Two activities performed as part of defining the hypothesis in Continuous Exploration are identifying metrics based on leading indicators and defining the minimum viable product. Continuous Exploration (CE) is an aspect of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline that drives innovation and fosters alignment on what should be built by continually exploring the market and customer needs, defining a vision, roadmap, and set of features for a solution that addresses those needs. CE is based on applying customer-centric and design thinking to understand and create alignment on new development opportunities, while recognizing that all such ideas are hypotheses that need to be validated. CE involves four activities: hypothesize, collaborate and research, synthesize, and validate. The hypothesize activity describes the practices for generating ideas and the measurements needed to validate them with customers. The hypothesize activity involves the following practices:

Identifying metrics based on leading indicators – Leading indicators are metrics that measure the expected outcomes and benefits of the solution, such as customer satisfaction, retention, engagement, and revenue. Leading indicators help to evaluate the validity of the hypotheses and assumptions about the customer value proposition, and to guide the decision making and prioritization of the features. Leading indicators are also known as key performance indicators (KPIs) or objectives and key results (OKRs).

Defining the minimum viable product (MVP) – An MVP is a version of the solution that has just enough features to test the hypotheses and assumptions about the customer value proposition, and to elicit feedback from the customer. An MVP is not a fully functional or polished product, but rather a learning vehicle that allows the enterprise to validate the problem-solution fit and the product-market fit. An MVP helps to reduce the uncertainty and risk of developing the wrong solution, and to accelerate the learning and discovery process11