Minimum viable event

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and to provide feedback for future product development. It is something that is just good enough to test on the market without breaking the bank.

But does the product always have to be something tangible? Of course not. The concept works easily as well with an event, such as a conference for example.

Rob, Gavin and I were talking about this very thing as part of the planning for #CyberFest. They are members of (ISC)2 North East England Chapter, a non-profit organization which specialises in training and certification for cybersecurity professionals and I was keen to have them as part of the series of events.

I am delighted and excited that they are going to hold a prologue event the day before the main #CyberNorth event at Northumbria University.

We were trying to work out when it is acceptable to announce the event through Eventbrite. When you have the date? When you have the venue? Yes, these are both essential yet when it came to announcing the speakers it was a different matter. How many speakers do you need to have confirmed to have a minimum viable event (MVE)?

It is an interesting conundrum as speakers sell tickets yet putting out an event encourages more speakers to come forward. Without announcing what is happening there is little emphasis for people to get involved. Also, things change and speakers may need to drop out and so some change is inevitable. Adding speaker as you go along can also freshen up the event and bring a larger audience.

Announcing your event as a MVE is an essential part of getting it underway.

As it happened we had nearly every speaker confirmed for the (ISC)2 prologue event and so it was more of a theoretical question. It was well beyond a MVE by the time it was announced.