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Feasibility Assessment #

Following a successful Ideation Phase, the Feasibility Assessment represents a critical validation checkpoint in the Data Product lifecycle. This phase ensures that your proposed solution is both viable and valuable before committing significant resources to development.

Overview#

The Feasibility Assessment validates two fundamental questions:

  1. Should we build this? (Business Feasibility)

  2. Can we build this? (Technical Feasibility)

    • Data Governance specific roles to oversee data products governance are defined

    • Business and GDAI Portfolio Management provide the go ahead for the solution to start and resources are mobilized.

This is the second stage of the Data Product lifecycle.

The Solution Delivery Manager is responsible for initiating this stage. Product Owner is responsible for documenting the results coming out of this phase and Solution Delivery Manager is expected to facilitate the same.

How to conduct an assessment#

Follow below steps once the Requirements are finalized: This dual-phase approach helps teams scope realistically - starting with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) rather than an overly ambitious full-scale solution - while confirming that necessary resources, skills, and technical capabilities are available.

What You Will Learn#

By completing this chapter, you will understand:

  • How to structure and conduct comprehensive business and technical feasibility assessments
  • The key validation criteria that determine whether a data product should move forward
  • How to identify and mitigate risks early in the development lifecycle
  • The roles and responsibilities for stakeholders throughout the assessment process
  • How to document findings and secure stakeholder approval for your data product

Key Personas & Stakeholders - RACI Matrix#

Activity Product Owner Data Architect/Solution Architect Data Engineer Business Analyst Data Owner Business Owner
Initiate Assessment R/A I I I I I
Data Availability & Quality Check C R R C C I
Technical Feasibility Validation C R/A R I C I
Business Value Assessment R/A C I R C C
Resource & Capability Planning R/A C C I I C
Risk & Compliance Review C R C C R/A C
Stakeholder Approval A I I C C R
Assessment Documentation R/A C C C I I

The Product Owner is responsible for initiating this stage. Product Owner is responsible for documenting the results coming out of this phase.

Prerequisites#

Before beginning the Feasibility Assessment:

  • Completed Ideation Phase: Clear problem statement, initial use case definition, and preliminary stakeholder alignment
  • Stakeholder Identification: Key business owners, data owners, and technical leads identified and available
  • Feasibility Work Group Formation: Arrange for participation to the Feasibility workshop of the relevant team members and stakeholders.
  • Documentation Access: Ability to review existing architecture documentation and platform capabilities

Step by Step Process#

A general Feasibility Assessment Template written by AI Foundation Architects can be found at the Architecture Github repo.

Below is a high-level overview of the Feasibility Assessment process steps:

  1. Verify that required data exists (for example, search in NNDM), is accessible, meets quality standards, and can be governed and pipelined within the DataCraft ecosystem.
  2. Confirm the approach to build the product is technically sound, the DataCraft platform can support it, integrations are manageable, and performance requirements are achievable.
  3. Ensure the team has or can acquire necessary skills, the timeline is realistic, dependencies are manageable, and infrastructure is available.
  4. Validate that the solution addresses real user pain points, delivers significant measurable impact, fits strategic priorities, and has stakeholder commitment.
  5. Confirm budget availability for development and operations, human resources can be secured, business support exists, and change management needs are understood.
  6. Assess organizational readiness for the AI solution, clarity of regulatory requirements, acceptability of risk profile, and alignment with DataCraft ecosystem strategy.

The Feasibility workshop is typically facilitated by Product Owner or other project responsible. A Data Product Workshop Template can help with the workshop goals and steps. For better workshop preparation, ask the technical personnel to go through How To - Technical Feasibility

  • Review Business Requirement Documents and fill out the relevant information during the assessment.

  • The Product Owner / Project Responsible is expected to take the assessment results, costs and gaps from technical team and attain approval from Business Stakeholders. This would be applicable even in case of a POC (unless a mandate is received prior that POCs will not require approval).

TODO: Update this section further with the updated Operating Model of AI Foundation once that is clarified.