Minimum Viable product also known as Minimum Marketable feature is a criteria that helps the Scrum team know the bare minimum level they have to deliver before it will be accepted by the customer.

So the PO clearly outlines the MVP or MMF list and tries to target them in the first sprint itself, so that basic customer expectations can be met from sprint 1.

For example: consider a mobile phone company releasing the 1st version of their latest mobile phone that has all the features such as Artificial intelligence and wonderful aesthetics but is unable to MAKE a phone call because that feature will be released later. Do you think you will buy that mobile phone?

No, right?

So for a mobile phone, ability to make a phone call is a MVP or MMF criteria.

“A learning vehicle” ~ Eric Ries

The most commonly misunderstood term is MVP. Most people think it means the Product with minimum features and functionalities. But this is not true.

MVP means “A minimum viable product is one that already has sufficient attributes to ALLOW you to test its value proposition and business model for which you intend to create when marketing it”.

MVP is the stage of development in which we SUM up all the features, test it and deliver to the market to get the response from the market. So we are not investing too much money and effort, but just to get feedback from the customers so that we can inspect and adapt accordingly.

As Ries explains in Lean STARTUP, “It is not necessarily the smallest product imaginable, though; it is simply the FASTEST way to get through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop with the minimum amount of effort … Its goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses.”

Example-If we want to start a new Ethnic wear company, I could test my vision by making some sketches and stand in some malls or busy market place to get the feedback from customers. I can also put those images on the webpage and ask them to click if they like or any comments/feedback. Both the approaches will give me an idea of people mind about the wear which people has shown more interest. Accordingly, I can base (colour and design) my ethnic wear collection.

Read more in Product Discovery process in question Do you think Scrum adequately addresses the product discovery process.