Step 1: Research the Business Drivers
In most cases, your project is being driven by a problem in the business. These problems are called “business drivers” and you need to have a clear understanding of what they are, as part of your Feasibility Study.

For instance, the business driver might be that an IT system is outdated and is causing customer complaints, or that two businesses need to merge because of an acquisition. Regardless of the business driver, you need to get to the bottom of it so you fully understand the reasons why the project has been kicked off.

Find out why the business driver is important to the business, and why it’s critical that the project delivers a solution to it within a specified timeframe. Then find out what the impact will be to the business, if the project slips.

Step 2: Confirm the Alternative Solutions
Now you have a clear understanding of the business problem that the project addresses, you need to understand the alternative solutions available.

If it’s an IT system that is outdated, then your alternative solutions might include redeveloping the existing system, replacing it or merging it with another system.

Only with a clear understanding of the alternative solutions to the business problem, can you progress with the Feasibility Study.

Step 3: Determine the Feasibility
You now need to identify the feasibility of each solution. The question to ask of each alternative solution is “can we deliver it on time and under budget?”

To answer this question, you need to use a variety of methods to assess the feasibility of each solution. Here are some examples of ways you can assess feasibility:

• Research: Perform online research to see if other companies have implemented the same solutions and how they got on.
• Prototyping: Identify the part of the solution that has the highest risk, and then build a sample of it to see if it’s possible to create.
• Time-boxing: Complete some of the tasks in your project plan and measure how long it took vs. planned. If you delivered it on time, then you know that your planning is quite accurate.

Step 4: Choose a Preferred Solution
With the feasibility of each alternative solution known, the next step is to select a preferred solution to be delivered by your project. Choose the solution that; is most feasible to implement, has the lowest risk, and you have the highest confidence of delivering.

You’ve now chosen a solution to a known business problem, and you have a high degree of confidence that you can deliver that solution on time and under budget, as part of the project.

Step 5:
It’s now time to take your chosen solution and reassess its feasibility at a lower level. List all of the tasks that are needed to complete the solution. Then run those tasks by your team to see how long they think it will take to complete them. Add all of the tasks and timeframes to a project plan to see if you can do it all within the project deadline. Then ask your team to identify the highest risk tasks and get them to investigate them further to check that they are achievable. Use the techniques in Step 3 to give you a very high degree of confidence that it’s practically achievable. Then document all of the results in a Feasibility Study report.

After completing these 5 steps, get your Feasibility Study approved by your manager so that everyone in the project team has a high degree of confidence that the project can deliver successfully.

Jason Westland has been in the project management industry for the past 16 years managing projects of up to 2 billion dollars. If you would like to find out more about Jason or about his new online project management software visit projectmanager.com.

Here’s the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuuTlQ0FzEU

Quoting from Nitin Nohria, one of the creators of the video, “It is my desire to inspire people of all ages and social demographics to think about leadership on a broad level, contemplate what it means to them and what individual impact they can have when it comes to leading.” To help get the video out into the world, a remix contest is being held. Download the source files and make your own version and you could win $500 or $250.

More info here: http://hbs-leadership.wikispaces.com/remix-contest

Creativity and originality are strongly encouraged — the aim is to make this video your own.

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In light of the economic downturn, many of the companies have started to look inside their organizations on how to better manage their operations and cut costs. But related to operational efficiency, one element that is not being given much attention to is how trust is capitalized to ensure sustainability.

Too often we are inclined to tell people what they want to hear. We get the instant gratification of their approval without thought of its repercussion of how it will come back to us. Communication has been going only from top to bottom because the other direction has been influenced by individual fear of communicating with a person in a higher position. I’ve observed this to be common among our countrymen. Either we are too shy to speak up our minds or we are afraid to go against a common sentiment even if we hold valuable information that could turn the table.

With the current crisis described by some as the worst since the Great Depression, never has the need to be able to adapt instantaneously more imperative. To help in adopting a more open culture, the following recommendation may be useful in practicing transparency and candor in our workplace.

1. Start with your own behavior. Look first into your own behavior then move outward. Set yourself as a role model of how you want others to treat you.
2. Tell the truth. Avoid the impulse of just telling others what they want to hear. Look first into the authenticity of the information you hold instead of just throwing out something for the convenience of getting done with it.
3. Be consistent. Consistency makes people more trusting, even for bad news, than having someone like a salesperson who uses deception just to close a deal.
4. Encourage your people to speak truth to people in higher-ups. It’s extraordinarily difficult for people lower in a hierarchy to tell higher-ups unpalatable truths – but that’s what the higher-ups need to know, because often employees have access to information about problems that they don’t.
5. Admit your mistake and move forward. We are only human and it’s understandable that we sometimes commit mistake. But what turns this situation into a positive event is how we learn from our shortcomings and is able to move forward as a better person.
6. Have an immediate plan of action to correct your action. Translate your new found experience into something tangible. After admitting your shortcoming, have a plan of action of on how to correct it and avoid doing the same mistake.

Quoting from Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.“