Project management sets a key pattern for handling software engineering projects. In such a case, a feasibility study, also known as feasibility analysis, lies at the core of project management. Keeping that in mind, one should initiate that software engineering is simply impossible without a proper technical feasibility study process.
Knowing the phenomenon's significance in software engineering, let’s explore the ins and outs of a feasibility study. It entails exploring the definition of the feasibility study, indicating what benefits it brings to businesses, investigating different types of feasibility, grasping in detail the feasibility study’s process, and determining the difference between project reports and feasibility reports.
In short, a feasibility study is an analytical process showing whether a particular software project is practically possible to complete or not. In other words, this study explores the different perspectives of project planning to suggest whether a company should move on with translating plans into reality. When you think of developing new software, it is impossible to jump into the development phase immediately. It is vital to analyze particular variables to see whether such a jump is possible in the first place. (Order top-notch discovery phase services from Impressit to get fast results!)
Going further, the key objective of a feasibility study is to determine if a software engineering project can be achieved in technical, organizational, and economic terms. In addition, there are many more factors to consider. Yet, the three core ones mentioned above. In such a case, it is crucial to understand that the success of technical feasibility directly depends on both an organization and a project.
From a business perspective, a feasibility study is a great way to see whether a project is worth the investment. In various cases, even if a project is technically feasible, it might not be a good investment opportunity. That is why different types of feasibility studies exist. Choosing to give a project a go without it being a good investment may pan out in a short period, yet it will become a liability in the long run.
Respectively, a feasibility study shows whether a software engineering project can be done in technical terms and if it’s economically viable. Within a well-designed feasibility report, you would consider a company’s historical background and various project variables to offer a feasibility verdict later.
As we scratched the surface of the feasibility study notion, particular emphasis should be made on what motivates businesses to use this method. If done correctly, a feasibility study means the difference between viable software that brings profits and an unviable project that will bring losses. In such a case, most businesses choose the approach for the following reasons:
The above factors reveal the key reasons businesses appeal to a feasibility study. In short, it gives confidence in the project, shows the risks developers and other team members can face and gives a comprehensive overview suggesting whether a company is making a mistake committing to a project or not. For all these reasons, it is crucial to determine whether doing a feasibility study is important per se or whether businesses can avoid it.
Forbes argues that feasibility studies grant major insights into product development. Notably, it can be significant at every stage of the cycle. One should agree with the statement and take it even further. In a nutshell, feasibility studies are vital if businesses what to get everything right in terms of projects before spending time, money, and human resources. It is always better to plan and analyze the potential risks and outcomes.
While jumping into the project straight ahead might be a solution in some specific circumstances, the general rule dictates planning is the proper approach in most cases. Narrowing down the topic of technical feasibility importance, let’s look at its following benefits:
In such a case, there are many advantages feasibility study brings. Respectively, even if you can find any disadvantages, for instance, the cost and time you need to spend to conduct a study, the benefit outweighs all the potential drawbacks. Simply put, every company using the feasibility study will feel some degree of a positive impact, which is the key reason for the phenomenon’s significance.
Upon covering the definition of a feasibility study, its objectives, and its importance, it is time to explore the method’s different types. In short, one can outline technical feasibility, operational feasibility, legal feasibility, economic feasibility, and scheduling feasibility. Each type has distinct aspects and covers a certain realm of the project.
Technical feasibility is all about determining whether the team has up-to-date technologies in their toolkit and whether team members have sufficient technical proficiency to complete software development projects. In other words, this type of feasibility suggests whether the people responsible for delivering the project have all the necessary technological instruments, knowledge, and skills.
When it comes to key questions raised in technical feasibility, these are the following:
Technical feasibility covers the technological and technical side of the project. It means looking at instruments that will be used and the skills of the people behind the product development.
When the project’s technical feasibility is checked and double-checked, it is time to proceed to operational feasibility. These evaluate the factors linked to potential organizational changes. Developing a complex software development product will add to the organizational complexity. In such a case, to check whether an organization is ready for the given changes, there are particular issues to consider in the study.
In such a case, the operational feasibility study shows whether the staff’s acceptance rate is sufficient to implement new technology and software effectively. Respectively, the higher the acceptance, the higher the success of software adoption. However, if the acceptance rate is insufficient, the operational feasibility report will show an organization's decisions in terms of structures, standards, and policies. These aspects will boost the acceptance rate.
In addition to the issues mentioned above, there are three more factors to include in the operational feasibility study. Essentially, consider these aspects: competition, performance, and uniqueness.
Before starting the project, it is vital to consider how fierce the competition is in the market and what market trends competitors pursue. Moreover, before new software is introduced, the study needs to anticipate how the product will perform financially and technically. Later, when the software is developed, you can compare the report to actual numbers and determine whether a product underperforms or overperforms. Finally, the uniqueness factor suggests how your software differs from the products offered by competitors. What it provides that competitors cannot match.
After covering technical and operational aspects, it is time to proceed to legal factors. In the legal feasibility study context, the product development process is analyzed from a legal perspective. It entails determining potential barriers to legal-based project implementation. Moreover, this study includes data protection measures, social media standards, all the project certificates, copyright agreements, and licenses. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that a legal feasibility study also includes the aspect of ethical feasibility.
