I’ve been thinking about the space between an operational need and an authorized project.
In conversations with functional managers, I often hear legitimate needs for equipment replacement, infrastructure improvements, maintenance initiatives, process changes, or other operational investments. The people closest to the operation may understand very clearly why something needs to be done, but the initiative itself may not yet have enough feasibility evidence for someone outside that function to confidently support it.
I think this is particularly important in facilities and maintenance.
A functional manager may know that an asset is becoming unreliable or that a process needs improvement. But if the request reaches leadership or a PMO primarily as a cost—without a sufficiently developed operational baseline, expected outcome, alternatives, constraints, risks, resource requirements, or consequences of inaction—the organization may reasonably view it as another facility expense rather than an investment opportunity.
At the same time, I don’t think every early initiative should require the equivalent of a full business case or feasibility study just to receive consideration. If we make the threshold too high, functional teams may struggle to get legitimate operational needs evaluated at all.
So I’m curious how other project professionals approach this:
What is the minimum level of feasibility or evidence you expect an initiative to demonstrate before it deserves formal project evaluation?
Where should the functional manager’s responsibility for developing the initiative end, and where should the project manager, PMO, engineering, finance, or other stakeholders begin helping determine feasibility?
And for those working with facilities, maintenance, infrastructure, or operational projects: do you think weak initiative development contributes to these projects being perceived primarily as expenses rather than value-producing investments?
Interested in hearing how this is handled across different organizations and industries.
