Do you think it would help the community if I open sourced some MVP product & architecture designs?

Dustin Williams Business Systems, Software Development, Information Technology

July 3rd, 2016

Maybe I just haven't come across it but it seems to me that most resources are focused on teaching people how to be developers. There's a big knowledge gap between learning how to write code and how to design a software product.

In the past few years, I've seen three startups fail due to architectural problems with their MVP. Even though they validated the product thesis, their software failed (due to systemic design flaws) and they didn't have the budget or time to rebuild it. If they had a proper cross functional team in place from the beginning this wouldn't be an issue, but most startups can't afford to do that.

I have some MVP designs for product concepts that failed to validate. It shows the complexity of building "simple" mvps and just how much effort has to go in to making a product that can be iterated, maintained and scaled. I'm wondering if it will help to open source and release these designs, so others can learn from them.

Any thoughts on this are welcome.. =)

Product Design & Architecture:

Project Management

Agile - Epics & Stories

Kanban Backlog

Tasks & prioritization

Discussions

Documentation

Infrastructure

Cloud

High availability

Disaster recovery

Security

Network

Monitoring - Instances, Application Performance, Availability (national, international), Response time, Latency, etc.

Auto scaling

DNS

Naming Conventions
Resource Management - Cost Optimization

Software

Process Design

ETL (Extract Transform Load)

Data Integrations

Business Logic

Data Enrichment

Services architecture

Middleware

API Design

Distributed Architecture

Modules/libraries/SDKs

Microservices

Security

Authorization

Native

oAuth

User/groups permissions

Service segmentation & isolation

Constancy checks & fail safes

Logging

Reporting & Alerts

Data

Database Architecture

Database type(s); Document, Transactional, Search, Graph, Data Warehouse, etc.

Scheme(s) & Document Structures

Security

Consistency & Data protection

Performance Optimization

Presentation

User Experience

Information Architecture

Process Management

User Feedback Loops

Information Communication

Account Management

Graphic User Interface

Navigation

Discovery

Suggestions & Recommendations

Dashboards

Graphs

Lists

Insights

Communications

User engagement

Documentation

Bug reports

Questions & Answers

Chat

Bob Graham Engineering and Software

July 3rd, 2016

Hey Dustin,

Interesting idea. I like it!

I taught myself software engineering and just released a startup that I coded, so I know what you are talking about with many of these problems and the lack of resources around them online. I had to consult my friends that are advanced engineers on many of these topics.

I could have used someone like you to show me more than a basic tutorial project and show me how to build a startup.

Having said that, I would have most likely not watched something or read something like what you just laid out. It's far too complex and detailed.

What I think is missing is something like Mackenzie Child's videos, but it's a screencast on how to build a startup. It comes with step by step explanations in plain english. Or like railscasts but for a startup where you finish a project from start to finish.

As I was teaching myself to code, the biggest problem I found was not a lack of resources, but a lack of good teaching. Good teaching to me simplifies complex processes. I used to teach guitar when I was younger and it took me much longer to think of how to explain something complex in a simple way, rather than to just say the information to the student.

I think if you can do that, then you are onto something. But at first glance it needs a bit more simplifying down and maybe there are some things you can strip off too.

Andy Terrel Fashion Metric CTO , NumFOCUS President

July 6th, 2016

+100 here. I love seeing how other people design systems. Open sourcing such a resource and building it up could definitely help many young startups. I too see many problems at startups with very young tech teams so having an open resource to point them to would be amazing.

Ananth Agasthya Principal Facilitator at ILIFESigmoid

July 3rd, 2016

What I would suggest is that they should be given some basics of System Engineering and Failure Mode and effects analysis. It would be advisable to get an independent audit group to verify and validate the whole design process. Incidentally, a strong backup for recouping from a failure should be included. Selection of suppliers is a key to scaling up. These are my first off thoughts. Thanks for raising a valuable issue to the forum. Regards Anantha Agasthya Sent from my iPad

Dustin Williams Business Systems, Software Development, Information Technology

July 3rd, 2016

@Anath: I agree most tech startups don't understand the fundamentals of (business) systems design. I was thinking about writing some articles on the subject. Cost benefit & risk analysis is probably where I'd start on that.

Therese Jilek Education designed to improve lives

July 3rd, 2016

I think it would help. I'm trying to enter this field and it would be beneficial to have talking points as a reference for when I'm speaking with designers and developers. It seems like the MVP is a critical point and that's the stage I'm in.

Dustin Williams Business Systems, Software Development, Information Technology

July 3rd, 2016

@Therese
I'd suggest working with an experienced Product Manager first. A good product manager will be able to help you determine if there really is a market opportunity for your product idea, identify the core value proposition, size the market and communicate the product strategy to theProduct Designer. The product designer will then direct the development & the UX/UI teams.

@Bob
I think this would be better suited for junior-intermediate developers who are trying to learn how to be a product designer/architect. For non-engineers; I think it would demonstrate why software development is so complicated and expensive.

In musician terms; this would be for musician who knows how to write songs, record, engineer and produce in their home studio but wants to learn how to be a producer at Electric Lady Studios. :)

Bob Graham Engineering and Software

July 3rd, 2016

Hey Dustin,

Most advanced guys I know already know how to do all of that stuff.

In my opinion the gap you are trying to bridge is the gap between beginner and advanced.

If you believe it is a good idea, then go for it absolutely. I still really hold to the feedback I gave you. My CTO wouldn't sign up for a course like this (he's really advanced). I've been coding for 2.5 years and I would, but not how you have it. Maybe I am the wrong demographic :)

If the point of the course is to demonstrate why software dev is complicated and expensive, I can tell you that the course needs to be even simpler than I said originally.

Dustin Williams Business Systems, Software Development, Information Technology

July 3rd, 2016

For instance this business logic covers a lot of the topics listed above. On the Kanban side it probably break down in to about 10-20 tasks.

Dustin Williams Business Systems, Software Development, Information Technology

July 3rd, 2016

@Bob

Let me clarify this wouldn't be a course. This would be me open sourcing the requirements, product/architectural design documents & tasks list.

This would something to help someone who is looking to move beyond the intermediate stage to advanced. From my experience there isn't much support there and you have to figure it out yourself.

Bob Graham Engineering and Software

July 3rd, 2016

Oh okay. In that case no I wouldn't use it or be interested in it.

My learning style is different and theres a lot in there I wouldn't want.

I consider myself intermediate, moving to advanced if that helps.

Don't want to be negative, just trying to share what I would want. Maybe I am not your demographic as I said.

Do you think it would help the community if I open sourced some MVP product &amp; architecture designs?

Do you think it would help the community if I open sourced some MVP product & architecture designs?