What is the structure of a feasibility study?
The structure of a feasibility study plays an important role in the development phase of a project. How to do it? What does the study deliverable contain?
When you create a new and very large project, you can organize it in several phases to ensure greater reliability of completion. All these phases constitute the life cycle of a project.
It should be noted that each company can create a project structure as it wants. There may be only two phases or seven or more. Let us know what would be the structure of a more effective feasibility study and how to carry it out.
What is the feasibility study?
The feasibility study is part of the first representative phase of a project, whether for a product, a service, a site, etc.
The study consists of exploring all the concepts of the project allowing to respond to the needs to be achieved: Quality, costs, deadlines …
The objective is :
Point out the characteristics of the project
Define the provisional program evaluating the technical and operational feasibility highlighting the critical elements of each objective (quality, costs, deadlines)
Consolidate study opportunities
Present each concept studied with a feasibility file that estimates costs, deadlines and solutions
Validate the feasibility of the project to initiate the research design.
Objectives of a feasibility study
For a project to be successful, three important factors must be taken into account
Quality: Quality level required for the product / service
Cost: Cost of product design, logistics, marketing, product sales price, etc.
Deadlines: Design deadlines, delivery of a product to a client, etc.
Structure of a feasibility study
You have to prepare a descriptive document that addresses the technical, quality, financial and calendar aspects of a project. This report should allow all interested parties to understand the objectives and problems of the project, so that they can decide on its final validation.
Regardless of the type of project, you must create a feasibility study that will help you to be successful in the development of a new product, service or provision, etc.
Many companies first do a pre-feasibility study, and then complete it with a feasibility or feasibility study.
The structure of a feasibility study is as follows:
Definition of the complete program of the project (specifications: functional analysis, definition of the main and secondary characteristics of the project)
Justify the project in economic and / or statistical and / or strategic terms, or with the help of a SWOT analysis.
Prepare and justify the budget necessary to carry out the project.
Evaluate the overall cost of the project: Estimated costs of operation, maintenance, storage, etc.
Identify all limitations and regulatory standards by initiating a project risk analysis.
Define a study, execution and commissioning calendar to estimate all phases and durations of the project (GANTT or PERT calendar)
Provide all the necessary elements to understand the project
Determine all possible impacts on your organization, operations, and resources.
Identify and evaluate risks.
These are the basic points of a feasibility study structure.
Who participates in structuring the study?
The project applicant is responsible for drawing up the structure of the study, although he may have a work team or resort to other areas that will have interference in the project, for example:
The project manager,
The person in charge of evaluating costs and making the financial justification,
Those responsible for the affected entities
The purchasing department for budgets
etc.
According to the project, all affected entities must validate the viability file before moving on to the next phase.
Having the structure of a feasibility study, we will move on to the next phase, the design and planning of the project.
The design phase consists of choosing, among the concepts retained at the end of the feasibility study, the solution to be developed, specifying the requirements that must be respected.
However, you can keep hypotheses that have not been considered to keep a record of all the scenarios that have been considered for the realization of this project. This could also be useful in the case of having to evaluate the results.