If any legal aspect of the project conflicts with existing laws and standards, it means the potential for litigation. Respectively, within the scope of the legal feasibility study, consider zoning laws, data protection standards like GDPR and HIPAA, and existing social media regulations.
In a nutshell, a legal feasibility study can reveal what legal challenges a company can face at any given moment of the development cycle and after the product is released. As a result, it will save time and money, the ones that a business will later spend on litigation.
When saving time and money, along with legal feasibility comes economic feasibility. As we mentioned above, one of the key reasons companies appeal to feasibility studies is to determine whether new software is worth an investment. It is the moment when economic feasibility comes into play. Overall, this type focuses on all the costs required to develop a new product. These might include the following:
In addition to the abovementioned cost factors, it is important to use the economic feasibility study to see whether the cost of the new software won’t outweigh the benefits it brings. In such a context, when estimating the value of the new product, consider the labor costs it will bring, the value of faster processing and automation, potential improvements in customer service, and the cost-savings of error reduction. As a result, the economic feasibility study focuses on checking the cost factors and indicating whether the product development is viable in terms of gain-loss analysis.
The final type of feasibility study is linked to scheduling. As the name implies, scheduling feasibility focuses on time-related matters, like deadlines and timelines. Each part of the product will be narrowed down into smaller components, each having a certain timeline. In a nutshell, scheduling feasibility shows how much time it would take to complete the project and anticipate whether the development team might face some time-related hiccups.
When it comes to major components of scheduling feasibility, consider the following parts:
Shuffling the above elements around, a project manager can estimate the probability of how likely or unlikely the development team will meet the time estimates and deadlines. Moreover, it is always important to remember that a project manager cannot anticipate all the external and internal factors. That is why the project estimates should include some leverage time to compensate for any potential issues and time constraints.
At this point, we’ve covered the key types of feasibility studies. Respectively, technical feasibility ensures a business has the technological capabilities to deliver the product. Operational feasibility shows the company’s readiness to adopt change. Legal feasibility indicates whether a firm covered all legal-related matters to avoid litigation. Economic feasibility illustrates if the value of the project is greater than its cost. Scheduling feasibility indicates whether the initial project time estimate is accurate and whether the team can meet the pre-set deadlines. Now, with types of feasibility out of the way, let’s tap into the feasibility study process.
The feasibility study process entails different requirements and various steps to be conducted. When starting with the former, there are functional, non-functional, and domain requirements.
An end-user of a certain product has particular needs and demands. Functional requirements are elements that meet the needs of an end user. In short, the software must have all the functionalities to meet user demands. Besides, they need to be mentioned in detail in the contract. Moreover, functional requirements focus on the expected inputs and outputs. Writing down these requirements is a part of a feasibility study process.
When discussing non-functional requirements, one means security, reliability, performance, flexibility, portability, scalability, and reusability. These are particular quality-based aspects the new system needs to cover, as discussed in the contract. The non-functional requirements vary from project to project and can also be called non-behavioral requirements.
Finally, there are domain requirements. These are the requirements as a part of a particular project or domain. This type can be functional or non-functional. Engineering domain requirements define them proactively in correlation to all their potential applications when the product is being developed. To illustrate, if the project is expected to operate with a certain domain, for instance, a governmental database, domain requirements are the aspects ensuring the new product won’t mess with an existing domain’s framework.
Knowing the requirements needed for conducting a feasibility study, it is time to cover seven key steps in the process itself. This help applies the method correctly and gets the insights required for measuring the product’s viability and feasibility.
How to do a feasibility study? Here are seven successive steps.
Putting all together, conducting a feasibility study is rooted in following the seven distinct steps mentioned above. Moreover, it revolves around particular requirements that can be linked to your project. At this point, while knowing how to conduct a feasibility study, you need to know the key components of the technical feasibility study’s structure to make it effective.
The key parts of a feasibility study cover all you need for everyone reading the report to understand it. In general, a technical feasibility study’s structure relies on the following components:
These are the foundational aspects of a technical feasibility study. They need to be implemented in the feasibility study template. Remember that some additional aspects might be needed based on the specific project requirements.
With all the aspects covered, not it is time to explain some notable differences between project reports and feasibility reports. In such a case, knowing how to distinguish between two is a major component of doing both correctly.
Project Report | Feasibility Report |
---|---|
Is a simple report recording different project aspects for potential future referencing | Is a report allowing companies to choose the best solution, which would be both technically and economically viable. |
Focuses on whether a particular project is viable. | Focuses on determining the whole project's feasibility from different perspectives. |
Don’t include a particular format or structure. | Include a specific structure and format |
Covers factors like complexity, time, communication, and understanding. | Covers factors like scope, quality, volume, scale, funding constraints, and time constraints. |
Includes aspects like a manufacturing process, marketing plan, and operating costs. | Includes aspects like marketing strategy, organizational structure, project description, and executive summary. |
Submitted to bankers. | Submitted to a business that looks to complete a certain project. |
Difficult to handle and understand | Easy to handle and understand. |
All in all, a feasibility study is there to help companies see whether developing new software is a good idea or not. It shows whether the business is ready to handle the task and whether a development team is equipped with the necessary tools and capabilities to deliver the project.
A feasibility report is better than a project report, especially regarding software development. Respectively, with all the foundational knowledge above, you are now prepared to conduct a technical feasibility study. To leave you with something more than mere knowledge, check these feasibility study templates.
Roman Zomko
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