We take a unique approach to software product development

Our approach ensures value is maximised from every pound spent on engineering. Our approach centres around a concept called Minimum Viable Product. All too often we see software projects take too long to deliver software that ultimately does not meet the need of the end-user. Traditional rigid methods of delivery often mean that large investments are made in development against a perceived customer requirement. Sometimes this gamble pays off, but in our experience, long development times lead to a mismatch between customer/user expectation and the software function. We have witnessed traditional software development approaches spend 6 months in heavy engineering only to yield a dozen users on the system. In contrast, we have helped companies spend just weeks developing product features safe in the knowledge that they have hundreds of users waiting for it to be released.

Our approach is designed to minimise the expectation gap and deliver high quality web applications with the right functionality – with the aim of getting users on board quickly so that real user feedback can then guide future development.

So what is a Minimum Viable Product? The answer varies depending upon the task in hand, and can range from a simple survey of users, a well produced functional mockup of a system to a production deployed system. The key to the process is to do as little as possible to gain the maximum amount of real validation of the proposed system or feature. MVP applies equally well to idea stage projects as it does to new features in established products. With real feedback development can proceed with confidence that the feature will yield positive returns.

Our MVP engagements range from standalone projects providing you with expert advice on your product development to longer term programmes integrated with Cobalt Storm blueprints and expert development services.

Typical outputs of the MVP definition include:

• Product concept presentations for use in end-user discussions


• Web site advice and SEO optimisation to drive evidence based feedback on key product areas


• Choke point identification for new feature introduction


• Validation strategies and metric identification


• MVP identified against architectural blueprints avoiding throw-away development


• Expert MVP development services

We’ve learnt through our own hard experience that the principles behind MVP work. Before we rigorously adopted the approach we delivered our own products to mixed success. That killer feature we all thought would be useful to everyone often never gets used or bought. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and when we sat back and looked at what we were doing, we found we were developing stuff before asking our customers wether they wanted it. We also learned that traditional focus groups are unreliable, so validating products and features in another way was needed. Using MVP enabled us to get smart and get successful. We started Cobalt Storm on the back of this approach, in order to provide our customers with the benefit of our experience.

Call us today to discuss how our practical and pragmatic approach can hep you