Before feasibility: deciding which ideas deserve a closer look

Ideas reach a business from every direction. A customer asks for something new. A supplier pitches a machine. A staff member suggests an app. A competitor launches a service. A regulation changes. The owner has a long-held ambition. Each idea could become a project, and many deserve at least a conversation. Very few deserve a full feasibility study, a detailed business case and a team.

The difficulty is that analysis is not free. It uses the time of the owner and key staff, which is usually the scarcest resource in a small business. It also creates momentum. Once people have spent weeks defining a solution, getting quotes and building a spreadsheet, they become invested in it, and the business can find itself committed before it ever decided whether the idea deserved that attention.

This article describes a step that comes before feasibility: a quick, cheap screen that decides whether an idea deserves a closer look. It explains the stages an idea passes through, the common mistakes at the earliest stage, how to describe the need rather than the solution, how to match effort to what is at stake, a set of screening questions and the five possible outcomes of a screen.

Stages of evidence

It helps to think of an idea passing through stages, each requiring more evidence and more commitment:

Trigger: something prompts the idea, such as a request, a problem, a pitch or a change.
Initial value proposition: there may be something worth pursuing here.
Pre-feasibility: is the idea coherent, material and plausible enough to justify serious investigation?
Feasibility: can it work under realistic conditions?
Business case: does it deserve commitment compared with other uses of money and time?
Decision and authorisation: commit, with clear responsibilities.

Writer Olivier Mesly, among others, describes pre-feasibility as a broad early look at a proposed project from several angles, aimed at finding points of weakness before deciding whether deeper study is justified. Confusing the stages either wastes effort on ideas that were never strong enough, or pushes immature ideas forward too quickly.

Common mistakes at the earliest stage

Screening is seen as bureaucracy. In practice, weak screening creates more work later: many low-quality proposals entering expensive analysis, competing for attention and producing documents that never lead anywhere.

A senior sponsor makes an idea mature. The owner’s enthusiasm, or a key customer’s request, provides urgency but not evidence of demand, feasibility or value.

An early no kills innovation. A good screen does not demand certainty. An uncertain idea can stay alive through a small test without consuming full project resources.

The solution is described instead of the need. If an idea enters as “buy a robotic mower” rather than “we cannot find enough staff for mowing”, the answer has been built into the question and real alternatives are never considered.

Describe the need before the solution

Before screening an idea, restate it as a need or opportunity:

“Build a booking app” becomes “customers miss bookings and staff spend hours rescheduling”.
“Buy a second truck” becomes “we turn down jobs on Fridays because one truck cannot cover them”.
“Open a showroom” becomes “customers want to see finishes before they buy”.

The restated version leaves room for alternatives: existing software, a different roster, a hire arrangement, a sample kit. Sometimes the original solution is still the best one. The point is to find out rather than assume.

Look for weak spots, not just the attractive story

The early question is not how to make the idea work, but what could make a full study unnecessary or very different. For a proposal to buy automated equipment, for example:

Is demand stable enough to justify it?
Does the work need flexibility the equipment would remove?
Are space, power and the steps before and after it ready?
Can it be maintained locally?
Does it depend on one supplier or an unproven technology?
If it saves labour hours, will those hours actually become saved money?

None of these requires detailed design. Each could change the direction of the idea.

Match the effort to what is at stake

Not every idea deserves the same scrutiny. Three factors decide how much early evidence is needed:

Materiality: how much money, time, reputation or strategic consequence is at stake?
Reversibility: how hard would it be to recover if the idea turns out to be wrong?
Uncertainty: how much of the value depends on things not yet known?

An idea that can be tried cheaply and reversed easily, such as a trial of new software, needs little screening: just try it with a clear review point. An idea that is expensive, hard to reverse and uncertain, such as new premises, a major machine or a new business line, needs a careful screen before anyone starts detailed work.

Eight screening questions

Question	What it tests	Possible evidence
Need	Is the problem or opportunity real and significant?	Data on the problem, customer requests, complaints, a regulatory change
Relevance	Does it connect to what the business is trying to achieve?	Link to current priorities
Definition	Is the need clear, without jumping to a solution?	A one-sentence problem statement
Value	Is there a believable way it creates value?	A simple explanation of how benefit would arise
Alternatives	Are there other ways to meet the need, including doing less?	A short list of options
Constraints	Is there an obvious legal, technical, financial or market barrier?	A quick check of the main barriers
Information gap	What must be learned before feasibility can be judged?	A list of key unknowns
Proportion	Is a closer look worth its likely cost?	Materiality, reversibility and uncertainty

Five possible outcomes

A screen should end with an explicit decision:

Proceed to a feasibility study.
Reshape the idea, usually by redefining the need or considering different solutions.
Gather evidence through a small, specific test before deciding.
Defer until conditions change, with a note of what would bring it back.
Stop, with a brief record of why.

If nearly every idea proceeds, the screen is not working. A healthy screen changes the direction of a meaningful share of the ideas it sees.

A one-page concept note

For any idea that might require significant money or time, ask whoever proposes it, including the owner, to write a one-page note covering:

the need or opportunity, in one or two sentences;
why it matters now;
how it might create value;
two or three alternative ways to meet the need;
the main unknowns;
what evidence would make you drop the idea.

