Feasibility Analysis
Use when asked to run or explain a feasibility analysis — assessing whether a proposed project, product, or venture is practically achievable across technical, financial, operational, legal, and market dimensions — before committing significant resources to it.
A feasibility analysis assesses whether a proposed project, product, or venture is practically achievable — evaluating it across multiple dimensions before committing significant resources, to catch fundamental obstacles early rather than discovering them mid-execution.
Common dimensions
- Technical feasibility — can this actually be built or delivered with available (or realistically obtainable) technology, skills, and infrastructure?
- Financial feasibility — do the projected costs, revenues, and returns make the venture worthwhile, and is the necessary capital available or obtainable?
- Operational feasibility — can the organization actually execute and sustain this given its current processes, capacity, and capabilities?
- Legal/regulatory feasibility — are there legal, regulatory, or compliance barriers that would block or significantly constrain the venture?
- Market feasibility — is there genuine demand, and is the competitive landscape one the venture can realistically compete in (see Demand Analysis, Five Forces Analysis)?
Why do this before committing resources
A feasibility analysis is deliberately conducted early and relatively cheaply, precisely to catch a fundamental blocker (a technology that doesn't exist yet, a market too small to sustain the venture, a regulatory prohibition) before the much larger investment of building and launching. Finding a blocking issue during feasibility analysis is far cheaper than finding it after significant resources are already committed.
Common pitfalls
- Treating feasibility analysis as a formality to get through — when it's approached as confirming a decision already made rather than genuinely testing it, it stops serving its actual purpose.
- Assessing only one dimension (usually financial) while ignoring others — a venture can be financially attractive on paper while facing an insurmountable technical, legal, or market obstacle.
- Skipping market feasibility in favor of internal capability assessment — being able to build something is different from there being genuine demand for it.
Learn more
- Demand Analysis for the market-feasibility dimension in more depth.
- Five Forces Analysis, SWOT Analysis, PESTLE Analysis for related strategic-assessment frameworks.
- Project Scope for defining what's being assessed once feasibility is confirmed.