Feasibility Study Quarter

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Feasibility Study Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.


Outline

The predecessor lecture is Idea Generation Quarter.

Concepts

  1. Feasibility study. In enterprise administration, an assessment of the practical potential of a proposed change. This assessment may consist of several evaluations. The difference between the attained value estimate, which is what the enterprise is going to obtain, and change budget estimate, which is what the enterprise is going to lose, is the primary target of the feasibility study if the proposed change is a project. If the change refers to the enterprise portfolio, another study, portfolio feasibility, is needed. A feasibility study is feasible itself when a business opportunity is its change stimulus. If its change stimulus is a business need, no feasibility study is needed; business analysis is conducted instead.
    • Change. In enterprise administration, the act or instance of becoming different and/or doing business differently.
    • Organizational change. Creation and/or creative alteration of how the organization conducts its overall business and/or what it offers to its stakeholders. The change can include its enterprise portfolio, organizational structure, people, work environment, technology, etc.
    • Business strategy change. Creation and/or creative alternation of a business strategy. This change may include the product that is offered on the market, its scope or features, pricing, presentations, production personnel, and/or way of production usually in order to (a) offer new and/or additional benefits to the customer and/or (b) serve some organizational needs.
    • Planned change. Change activities that are intentional and goal oriented.
    • Unexpected change. Change activities that are unintentional and not necessarily goal oriented.
  2. Change budget estimate. The expected total cost of a set of enterprise efforts undertaken in order to implement a proposed change when the defined scope of work has been completed. In simple words, it is what the enterprise is going to lose as a result of the proposed change implementation. Because the budgets likely depend on the payroll and the payroll depends on work time, schedule feasibility needs to be evaluated before the budget. Because the work time likely depends on the project scope, effort feasibility needs to be evaluated before the work time. Because the project scope definitely depends on the product scope, deliverable feasibility needs to be evaluated first of all.
  3. Attained value estimate. The expected total value that the enterprise is going to obtain when a proposed change is implemented. Because this value shall have several components, several evaluations may be needed. The components may include economic, social, compliance, and configuration ones.
  4. Market analysis.
  5. Portfolio feasibility.
    • Business strategy. The formulation of how an organization is going to compete in a particular business. This formulation may or may not include (a) what products, (c) resulted from what production, (d) at what price, (e) using what presentation, (f) on what market, (g) with what people, (h) with what level of organization's support this organization is going to offer, as well as (i) what financial results and/or competitors' actions would trigger what changes in those decisions. Rarely, a mature organization formulates just one business strategy; usually, there are several business strategies in the organization's enterprise portfolio since both/either different divisions may have their own business strategies and/or different business strategies are developed for different products, regions, and/or segments of customers.
    • Organization. A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more legal entities, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
  6. Enterprise portfolio. A collection of all businesses in which a particular organization is.

Methods

  1. Project estimate techniques.
  • Arrow diagramming method (ADM). A network diagramming technique in which activities are represented by arrows. The tail of the arrow represents the start, and the head represents the finish of the activity (the length of the arrow does not represent the expected duration of the activity). Activities are connected at points called nodes (usually drawn as small circles) to illustrate the sequence in which the activities are expected to be performed. See also precedence diagramming method.
  • Assumption. The factor that, for planning purposes, is considered to be true, real, or certain. Assumptions affect all aspects of project planning, and are part of the progressive elaboration of the project. Project teams frequently identify, document, and validate assumptions as part of their planning process. Assumptions generally involve a degree of risk.
  • Assumptions analysis. A technique that explores the assumptions' accuracy and identifies risks to the project from inaccuracy, inconsistency, or incompleteness of assumptions.
  • Bar chart. A graphic display of schedule-related information. In the typical bar chart, activities or other project elements are listed down the left side of the chart, dates are shown across the top, and activity durations are shown as date-placed horizontal bars. Also called a Gantt chart.
  • Critical path. The series of activities that determines the duration of the project. In a deterministic model, the critical path is usually defined as those activities with float less than or equal to a specified value, often zero. It is the longest path through the project. See critical path method.
  • Critical Path Method (CPM). A network analysis technique used to predict project duration by analyzing which sequence of activities (which path) has the least amount of scheduling flexibility (the least amount of float). Early dates are calculated by means of a forward pass, using a specified start date. Late dates are calculated by means of a backward pass, starting from a specified completion date (usually the forward pass' calculated project early finish date).
  • Precedence diagramming method (PDM). A network diagramming technique in which activities are represented by boxes (or nodes). Activities are linked by precedence relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed.
  • Precedence relationship. The term used in the precedence diagramming method for a logical relationship. In current usage, however, precedence relationship, logical relationship, and dependency are widely used interchangeably, regardless of the diagramming method in use.
  • Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). An event-oriented network analysis technique used to estimate program duration when there is uncertainty in the individual activity duration estimates. PERT applies the critical path method using durations that are computed by a weighted average of optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely duration estimates. PERT computes the standard deviation of the completion date from those of the path's activity durations. Also known as the Method of Moments Analysis.


Instruments

Practices

The successor lecture is Business Modeling Quarter.

Materials

Recorded audio

Recorded video

Live sessions

Texts and graphics

See also