The Minimum Viable Tree House
In addition to working on ShopTalk over the summer, I joined forces with my brother-in-law to build a tree house for my kids (ages 5 and 3).
We were going to build the coolest tree house around. It was going to be 10 feet off the ground at floor level and have 120 square feet of space under roof. It was going to be big enough for even adults to stand up inside. There were going to be skylights, a trap door and a covered porch.
You've probably already guessed that we did not, in fact, build the Minimum Viable Tree House.
Like projects tend to do, the scope crept, the expenses soared and the time line stretched. As the project dragged on for weeks, the stakeholders (my kids) began to grow understandably impatient.
"Papa built our last tree house in a day!", my oldest said.
"Yeah, but that tree house was a couple pallets and a ladder", I replied.
You see, we had been working on it all that time and yet there were no tangible results for the kids. It was too high and unsafe before it had walls. Even after we put up the walls, the railing for the porch had to go up. Then there was the issue of the big hole in the floor where the trap door was going to go.
We did actually finish the tree house a couple weeks later. It's been towering over the backyard for the last few months.
Spiders think it's pretty great.
My kids though? They get more into playing in the brush pile from the tree that we cut down to make way for the tree house.
I'm pretty sure I've noticed the squirrels laughing at me.
One of the many mistakes I think I made was making the tree house too big. It comfortably accommodates adults. It's really high off the ground. Meanwhile, my kids are cramming themselves into cardboard boxes whenever they find one, squeezing themselves under the furniture and tunneling under the brush pile beneath the tree house. Kids like small spaces, and the final product doesn't fit the current clientèle. Further proof of this is their actual favorite part of the tree house - the "cramped" little loft area above the porch.
Another mistake was working for weeks and weeks before having something the kids could use. All of us were pumped up about the project at the start. Kids and adults alike sat around drawing up sketches of what it should look like and talked excitedly about what we'd add to it down the road [0]. After construction started though, it just took too long to get it to a point where they could play in it. The excitement wore off as the weeks wore on.
I still have hope that the kids will enjoy it when they are older. Maybe they'll grow into it.
For now though, when working on ShopTalk and other projects, the tree house is a reminder. A reminder to listen to and build for my audience. A reminder to deliver useful features in short iterations. A reminder that next time I need to build the Minimum Viable Tree House first [1].
[0] Be on the lookout for my next post, "The Minimum Viable Zip Line" ... just kidding![1] Hat tip to Eric Ries and my late father-in-law and his "two pallets and a ladder" tree house.
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Humbling post with an important reminder to over-zealous agilists. Minimum Variable Treehouse should probably be included in the Parents manifesto.
Comment by Bob MacNeal — Nov 11, 2009 10:06:39 AM | # - re
That's a good story. Although under the current popular interpretation of MVP as promoted by Eric Reis, the sketches were the minimum viable treehouse.
Comment by Pete — Nov 11, 2009 10:10:23 AM | # - re
Children are the minimum viable humans
Comment by Chris L — Nov 11, 2009 10:48:00 AM | # - re
Actually it sounds like more of a waterfall approach was used here, Bob. Sounds like lots of requirements were decided upon up front, with very little client interaction/approval during the building process.
"You see, we had been working on it all that time and yet there were no tangible results for the kids. It was too high and unsafe before it had walls. Even after we put up the walls, the railing for the porch had to go up. Then there was the issue of the big hole in the floor where the trap door was going to go. "
Comment by Doug — Nov 11, 2009 2:54:16 PM | # - re
What a great story! I appreciate your point with regard to "minimum viability" as it is something that I have experienced myself with website development.
Simple is best. Huge, complicated things just confuse users. For children imagining aspects of a treehouse is part of play. If everything is too big, too complete, and to solid it becomes part of the adult world, not necessarily something that they can play with.
Comment by Experiment Garden — Nov 11, 2009 3:11:00 PM | # - re
This is awesome.
Care to do a post with details about exactly what materials you used and the entire process for building it, for those of us that are interested in attacking a project like this with no house-building experience at all?
Looks pretty professional.
Comment by Marc Gayle — Nov 12, 2009 2:22:53 AM | # - re
Hah, I remember back in my old neighborhood growing up there was this giant tree that the neighbors had fashioned 3 weak platforms, further and further up the giant tree. We had great fun playing on and around that massive tree fortress, our imaginations taking care of the rest, when all it really was was just a bunch of wobbly, weak, and probably completely unsafe platforms.
Good times :)
Comment by Matt Todd — Nov 12, 2009 7:47:15 AM | # - re
I wish I knew how to build stuff like that.
Comment by Matt Wilson — Nov 12, 2009 4:42:47 PM | # - re
Great story, great lesson. Thank you, it's exactly what I needed to read.
Comment by Striding Man — Nov 13, 2009 6:36:06 PM | # - re
haha. YAGNI, man! i like it actually, but maybe if you could have seen the final product in a CAD you'd be able to see the vision of the final product well enough to plan for the future. your design lends itself extremely well to a modular design in two to four parts. just the porch and stairs first with a make-shift roof, then when they get older they can help with the back walled sections and a proper roof (as they need it)... i shall call it "treehouse pattern".
Comment by dpotter — Nov 13, 2009 9:44:49 PM | # - re
Wow thats awsome
Comment by Perry the platapus — Jan 30, 2010 5:39:06 PM | # - re