Ensuring you have a desirable, feasible, and viable service or project

Through Juice I have the privilege of working with various organisations around the UK on their staff health and wellbeing offer, and every day I speak with a host of new ones. Through our work I’m always reflecting on how we can continually improve to make sure we’re ahead on the innovation curve.

During my time working with businesses at executive level I’ve come to realise that there are three key criteria to create a successful service; desirability, feasibility, and viability. Basically, do your staff actually want it, can it be created, and will it cost the earth.

The sweet spot is right in the middle, and should any of these three criteria be omitted then implementing a new service becomes riskier and potentially costlier.

Who doesn’t love a good Venn Diagram.

These three criteria fit perfectly into Strategyzer’s “Business Model Canvas” (which I’ve adapted to Project Canvas), a tool that I picked up whilst I was part of the NatWest Business Accelerator.

Let’s delve deeper.

Desirability (Green)

Desirability focuses on whether a service is a nice-to-have or a must-have for end users, who key users are, and what barriers to entry we are trying to solve. Consider:

1. User Segments

• Who are our users?
• What characteristics do our users have?
• What’s important to our audience?

2. Value Proposition

• What user need must we fulfil?
• What value do we need to create for the user?
• Why is our user choosing to engage with our service or project?

3. Channels

• How will we promote our service or project to non-users?
• What channels generate the most benefit?

4. User Relationships

• How will we interact with current users?
• How can we best support them?
• How do we maintain and increase our user’s engagement in the service or project?

Feasibility (Blue)

Feasibility measures the operational capabilities that need to be leveraged in any new project. It asks you to consider objectively the project’s strengths, technology, resources, branding, and key partnerships.

For a project to be feasible it needs to have clear stakeholder engagement with a list of key actions and resources required to ensure a successful outcome. Consider:

5. Key Resources

• What kind of equipment and activities are necessary to run the service or project?

6. Key Activities

• What tasks and activities do we need to complete to provide value?

7. Key Partners

• Which internal and/or external stakeholders do we need to engage with to create value?

Viability (Yellow)

All projects must have agreed outcomes to measure success. Viability focuses on the value created, balancing key outputs with investments of time/finances, and whether the service can sustainably provide a positive contribution. Consider:

8. Key Outputs

• What does success look like?
• How can we measure impact?

9. Investment Structure

• What investments are necessary to run the service or project?
• Which investments will depend on the volume of activity?
• What funding sources will be important for the service or project?

So, with this mind, does your health and wellbeing provision stack up?

Everyday Juice Limited

We believe that everyone has the right to be healthy and happy at work, connected to a community of colleagues who are passionate about making a positive impact on themselves and the workplace.

If you want to create a remarkable place to work for your employees, why not get in touch.