Bradford sorry for dismissing your post so fast but I don't agree with the way you try to conciliate the two approaches.
Those are two different problems at different levels. Minimum Viable Product is a principle to follow at a tactical level to drive the development. The strong vision you refer is required at a strategic level.
Depending on your role you should rely more on one or the other but trying to conciliate the two may just create more ambiguity because they guide decisions at different time-frames. A product manager without an holistic vision will not understand the drawbacks in adding yet another customer requested feature. A team lead focused on the strong vision will try to integrate the new feature with the whole system, slowing development cycles.
The two principles are fundamental for developing a great product but they define the mission of different parts of the system.
By the way, I really liked your blog. I don't know if it's new here on HN but it's new for me.
Those are two different problems at different levels. Minimum Viable Product is a principle to follow at a tactical level to drive the development. The strong vision you refer is required at a strategic level.
Depending on your role you should rely more on one or the other but trying to conciliate the two may just create more ambiguity because they guide decisions at different time-frames. A product manager without an holistic vision will not understand the drawbacks in adding yet another customer requested feature. A team lead focused on the strong vision will try to integrate the new feature with the whole system, slowing development cycles.
The two principles are fundamental for developing a great product but they define the mission of different parts of the system.
By the way, I really liked your blog. I don't know if it's new here on HN but it's new for me.
http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/6/3/software-product-... Wow, love to see how you explained, it really ressonated with me. Yesterday in the end of the scrum sprint retrospective a big discussion arose where this would have been helpfull.
Liked this as well: http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2009/12/2/the-decline-of-t...