Field Notes
Drawing the MVP cut without theatre
How we facilitate cut decisions so the room leaves with a documented boundary, not a louder backlog.
An MVP cut fails when every feature keeps a seat at the table. In our intensives we use a physical or digital board with three columns: ship in first release, learn after revenue, and explicit non-goal.
Start from jobs, not screens
Before debating UI, we ask which user job must succeed for the product to be worth charging for. Features that do not serve that job rarely survive the cut — even if they look impressive in a prototype.
Make the cost visible
Each candidate feature gets a rough effort band and a learning value. The room often discovers that a “small” import flow hides more edge cases than a core transaction screen. Seeing both numbers side by side changes the argument.
Write the rationale the same day
Cuts forgotten overnight return as zombie tickets. We capture why something missed the cut while the conversation is warm, then paste those lines into the MVP brief.
If you want this facilitation done with you rather than described, see the SaaS Product Discovery Intensive.