MMF: Minimally Marketable Feature is a term associated with Lean Software Development (based on Lean Manufacturing/Toyota Production System). In agile software development, our goal is to deliver business value as quickly as possible. That means we tend to avoid monolithic “big bang” launches of full-featured products. We like to think in terms of smaller sets of features that can be released earlier and more often to get our work in the hands of our end users. Why should our end users wait a year to get 100 features when we could deliver a group of 10 workable features in two weeks that would make their jobs easier?
from The Art of Agile Development
What is an MMF?
“The smallest set of functionality that must be realized in order for the customer to perceive value.”
A chunk of functionality that delivers a subset of the customer’s requirements, and that is capable of returning value to the customer when released as an independent entity.
So we are identifying logical groupings of functionality that represent a valuable contribution to the business. I find thinking in terms of MMFs helps guide release planning, particularly around identifying dependencies. MMFs help us remain customer-focused.
