What is a feasibility study?
In product development, a feasibility study asks whether or not your project is do-able. It should be conducted at the outset of a project against the background context of the business, and it takes into account all factors likely to have an impact, including economic, technical, legal and scheduling aspects.
Will the project achieve the desired effect within the set budget and timeframe? Can you adequately fund the project? Do you have the technical resources to transform your project into reality or will you need to outsource? Will there be any legal considerations or conflicts that arise from your project? Can you achieve your goals within the specified deadlines?
These answers and many others allow business leaders to decide if there is enough potential for the project to succeed or that it is worth allocating resources towards pursuing it further.
1) Prepare – Where Do I Start?
To make the best use of a feasibility study, you should collect together all of the relevant information you have relating to the project. Each project will be different but the following should be considered:
– Costings and budget
– Material preferences
– Target market
– Anticipated life cycle of the product
– Aesthetics & Styling
– Pre-existing or problematic Intellectual Property (IP)
– Funding and investment
– Technological requirements
– Legal requirements and standards
– Milestones and deadlines
2) Visualising Your Product
In most cases, visual images of a product are one of the quickest ways to get feedback from interested parties, collaborators, stakeholders, and users. Most projects will require some form of visual material to communicate ideas effectively. A picture tells a thousand words and Sated Design can help you to tell the best story.
Mood boards, hand-drawn sketches, shaded industrial design illustrations and 3D CGI renders are all examples of visual presentation techniques. The number of images and the techniques used to communicate ideas will vary dependant on time, budget, intended use, and the complexity of the subject.
Coming up in Part 2 – Understanding Standards, Manufacture and Assembly, and Running the Numbers – Preliminary Costings.
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