
The MVP is dead. Long live the RAT - acjohnson55
https://hackernoon.com/the-mvp-is-dead-long-live-the-rat-233d5d16ab02
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gooseus
Maybe it's too early on Saturday, but I didn't get much out of this but a
bunch of new semantics that seem to mean the same thing to me... so what
exactly differentiates an MVP from an RAT except for a subjective
interpretation about is implied by the terms Minimum Viable Product and
Riskiest Assumption Test.

I think this article would gain from an illustrative example of an MVP that
should have been an RAT and their explicit differences in approach and
implementation.

The only reference to an actual company/product is to Google with their Google
Glass product.. and it just mentions they had a prototype on the first day.
What was the RAT that their day 1 prototype was addressing? What did they
learn? Pretty sure Google made a bunch of wrong assumptions with Glass... what
was the riskiest one they should have tested first?

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erikpukinskis
> what exactly differentiates an MVP from an RAT except for a subjective
> interpretation about is implied by the terms Minimum Viable Product and
> Riskiest Assumption Test.

That's exactly what differentiates them.

Although I'm not sure what about language you feel is subjective. I don't
think subjective/objective really captures the thing that makes words fuzzy.
Words are culture, and so they mean different things in different circles. The
cultures are all blended, so when two individuals talk everything is a little
soft around the edges.

But "minimum" is quite a different word from "riskiest". Minimum implies "what
do you think you can get away with presenting to someone" whereas "riskiest"
implies you are making an assumption that could sink the ship. I think you'd
have a hard time arguing they are so similar as to be functionally equivalent.

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tenkabuto
This article seems to be more of a critique of what our understanding of what
an MVP is has devolved into, and a big neon sign pointing us in the direction
of the original idea of an MVP. It's suggesting that an MVP was originally
just a test of the assumptions that one has regarding their product, but over
time we've tacked on additional requirements for what an MVP is (possibly to
just make ourselves more comfortable with the process).

RAT seems to be a return to the original idea of questioning the assumptions
behind the things we're making, and the name Riskiest Assumption Test is on-
the-nose enough that we'd hopefully never forget what it's to be used for.

I'm not sure whether the author intended for this or not, but I got from the
article the idea that with an MVP, people may be inclined towards testing one
too many assumptions at a time, possibly due to their desire to make a
_product_. The author drove home the importance of testing each individual
assumption in the most minimal way possible, and I really appreciate this
point.

