A feasibility study is a desktop analysis that considers all of a project's relevant factors, including economic, technical, legal and political considerations, to ascertain the likelihood of the project achieving the required outcomes successfully. The goal is to determine whether the project should go ahead, be redesigned, or abandoned altogether.

A feasibility study isn't only used for projects looking to measure and forecast financial gains. Whether a project is feasible or not can depend on several factors, including the project's return on investment, its political alignment, and the speed with which it can deliver. The acceptance of the project by stakeholders, users, and the local community can all influence the success of a project. In other words, feasible can mean something different to each project. Although feasibility studies can help project managers determine the risk and return of pursuing a plan of action, several steps and best practices should be considered before moving forward.

A feasibility study addresses the viability, acceptability, and desirability of a project.

• Viability – Whether the project can work from a the technical and legal standpoint. Can it work?
• Acceptability – The alignment of political, environmental, and economic outcomes with strategy, expectation, and community buy-in. Will it be allowed to happen?
• Desirability – Does the project achieve the outcomes in a way that fulfils the sociocultural need in an optimal way? This may include location or cultural impact. Will it improve people’s lives?

Each of these are not mutually exclusive and are high-level guides to the questions that a feasibility study should set out to answer. For options appraisal, multiple feasibility studies should be carried out in a similar format to allow clear and easy comparison.

PESTLE analysis

A PESTLE analysis can be extremely useful in understanding the feasibility of a project. The six factors – political, economic, sociocultural, technological, legal, and environmental – cover all of the bases when assessing the viability, acceptability and desirability of a new venture.

• Political – Account for tariffs and regulations, along with the decision-making environment and local community.
• Economic – Determine the financial approach to a project and test the business case.
• Sociocultural – Understand the potential response from a local community for the solution or service.
• Technological – Test if a proposed option will work and be usable by the target users.
• Legal – Understand the rules and regulations the project will need to conform to.
• Environmental – Examine the project and solution in the context of carbon reduction and wider environment factors.

Overall, these factors give a very strong picture of how the greater project environment will determine the success or failure of your venture.

The PESTLE analysis can be used alongside a SWOT analysis to compare the business and environmental factors of proposed projects.

SWOT analysis

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework used to evaluate the context of a project and can develop options planning. SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future potential context.

A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at the strengths and weaknesses of a project within its industry.

• Strengths – Strengths describe what an organisation excels at and how a project would use those strengths to deliver a successful outcome. Examples include a knowledgeable team or experience in delivering similar projects.
• Weaknesses – Weaknesses stop an organisation from performing well to deliver a project or solution, for example a complex decision-making structure, limited risk appetite, low capacity for oversight.
• Opportunities – Opportunities refer to favourable external factors that could give a project an advantage, for example upcoming funding streams, changes in legislation, a mature delivery market, community interest.
• Threats – Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm a project, for example rising costs for materials, increasing competition, low market capability, or changes to rules and regulations. Threats identified should be incorporated into the programme risk register once an option is chosen.