Conducting a feasibility study is an important step in successful project management. By evaluating the viability of a proposed project, a feasibility study helps you identify potential challenges and opportunities, ensuring you make informed decisions. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to conduct a feasibility study with practical templates and real-world examples, designed for project managers seeking to optimize their project planning process.
It can be exciting to run a large, complex project that has a huge potential impact on your organization. On the one hand, you’re driving real change. On the other hand, failure is intimidating.
That’s where a feasibility study comes in. If you’ve never used a feasibility study for project management before, this article will walk you through everything you need to know to get started.
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A feasibility study—sometimes called a feasibility analysis or feasibility report—is a way to evaluate whether or not a project plan could be successful. A feasibility study evaluates the practicality of your project plan in order to judge whether or not you’re able to move forward with the project.
It does so by answering two questions:
Does our team have the required tools or resources to complete this project?
Will there be a high enough return on investment to make the project worth pursuing?
There are several key benefits to conducting a feasibility study before launching a new project:
Confirms market opportunities and the target market before investing significant resources
Identifies potential issues and risks early on
Provides in-depth data for better decision making on the proposed project's viability
Creates documentation on expected costs and benefits, including financial analysis
Obtains stakeholder buy-in by demonstrating due diligence
Feasibility studies are important for projects that represent significant investments for your business. Projects that also have a large potential impact on your presence in the market may also require a feasibility assessment.
As the project manager, you may not be directly responsible for driving the feasibility study, but it’s important to know what these studies are. By understanding the different elements that go into a feasibility study, you can better support the team driving the feasibility study and ensure the best outcome for your project.
A feasibility study should be conducted after the project has been pitched but before any work has actually started. The study is part of the project planning process. In fact, it’s often done in conjunction with a SWOT analysis or project risk assessment, depending on the specific project.
Feasibility studies help:
Confirm market opportunities before committing to a project
Narrow your business alternatives
Create documentation about the benefits and disadvantages of your proposed initiative
Provide more information before making a go-or-no-go decision
You likely don’t need a feasibility study if:
You already know the project is feasible
You’ve run a similar project in the past
Your competitors are succeeding with a similar initiative in market
The project is small, straightforward, and has minimal long-term business impact
Your team ran a similar feasibility analysis within the past three years
One thing to keep in mind is that a feasibility study is not a project pitch. During a project pitch, you’re evaluating whether or not the project is a good idea for your company and whether the goals of the project are in line with your overall strategic plan. Typically, once you’ve established that the project is a good idea, you'll run a feasibility study to confirm that the project is possible with the tools and resources you have at your disposal.
There are five main types of feasibility studies: technical feasibility, financial feasibility, market feasibility (or market fit), operational feasibility, and legal feasibility. Most comprehensive feasibility studies will include an assessment of all five of these areas.
A technical feasibility study reviews the technical resources available for your project. This study determines if you have the right equipment, enough equipment, and the right technical knowledge to complete your project objectives. For example, if your project plan proposes creating 50,000 products per month, but you can only produce 30,000 products per month in your factories, this project isn’t technically feasible.
Financial feasibility describes whether or not your project is fiscally viable. A financial feasibility report includes a cost-benefit analysis of the project. It also forecasts an expected return on investment (ROI) and outlines any financial risks. The goal at the end of the financial feasibility study is to understand the economic benefits the project will drive.
The market feasibility study is an evaluation of how your team expects the project’s deliverables to perform in the market. This part of the report includes a market analysis, a market competition breakdown, and sales projections.
An operational feasibility study evaluates whether or not your organization is able to complete this project. This includes staffing requirements, organizational structure, and any applicable legal requirements. At the end of the operational feasibility study, your team will have a sense of whether or not you have the resources, skills, and competencies to complete this work.
