PMP Practice: Support the team to subdivide project tasks as necessary to find the minimum viable product

Emilio Castañeda-Solis is managing a hybrid project for Caldera Space Systems to develop a machine learning platform for small businesses. The team spent five sprints building sophisticated data visualization features, automated reporting dashboards, and advanced analytics capabilities. At the recent sprint review, the product owner expressed frustration that none of the core data ingestion functionality works reliably — businesses cannot even upload their data files without errors. The product owner states: 'We have beautiful dashboards showing no data. Our pilot customers are canceling because they can't get started.' The development team explains they assumed data ingestion was straightforward and focused on the 'exciting' features first. The project is now three months behind schedule and stakeholders are questioning the team's approach. What should Emilio have done earlier to prevent this situation?