Feasibility Study in Software Engineering is a study to evaluate feasibility of proposed project or system. Feasibility study is one of stage among important four stages of Software Project Management Process. As name suggests feasibility study is the feasibility analysis or it is a measure of the software product in terms of how much beneficial product development will be for the organization in a practical point of view. Feasibility study is carried out based on many purposes to analyze whether software product will be right in terms of development, implantation, contribution of project to the organization etc.
Types of Feasibility Study :
The feasibility study mainly concentrates on bellow five mentioned areas. Among these Economic Feasibility Study is most important part of the feasibility analysis and Legal Feasibility Study is less considered feasibility analysis.
- Technical Feasibility –
In Technical Feasibility current resources both hardware software along with required technology are analyzed/assessed to develop project. This technical feasibility study gives report whether there exists correct required resources and technologies which will be used for project development. Along with this, feasibility study also analyzes technical skills and capabilities of technical team, existing technology can be used or not, maintenance and up-gradation is easy or not for chosen technology etc. - Operational Feasibility –
In Operational Feasibility degree of providing service to requirements is analyzed along with how much easy product will be to operate and maintenance after deployment. Along with this other operational scopes are determining usability of product, Determining suggested solution by software development team is acceptable or not etc. - Economic Feasibility –
In Economic Feasibility study cost and benefit of the project is analyzed. Means under this feasibility study a detail analysis is carried out what will be cost of the project for development which includes all required cost for final development like hardware and software resource required, design and development cost and operational cost and so on. After that it is analyzed whether project will be beneficial in terms of finance for organization or not.
- Legal Feasibility –
In Legal Feasibility study project is analyzed in legality point of view. This includes analyzing barriers of legal implementation of project, data protection acts or social media laws, project certificate, license, copyright etc. Overall it can be said that Legal Feasibility Study is study to know if proposed project conform legal and ethical requirements. - Schedule Feasibility –
In Schedule Feasibility Study mainly timelines/deadlines is analyzed for proposed project which includes how many times teams will take to complete final project which has a great impact on the organization as purpose of project may fail if it can’t be completed on time.
Feasibility Study Process :
The below steps are carried out during entire feasibility analysis.
- Information assessment
- Information collection
- Report writing
- General information
Need of Feasibility Study :
Feasibility study is so important stage of Software Project Management Process as after completion of feasibility study it gives a conclusion of whether to go ahead with proposed project as it is practically feasible or to stop proposed project here as it is not right/feasible to develop or to think/analyze about proposed project again.
Along with this Feasibility study helps in identifying risk factors involved in developing and deploying system and planning for risk analysis also narrows the business alternatives and enhance success rate analyzing different parameters associated with proposed project development.