A legal feasibility analysis assesses whether the proposed project complies with all relevant legal requirements and regulations. This includes examining legal and regulatory barriers, necessary permits, licenses, or certifications, potential legal liabilities or risks, and intellectual property considerations. The legal feasibility study ensures that the project can be completed without running afoul of any laws or incurring undue legal exposure for the organization.
Try Asana for project managementMost feasibility studies are structured in a similar way. These documents serve as an assessment of the practicality of a proposed business idea. Creating a clear feasibility study helps project stakeholders during the decision making process.
The essential elements of a feasibility study are:
An executive summary describing the project’s overall viability
A description of the product or service being developed during this project
Any technical considerations, including technology, equipment, or staffing
The market survey, including a study of the current market and the marketing strategy
The operational feasibility study evaluates whether or not your team’s current organizational structure can support this initiative
The project timeline
Financial projections based on your financial feasibility report
You likely won’t be conducting the feasibility study yourself, but you will probably be called on to provide insight and information. To conduct a feasibility study, hire a trained consultant or, if you have an in-house project management office (PMO), ask if they take on this type of work. In general, here are the steps they’ll take to complete this work:
Creating a feasibility study is a time-intensive process. Before diving into the feasibility study, it’s important to evaluate the project for any obvious and insurmountable roadblocks. For example, if the project requires significantly more budget than your organization has available, you likely won’t be able to complete it. Similarly, if the project deliverables need to be live and in the market by a certain date but won’t be available for several months after that, the project likely isn’t feasible either. These types of large-scale obstacles make a feasibility study unnecessary because it’s clear the project is not viable.
Read: 29 brainstorming techniques: effective ways to spark creativityThink of the financial feasibility study as the projected income statement for the project. This part of the feasibility study clarifies the expected project income and outlines what your organization needs to invest—in terms of time and money—in order to hit the project objectives.
During the financial feasibility study, take into account whether or not the project will impact your business's cash flow. Depending on the complexity of the initiative, your internal PMO or external consultant may want to work with your financial team to run a cost-benefit analysis of the project.
The market assessment, or market feasibility study, is a chance to identify the demand in the market. This study offers a sense of expected revenue for the project and any potential market risks you could run into.
The market assessment, more than any other part of the feasibility study, is a chance to evaluate whether or not there’s an opportunity in the market. During this study, it’s critical to evaluate your competitor’s positions and analyze demographics to get a sense of how the project will go.
Even if the financials are looking good and the market is ready, this initiative may not be something your organization can support. To evaluate operational feasibility, consider any staffing or equipment requirements this project needs. What organizational resources—including time, money, and skills—are necessary in order for this project to succeed?
Depending on the project, it may also be necessary to consider the legal impact of the initiative. For example, if the project involves developing a new patent for your product, you will need to involve your legal team and incorporate that requirement into the project plan.
Read: Your guide to getting started with resource managementAt this stage, your internal PMO team or external consultant have looked at all four elements of your feasibility study—financials, market analysis, technical feasibility, and operational feasibility. Before running their recommendations by you and your stakeholders, they will review and analyze the data for any inconsistencies. This includes ensuring the income statement is in line with your market analysis. Similarly, now that they’ve run a technical feasibility study, are any liabilities too big of a red flag? (If so, create a contingency plan!)
Depending on the complexity of your project, there won’t always be a clear answer. A feasibility analysis doesn’t provide a black-and-white decision for a complex problem. Rather, it helps you come to the table with the right questions—and answers—so you can make the best decision for your project and for your team.
Read: 8 steps to create a contingency plan to prevent business risksThe final step of the feasibility study is an executive summary touching on the main points and proposing a solution.
Depending on the complexity and scope of the project, your internal PMO or external consultant may share the feasibility study with stakeholders or present it to the group in order to field any questions live. Either way, with the study in hand, your team now has the information you need to make an informed decision.
Try Asana for project managementTo better understand the concepts behind feasibility assessments, here are two hypothetical examples demonstrating how these studies can be applied in real-world scenarios.
