What is the term for the practice of maintaining only the essential features of a product?

The term for the practice of maintaining only the essential features of a product is known as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This concept is fundamental in product development, particularly in agile methodologies, as it helps teams focus on delivering the core functionalities that will provide value to users while allowing for rapid testing and iteration.

The MVP approach emphasizes the idea that it's better to launch a product with just enough features to satisfy early adopters and gather feedback, rather than pursuing a fully-fledged product that may take a long time to develop and could miss customer needs. By concentrating on essential features, teams can validate their product hypotheses, understand user behavior, and gradually incorporate additional features based on real-world usage and feedback.

This practice contrasts with concepts like incremental development, which focuses on gradually adding features, and feature creep, which refers to the uncontrolled expansion of product features beyond initial specifications. Meanwhile, product backlog refinement pertains to the continuous process of reviewing and prioritizing items in the development backlog rather than the initial launch of an essential product version.