Feasibility Study

What is a ‘Feasibility Study’

A feasibility study is an analysis of how successfully a project can be completed, accounting for factors that affect it such as economic, technological, legal and scheduling factors. Project managers use feasibility studies to determine potential positive and negative outcomes of a project before investing a considerable amount of time and money into it.

Explaining ‘Feasibility Study’

For example, a small school looking to expand its campus might perform a feasibility study to determine if it should follow through, taking into account material and labor costs, how disruptive the project would be to the students, the public opinion of the expansion, and laws that might have an effect on the expansion.

Importance

Feasibility studies allow companies to determine and organize all of the necessary details to make a business work. A feasibility study helps identify logistical problems, and nearly all business-related problems, along with the solutions to alleviate them. Feasibility studies can also lead to the development of marketing strategies that convince investors or a bank that investing in the business is a wise choice.

Components of a Feasibility Study

There are several components of a feasibility study:

Further Reading

  • The economics of adaptive reuse of old buildings: A financial feasibility study & analysis – uwspace.uwaterloo.ca [PDF]
  • Project feasibility study: the key to successful implementation of sustainable and socially responsible construction management practice – www.sciencedirect.com [PDF]
  • A financial feasibility study of an aquaponic system in a Mediterranean urban context – www.sciencedirect.com [PDF]
  • Technical, financial, economic and environmental pre-feasibility study of geothermal power plants by RETScreen–Ecuador's case study – www.sciencedirect.com [PDF]
  • Findings from SHAZ!: a feasibility study of a microcredit and life-skills HIV prevention intervention to reduce risk among adolescent female orphans in Zimbabwe – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Giant reed as energy crop for Southern Italy: An economic feasibility study – www.sciencedirect.com [PDF]
  • Economic feasibility study for phosphorus recovery processes – link.springer.com [PDF]