A consumer goods company is considering launching a new product line. Before investing in new product development, they conduct a feasibility study to assess the proposed project.
The feasibility study includes:
Market research to gauge consumer interest, assess competitor offerings, and estimate potential market share for the target market.
Technological considerations, including R&D requirements, production processes, and any necessary patents or certifications.
In-depth financial analysis projects sales volumes, revenue, costs, and profitability over a multi-year period.
Evaluation of organizational readiness, including the skills of the current management team and staff to bring the new product to market.
Assessment of legal feasibility to ensure compliance with regulations and identify any potential liability issues.
The comprehensive feasibility study identifies a promising market opportunity for the new business venture. The company decides to proceed with the new project, using the feasibility report as a template for their business development process. The study helps secure funding from key decision-makers, setting this start-up product initiative up for success.
A property developer is evaluating the feasibility of purchasing land for a new residential community. They commission a feasibility study to determine the viability of this real estate development project.
The feasibility assessment covers:
Detailed analysis of the local housing market, including demand drivers, comparable properties, pricing, and absorption rates.
Site planning to assess the property's capacity, constraints, and technological considerations.
In-depth review of legal feasibility, including zoning, permitting, environmental regulations, and other potential legal hurdles.
Financial analysis modeling various development scenarios and estimating returns on investment.
Creation of an opening day balance sheet projecting the assets, liabilities, and equity for the proposed project.
Sensitivity analysis to evaluate the impact of changes in key assumptions on the project's scope and profitability.
The feasibility study concludes that while the real estate start-up is viable, it carries significant risk. Based on these findings, the developer makes an informed decision to move forward, but with a revised project's scope and a phased approach to mitigate risk. The comprehensive feasibility analysis proves critical in guiding this major investment decision.
Feasibility studies are a key part of the project initiation and planning phases. They are typically conducted after a project has been conceptualized but before significant resources are invested in detailed planning and execution.
The purpose of a feasibility assessment is to objectively evaluate the viability of a proposed project, considering factors such as technical feasibility, market demand, financial costs and benefits, legal requirements, and organizational readiness. By thoroughly assessing these aspects, a feasibility study helps project stakeholders make an informed go-or-no-go decision.
While feasibility studies are a critical tool in the early stages of project management, they differ from other planning documents like project charters, business cases, and business plans. Here's a closer look at these key differences:
A project charter is a relatively informal document to pitch your project to stakeholders. Think of the charter as an elevator pitch for your project objectives, scope, and responsibilities. Typically, your project sponsor or executive stakeholders review the charter before ratifying the project.
A feasibility study should be implemented after the project charter has been ratified. This isn’t a document to pitch whether or not the project is in line with your team’s goals—rather, it’s a way to ensure the project is something you and your team can accomplish.
Read: 3 elements every project charter needsA business case is a more formalized version of the project charter. While you’d typically create a project charter for small or straightforward initiatives, you should create a business case if you are pitching a large, complex initiative that will make a major impact on the business. This longer, more formal document will also include financial information and typically involve more senior stakeholders.
After your business case is approved by relevant stakeholders, you'll run a feasibility study to make sure the work is doable. If you find it isn’t, you might return to your executive stakeholders and request more resources, tools, or time in order to ensure your business case is feasible.
Read: The beginner’s guide to writing an effective business caseA business plan is a formal document outlining your organization’s goals. You typically write a business plan when founding your company or when your business is going through a significant shift. Your business plan informs a lot of other business decisions, including your three- to five-year strategic plan.
As you implement your business and strategic plan, you’ll invest in individual projects. A feasibility study is a way to evaluate the practicality of any given individual project or initiative.
Read: New to strategic planning? Start here.Are you done with your feasibility study? You’re ready to run a project! Set your project up for success by tracking your progress with a work management tool like Asana. From the small stuff to the big picture, Asana organizes work so teams know what to do, why it matters, and how to get it done.
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