Feasibility is often narrated as a design and finance exercise, but entitlement, utility coordination, fire access, traffic review, environmental exposure, and local procedural steps can control the schedule long before a shovel reaches the ground. If those items are ignored early, the project can drift into a timing and cost position it never intended to accept.
That is why approval strategy belongs inside early feasibility, not after it. Teams should test not only whether something can be built, but how it will be reviewed, what external dependencies exist, and which approvals are likely to become schedule drivers.
A project that is physically possible but slow to approve may still be the wrong project for the business objective.
What to carry forward
The right feasibility question is not only can we build this. It is also can we get this approved within the business timeline we actually need.
Questions to ask next
- Which authority review or external dependency could slow the project most?
- How much of the business case depends on a schedule assumption that approvals may not support?
- Would a different concept reduce approval friction materially?