The last point is especially useful. A person who cannot say what would change their mind is building a case, not testing an idea. The plans that detect rather than predict article describes how to write down assumptions and stop conditions.

Keep good ideas alive cheaply

Stopping or deferring an idea does not have to mean forgetting it. Keep a simple idea log: a spreadsheet or shared document listing each idea, the need behind it, the screening outcome and what would bring it back. Many ideas that are wrong now become right later, when a customer’s needs change, a lease ends or a technology matures. A log also stops the same idea being proposed and analysed from scratch every few months, and it shows staff that their suggestions were considered rather than ignored.

Learn from screening decisions

Keep a simple record of ideas screened and their outcomes. Over time, review it: which ideas were stopped early and proved wise to stop? Which deferred ideas later became attractive? Which ideas keep returning with the same barrier, such as a skills gap or lack of space? Patterns like these reveal where the business needs to build capability, and make future screening faster.

A worked example

This is an illustration. The owner of a landscaping and garden maintenance business with 15 staff receives five ideas in one quarter:

A supplier pitches a fleet of robotic mowers.
The owner has long wanted to open a small garden centre.
Several commercial customers have asked whether the business could maintain their irrigation systems.
A staff member suggests building a custom booking app.
A council has advertised a tender for a parks maintenance contract.

Each could absorb weeks of analysis. Instead, the owner spends about an hour on a concept note for each, restating the need and applying the screening questions:

Irrigation maintenance: the need is real and repeated, the business already has relevant skills, capital required is low and the work fits existing customers. Proceed to a short feasibility study.
Robotic mowers: the underlying need is a shortage of staff for mowing. Uncertainty is high, because several sites have slopes and obstacles. Gather evidence: rent one unit for six weeks on two different sites.
Booking app: the need is missed and rescheduled bookings. Existing booking software may meet it at far lower cost. Reshape: trial an off-the-shelf tool.
Garden centre: there is no evidence of local demand, the capital required is high and the commitment would be hard to reverse. Defer, noting that the idea would be revisited if suitable premises became available on a short lease and customer interest could be shown.
Council tender: it requires accreditations and a scale of operation the business does not have, and closes in three weeks. Stop for now, with a note to look at the requirements for the next tender round.

The five concept notes take about five hours. A full study of each idea might have taken around 40 hours each, or 200 hours in total. Instead, the business spends about 45 hours: five on screening and about 40 on the one feasibility study that deserves it, plus a small rental cost for the mower trial. The time saved goes into the irrigation service, which becomes a new line of recurring work.

How this applies to a small Australian business

In small businesses, the owner’s time is usually the limit on how many ideas can be pursued. Practical steps:

Restate each idea as a need before discussing solutions.
Write a one-page concept note for any idea needing significant money or time.
Match screening effort to materiality, reversibility and uncertainty.
Use the eight screening questions.
End each screen with a decision: proceed, reshape, gather evidence, defer or stop.
Apply the same standard to the owner’s own ideas.
Keep a record of screened ideas and review it occasionally.

The articles on feasibility is more than the numbers and finding and testing a business idea cover the next stages.

Signals worth watching

A growing list of “business cases in progress” that never conclude.
Quotes and designs requested before the need is defined.
Ideas described as products or purchases rather than problems.
Proponents unable to say what would make them drop an idea.
Almost every idea proceeding to detailed study.
The same barriers stopping ideas again and again.

Common mistakes

Starting detailed analysis before screening.
Describing solutions instead of needs.
Treating enthusiasm as evidence.
Applying the same effort to every idea regardless of what is at stake.
Exempting the owner’s ideas from screening.
Ending a screen without a clear decision.

Frequently asked questions

Won’t screening slow us down? It usually speeds things up, because effort goes into the ideas that deserve it and weak ideas are stopped before they consume weeks.

Who should do the screening? For a small business, usually the owner with one or two trusted staff or an adviser. Including someone who did not propose the idea helps.

What if a customer is pushing hard for something? Take the request seriously as evidence of need, and screen it like any other idea. A strong request may move it quickly to a small test or a feasibility study.

How long should a concept note take? About an hour for most ideas. If it takes much longer, the idea may be too vague to screen yet, which is itself useful information.

What happens to deferred ideas? Record what would bring them back, such as a change in demand, premises or regulation, and check the list occasionally.

How should we handle ideas that come from a supplier’s sales pitch? Treat the pitch as a prompt, not a need. Restate the underlying problem the product claims to solve, check whether the business actually has that problem and how big it is, and consider other ways to address it before asking for a detailed proposal.

Questions to ask

Which current proposals have built momentum before their need was tested?
What minimum evidence should an idea provide before we spend time studying it?
Which ideas could be stopped or redirected by one quick test?
Do the owner’s ideas meet the same standard as everyone else’s?
Where have we confused a solution with the need?
What information would change our decision most, and how cheaply can we get it?

Bringing it together

The cost of a poor investment begins before any money is spent, when scarce people start developing an idea that was never strong enough to deserve it. Screen ideas cheaply first: restate them as needs, look for weak spots, match effort to what is at stake, use a short concept note and end each screen with a clear decision to proceed, reshape, test, defer or stop. Spend a little to learn whether spending more is justified, while choices are still cheap to change.

Source: KEVOS notes, drawing on teaching material on project selection and pre-feasibility, including O. Mesly’s work on project feasibility. Examples and figures in this article are illustrations.