Reality Check #1: Stop or Go?
Although it is very early in the life of the project, two important
questions should be asked:
- Is this problem worth solving?
- Does a potential solution exist?
These two questions address the issues of justificationand
feasibility, respectively. You should address both issues before
continuing. If not, you run the risk of wasting time and money
on problems that should not or cannot be solved.
Justification—particularly financial justification—is very dif-
ficult to assess at the requirements stage, because not much is
really known about the project. Nonetheless, it’s wise to try to
assess whether or not you can justify continuing the project.
You may be able to do this by executing a simple cost vs. bene-
fit analysis.
The benefit component is relatively easy to estimate: it’s the
value of satisfying the need. In many cases, this is nothing more
than calculating how much the problem is costing today.
Estimating the cost of the solution is more difficult, because
you’re not sure what you’re going to do or how you’re going to
do it. One approach you may wish to consider consists of work-
ing backwards through the financial calculations. (We’ll cover
these later in this chapter.) By doing this, you can determine the
most you’d be able to spend on a solution. If none of your pro-
posed solutions can be executed for less than that amount of
money, the project will ultimately be unjustifiable—at least from
a purely financial standpoint.
The second issue, feasibility, comes down to a basic ques-
tion: Do you believe that a solution exists? In other words, can
this problem even be solved? This step is referred to verifying
feasibility. There can be much subjectivity in this step; you
should rely heavily on the judgment of subject matter experts.
In reality, the most that you can realistically hope to determine
at this point is that the possibilityof a solution is thought to
exist. That’s OK. As with justification, all you’re trying to do at
Defining Your Project 57