from procedural to object-oriented programming.

Most professional software development shops, AndPlus included, have adopted some variation of the Agile development methodology. Among the most important concepts in Agile is that of the product backlog, which is simply a list of items (front-end features and under-the-hood tasks) that need to be implemented in the software product.

Admit it: When you read “MVP” in the title of this article, you thought “most valuable player." Huh? Sorry to disappoint, but in this context, MVP has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with the success of a software development project. In software development, MVP stands for minimum viable product.