Feasibility Study

FEASIBILITY STUDY

In simple terms, a feasibility study involves taking a judgment call on whether a project is within your capabilities (doable). A feasibility study evaluates the project's potential for success.

The two criteria to judge feasibility are cost required and value to be delivered. A well-designed study should offer a historical background of the business or project, a description of the product or service, accounting statements, details of operations and management, marketing research and policies, financial data, legal requirements and tax obligations. Generally, such studies precede technical development and project implementation.

1.       Technical Feasibility - assessment is centred on the technical resources available to the organization. It helps organizations asses if the technical resources meet capacity and whether the technical team is capable of converting the ideas into working systems. Technical feasibility also involves evaluation of the hardware and the software requirements of the proposed system.

2.       Economic Feasibility - helps organizations assess the viability, cost, and benefits associated with projects before financial resources are allocated. It also serves as an independent project assessment, and enhances project credibility, as a result. This assessment typically involves a cost/ benefits analysis of the project.

3.       Legal Feasibility - investigates if the proposed system conflicts with legal requirements like data protection acts or social media laws.

4.       Operational Feasibility - this involves undertaking a study to analyze and determine whether your business needs can be fulfilled by using the proposed solution. It also measures how well the proposed system solves problems and takes advantage of the opportunities identified during scope definition.

These include such design-dependent parameters such as reliability, maintainability, supportability, usability, disposability, sustainability, affordability, and others.

5.       Scheduling Feasibility is the most important for project success. A project will fail if not completed on time. In scheduling feasibility, we estimate how much time the system will take to complete, and with our technical skills we need to estimate the period to complete the project using various methods of estimation.

Conducting a feasibility study is always beneficial to the project as it gives you and other stakeholders a clear picture of your idea.

Below are the key benefits of conducting a feasibility study:

·         Gives project teams more focus and provides an alternative outline.

·         Narrows the business alternatives.

·         Identifies a valid reason to undertake the project.

·         Enhances the success rate by evaluating multiple parameters.

·         Aids decision-making on the project.

BCS/CER/IS/DIP/SE1/ Prototype Model

Prototype Model

Prototyping is a working model of a real system. There are two types of prototypes. The basic idea here is that instead of freezing the requirements before a design or coding can proceed, 

• Throw-away prototype
• Evolutionary Prototype 

Throw-away prototype
Model is use to gather requirements, after gathering requirements development start from the beginning. 

Evolutionary Prototype
Model is use to get the user feedback and finalize the model and deliver the system

Throwaway prototype is built to understand the requirements. This prototype is developed based on the currently known requirements. By using this prototype, the client can get a “what users really want” of the system, since the interactions with prototype can enable the client to better understand the requirements of the desired system.  Prototyping is an attractive idea for complicated and large systems.

Advantages of Prototype model:

• Users are actively involved in the development
• Since in this methodology a working model of the system is provided, the users get a better understanding of the system being developed.
• Errors can be detected much earlier.
• Quicker user feedback is available leading to better solutions.
• Confusing or difficult functions can be identified
• Requirements validation, Quick implementation of, incomplete, but functional, application.

Disadvantages of Prototype model:

• Leads to implementing and then repairing way of building systems.
• Increase the complexity of the system as scope of the system may expand beyond original plans.