IT's About Business 13.3 SDLC versus Minimum Viable Product 102 betalazA-development process, he noticed that several of his competitors Development had already gained loyal customers. This situation made it difficult MIS for Wilson's game to gain traction in the marketplace, even though his fantasy environment was more feature-rich than his competitors' As previously discussed, the SDLC is a traditional approach environments. Ultimately, Wilson lost roughly $1 million on his proj- to software development that aims to produce full-function, ect. In the process, he learned the importance of rapid development. feature-rich, user-driven software. The major problem with the Today, development teams at 352 can bring a minimum via- SDLC has always been that the time between developing the ble product to customers in three months or less. The company's list of user needs and the actual implementation of the soft- teams are experts at working with clients to fully develop product ware is too long. The time-consuming nature of the SDLC of- features. Wilson recommends that developers continuously listen ten means that it cannot keep up with the fast-paced business to their user community, remain focused on the long-term goals of environment. the product, and maintain an open mind regarding change. In 1999, Geoff Wilson founded 352 (http://www.352inc.com), MVP development won't work for every business in every situ- a successful web design company based in Gainesville, Florida. His ation. Nevertheless, it is definitely a concept to keep in mind in rela- company's mission was to bring products to market more quickly tion to the SDLC, because it attempts to create a perfect, complete for his customers. He did not want to use a lengthy development product in one attempt. process such as the SDLC. Sources: Compiled from A. Klubnikin, "5 Great Examples of Minimum Via- Today, 352 provides custom web projects for customers ble Product in App Development," Business2Community, February 28, 2016; within weeks using agile development and a minimum viable prod- L. Calhoun, "The One Million Dollar Startup Rule Startups Should Never uct (MVP) approach. MVP focuses on developing the basic functions Break," Inc., December 11, 2015; G. Wilson, "Moving Beyond MVP: Feedback, needed to bring a project to completion. After these functions are Features, and Pricing," www.agilealliance.org, accessed September 30, 2015; J. Oakhurst, "4 Biggest Custom Software Buying Mistakes," Informa- developed, the client is brought on board, and the product basi- tionWeek, February 18, 2014; www.clubpenguin.com/, http://leanstack cally designs itself through a series of iterations. com/minimum-viable-product/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffwilson, Wilson learned about MVP the hard way. As he was creating accessed December 14, 2016. 352, he observed several companies developing fantasy games for Questions children. Specifically, Disney's purchase of Club Penguin (http:// 1. What lessons did Wilson learn in his attempt to develop a games.disney.com/club-penguin-app) sparked his interest. Wil- virtual world for children? son set out to build a fantasy game for children himself. When Wilson undertook this project, there were only a few 2. Compare and contrast the development styles of the SDLC and the agile MVP approach that Wilson promotes. competitors in this space. However, after completing an 18-month