Personal Feasibility Decisions

When we're offered opportunities to take on new projects, prudence requires that we ensure the feasibility of taking them on. Because considering these offers sometimes occurs under time pressure or political pressure, it's useful to have at hand a framework for pondering such decisions. This post proposes a "personal feasibility" decision framework. It's a good start, but you probably would alter what's here or add dimensions to make it a good fit for you.

Market

If the opportunity entails delivering something of value to someone who will use it, ensure that you understand that user's needs, wants, and alternatives.

Needs and wants are rarely identical. As compared to needs, it's usually easier to communicate with the user about wants, and more difficult to satisfy them. Alternatives are important because your offering competes with the alternatives. Ideally, you'll be offering to meet a previously unidentified want that's truly needed, and for which there are only inferior alternatives. No opportunity is ideal in this market dimension, but it's good to know how to recognize one when it comes along.

Capacity

Your own personal resources, or the anticipated resources the effort would need, must be available during the time period when they would be needed.

Consider any personal commitments or organizational efforts that would compete with this opportunity for time and attention. If you discover conflicting opportunities or commitments, try to rearrange things. A small schedule change can sometimes resolve the conflict. If you're unable to resolve the conflict, undertaking the opportunity could be a risky move.

Capability

Both the As compared to needs, it's usually easier
to communicate with the user about
wants, and more difficult to satisfy themorganization and you, personally, should already have — or should be able to acquire — all the knowledge, talent, or equipment required to exploit this opportunity successfully.

If you can identify capability gaps, consider what might be needed to close them. Rank them in severity, realistically. Search carefully for deal-breakers. In your search, beware cognitive biases, especially if the opportunity is rare and desirable.

Compatibility

The current array of resources, knowledge, talent, and equipment must be compatible with the needed resources, knowledge, talent, or equipment.

If somehow you were to acquire all that's needed, those acquisitions would need to be compatible with whatever you now have. For example, if you're permitted to hire the people you need, would you have the budget required to cover the cost of additional software licenses? Would IT be willing and able to support the new software tools?

Risk

Ensure that the probability of success is high enough, and foreseeable risks have been mitigated or can be mitigated.

Investigate the risks associated with the opportunity. If undertaking this effort alters the risk profiles of other efforts, either underway or anticipated, verify that the alterations are acceptable. Risk, in this sense, includes risks associated with organizational politics.

Last words

Finally, consider organizational politics. The foundational concept of the effort needs to be compatible with accepted beliefs about the organization's mission and the roles of the people who would be doing the work. Assure yourself that any political obstacles that remain have plausible resolutions.  Top    Next Issue

Love the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Emotions at Work:

What We Don't Know About Each Other

We know a lot about our co-workers, but we don't know everything. And since we don't know what we don't know, we sometimes forget that we don't know it. And then the trouble begins.

Some Subtleties of ad hominem Attacks

Groups sometimes make mistakes based on faulty reasoning used in their debates. One source of faulty reasoning is the ad hominem attack. Here are some insights that help groups recognize and avoid this class of errors.

When Somebody Throws a Nutty

To "throw a nutty" — at work, that is — can include anything from extreme verbal over-reaction to violent physical abuse of others. When someone exhibits behavior at the milder end of this spectrum, what responses are appropriate?

Scope Creep and the Planning Fallacy

Much is known about scope creep, but it nevertheless occurs with such alarming frequency that in some organizations, it's a certainty. Perhaps what keeps us from controlling it better is that its causes can't be addressed with management methodology. Its causes might be, in part, psychological.

Why Scope Expands: II

The scope of an effort underway tends to expand over time. Why do scopes not contract just as often? One cause might be cognitive biases that make us more receptive to expansion than contraction.

See also Emotions at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming September 3: Contributions in Team Meetings: Advocating

An agenda in the form of an ordered list of topics might not provide an appropriate framework for a given meeting. For example, if A depends on B, and B depends on A, we must find a way to discuss A and B together in some orderly fashion. Here are some alternatives to linear, ordered agendas. Available here and by RSS on September 3.

And on September 10: Contributions in Team Meetings: Scoping

Some meetings focus on solving specific problems. We call them "working sessions." More often, we delegate problem solving to task teams, while meetings wrestle with the difficult task of identifying or "scoping" problems rather than solving them. Scoping discussions can be perilous. Available here and by RSS on September 10.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info