Glossary

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

By ArcPM

An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is the smallest version of a product that delivers real value and lets you learn from actual users — built to test the riskiest assumptions with the least effort.

The point of an MVP is learning, not shipping something cheap or half-finished. It should still be viable — genuinely useful for its core job — while deliberately narrow in scope.

The hard part is deciding what to leave out. A good MVP is defined by a clear hypothesis: "if we build only this, we will learn whether X is true."

Example

Rather than building a full marketplace, a team ships a single-category listing page to test whether buyers will actually place orders.

How ArcPM applies it

ArcPM makes MVP scope decisions explicit and keeps them traceable to the supporting evidence, prototype and PRD through the Connected Product Graph.

See ArcPM