What if you could bring an Odoo ERP system online in just a few weeks—without drowning your small team in customizations, endless approvals, or scope debates? When we’re racing against the clock and you need real business impact today. By categorizing requirements into Must, Should, Could, and Won’t for an MVP rollout, we laser-focus on what validates our core hypothesis, then iterate with confidence.

Why We Lean on MoSCoW for Odoo MVPs

In every ERP project, there’s a siren call of “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could also…?” Suddenly you and your stakeholders are designing complex multi-company consolidations, e-commerce storefronts, and advanced payroll localizations—while the production floor is still running on paper job cards and whiteboard scribbles. We’ve all been there, and you know how it ends: timelines slip, budgets swell, and the team’s motivation drains away.

MoSCoW gives us a shared language for prioritization, so you and I can align fast:

Must-Have: Essential features without which our MVP doesn’t deliver the core value.
Should-Have: High-impact enhancements that boost usability or efficiency, but aren’t mission-critical on Day One.
Could-Have: Nice extras we’ll add once the foundation is solid.
Won’t-Have: Explicitly out-of-scope items we defer—so nobody wastes cycles debating “just one more thing.”

When you run a MoSCoW workshop—ideally a half-day session with your process owners and key stakeholders—you bring immediate clarity. We capture every idea, then agree which bucket it lives in. That moment of alignment is worth its weight in gold: developers, consultants, business managers, and shop-floor supervisors all see the same priorities.

Framing Our Core Hypothesis

Every MVP needs a hypothesis we can test. For an Odoo ERP rollout, let say we this example hypothesis:

“By empowering the production team to create shop-floor orders and record run-times digitally—despite negative stock— we can eliminate paper job cards, capture accurate production time, and fast-track adoption before tackling inventory accuracy.”

That single sentence guides everything. If a feature doesn’t help prove—or disprove—that hypothesis, it doesn’t belong in the Must-Have column. You’ll sleep better knowing your team isn’t building modules nobody will use.

Building the Must-Have Foundation

Once we’ve locked in the Must-Haves, here’s how we move at warp speed:

Configure Core Modules
- Manufacturing (MRP): Create minimal Bills of Materials (BOMs) and attach simple routings. Your team sees exactly what step to run on each work center.
- Production Orders: Enable the shop-floor app so operators can start, pause, and record run-times on a touchscreen or barcode scanner.
- Purchase: Set up basic vendor records and RFQ workflows, so procurement can turn negative quantities into purchase orders.
Define Roles & Dashboards
- Identify 1–2 super-users on the shop floor and in procurement. Grant them access to just the menus they need.
- Build a simple dashboard: active production runs, negative-stock alerts, and pending purchase orders. Now everyone sees the same data in real time.
Pilot with Real Production Runs
- Choose a handful of SKUs—no more than 5 high-priority items—and kick off live manufacturing orders.
- Operators log start and end times digitally; Odoo captures run-time automatically.
- Even without tracking exact quantities, you’re already gathering accurate production time data—a game-changer compared to paper logs.

By the end of Week Two, you have a live process: paper job cards are gone, production times flow into Odoo, and procurement triggers POs for negative balances. You aren’t perfect yet—but you’re operational, and you’ve proven your core hypothesis.

Elevating to Should-Haves

With Must-Haves live and your team comfortable, you turn to the next tier:

Reorder Rules: Define minimum and maximum stock levels for critical components. Odoo runs an overnight job to auto-generate RFQs or MOs.
Quality Checks: Insert inspection points into your routing operations. Operators must confirm quality criteria before moving to the next step.
Run-Time Reports: Use Odoo Studio to build simple charts that show average production time and downtime causes.

These enhancements slot into the workflows you’ve already built, because your team has internalized the basic process. Should-Haves boost efficiency and reliability—exactly what stakeholders want next.

Stashing Could-Haves for Later

Features like lot and serial tracking, advanced BI dashboards, or scheduled automated actions (cron jobs) are undeniably useful—but optional until core operations stabilize. We note them in our backlog, tag them as Could-Have, and schedule them for Phase 2 or beyond.

This approach frees us from the anxiety of “What if someone asks about traceability today?” We know it’s important, but we also know we’ll deliver it at the right time.

Why We Explicitly Call Out Won’t-Haves

You might ask, “Why bother labeling something Won’t-Have?” Because it eliminates grey areas. When a stakeholder says, “Can we add stock reconciliation now?” you simply point to the MoSCoW matrix:

“Great idea—this is Phase 3, outside MVP. Let’s focus on shop-floor visibility and production time first.”

That answer isn’t dismissive; it’s transparent. Everyone understands the roadmap, and you avoid last-minute scope creep.

A Narrative of Digital Shop-Floor Success

Imagine we partner with a small manufacturer still capturing every job on paper and spreadsheets. They struggle to collect production times, recap data weekly, and reconcile materials. Their goal: digitize the shop floor in six weeks to calculate real run-times and drive culture change.

Week 0: We run a half-day MoSCoW workshop. Must-Haves: digital shop-floor orders, run-time capture, negative stock consumption, basic purchase orders. Should and Could items await Phase 2.
Weeks 1–2: We configure MRP and Production Orders. Operators log in, hit “Start,” and Odoo records every second. Procurement sees negative quantities and creates POs on the fly.
Week 3: Super-user training: 30-minute sessions on “Start,” “Pause,” and “Complete” buttons, and how to review negative-stock dashboards.
Week 4: Live pilot with 5 products. You and I gather feedback: “We need clearer run-time charts” and “Can we log scrap codes quickly?”
Week 5: We implement reorder rules and refine dashboards (Should-Have). Negative stock alerts now auto-email procurement.
Week 6: The board reviews digital run-time dashboards, sees production efficiency improve, and signs off on the broader rollout.

Because we deferred stock opname and advanced inventory controls until the team mastered the shop-floor workflow, nothing blocked our MVP. We delivered digital production time tracking in weeks—and built momentum for the next phases.

Lessons We’ve Learned

Start with a Clear “Why”: Your hypothesis drives every decision. If a feature doesn’t validate it, it’s not Must-Have.
Workshop Early: A focused MoSCoW session aligns everyone in hours, not days of email chains.
Document Ruthlessly: Capture every decision in a simple matrix. When disputes arise, you have an impartial reference.
Iterate Fast: Prove Must-Haves first. Then layer in Should-Haves based on real usage data.
Celebrate Quick Wins: Show operators the benefit of digital run-time capture—momentum builds fast.

Your Next Steps

Schedule a 3-Hour MoSCoW Workshop with your production, procurement, and finance leads.
Define Your Core Hypothesis: What one outcome must you prove in the next 4–6 weeks?
Build Your Must-Have Matrix: List every potential feature, then categorize.
Configure & Pilot: Enable negative stock, set up MRP and Production Orders, and kick off your first live runs.
Iterate Through Should-Haves: Add reorder rules, quality checks, and run-time analytics in the next sprints.

By following this playbook, you’ll go from paper job cards to digital run-time dashboards faster than you ever thought possible—while keeping your small team focused, motivated, and on schedule. When every minute—and every developer hour—counts, MoSCoW prioritization is the framework that turns ERP dreams into reality.

🚀 Launch Your Odoo MVP in Weeks with MoSCoW Prioritization