Technical audits & feasibility studies help teams make confident build, buy, and refactor decisions by assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches before time and budget disappear into rework. SHAPE reviews your application architecture, codebase, infrastructure, security posture, and delivery practices—then translates findings into a prioritized plan your stakeholders can execute.

Good technical audits & feasibility studies turn uncertainty into a decision-ready plan.

 
If a team can’t clearly explain current constraints, risks, and realistic options, they don’t yet have feasibility—they have assumptions.

Technical audits & feasibility studies overview

SHAPE’s technical audits & feasibility studies are designed for one outcome: assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches so leadership can make a defensible decision and engineering can execute without surprises.

Related services (internal links)

Technical audits & feasibility studies often become the starting point for focused delivery work. Depending on findings, teams commonly pair audit outcomes with:

What are technical audits & feasibility studies?

Technical audits & feasibility studies are a structured evaluation method used to understand (1) how a system currently works and (2) whether proposed changes are viable—technically, operationally, and economically.

In practice, assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches means answering questions like:

Technical audit vs. feasibility study (the practical difference)

Why assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches matters

Most engineering failures aren’t caused by lack of effort—they’re caused by unclear constraints, hidden dependencies, and optimistic assumptions. Technical audits & feasibility studies prevent those failures by assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches before you commit to a costly path.

Measurable outcomes

Common problems technical audits & feasibility studies solve

What we audit (systems, code, infrastructure, data)

Every engagement is scoped to your decision. But most technical audits & feasibility studies cover the layers below—because assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches requires end-to-end visibility.

1) Architecture & system boundaries

2) Codebase quality & maintainability

3) Delivery system (CI/CD, environments, release safety)

Related: DevOps, CI/CD pipelines.

4) Security, compliance, and access control

Related: Security audits & penetration testing and Compliance (GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA).

5) Performance, scalability, and reliability

Related: Performance & load testing.

6) Data foundations (modeling, pipelines, reporting)

Related: Database design & data modeling and Data pipelines & analytics dashboards.

Deliverables: what you get from SHAPE

Technical audits & feasibility studies should end in a decision-ready plan—not a document that sits in a folder. Our deliverables connect assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches to clear next steps.

Typical deliverables

 
The best audit deliverable is a prioritized sequence of decisions and actions—not a long list of issues.

Use case explanations

Below are common scenarios where teams engage SHAPE for technical audits & feasibility studies—specifically for assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches before major commitments.

1) Pre-migration or replatforming decision (cloud, framework, database)

You want to migrate, but you don’t know the real blast radius. We assess existing systems, map dependencies, and validate technical approaches (rehost vs replatform vs refactor) so the migration plan is realistic—not optimistic.

Related: Cloud architecture (AWS, GCP, Azure).

2) Inheriting a system (acquisition, vendor handoff, new team ownership)

Inherited systems often have hidden coupling, missing tests, and unclear operational practices. Technical audits & feasibility studies create clarity fast: what’s risky, what’s stable, and what should be addressed first.

3) Launch readiness for enterprise customers

Enterprise onboarding raises the bar: security expectations, SLAs, and reliability evidence. We assess existing systems and validate technical approaches for hardening—so you can pass reviews and avoid incident-driven churn.

Related: Security audits & penetration testing.

4) Performance issues that only appear at scale

If your app is “fine” until traffic spikes, you need more than guesswork. We assess existing systems across app/API/DB layers and validate technical approaches for caching, indexing, queueing, and scaling.

Related: Performance & load testing.

5) You’re planning a major new feature with unknown technical risk

When a new feature touches data models, permissions, integrations, or concurrency, feasibility must be proven early. We validate options with lightweight spikes, architecture review, and dependency mapping—so the team builds the right thing the right way.

Related: API development (REST, GraphQL).

Step-by-step tutorial: run technical audits & feasibility studies

This playbook mirrors SHAPE’s approach to technical audits & feasibility studies. Use it to structure assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches into a repeatable decision process.

Step 1: Define the decision (what must be true to proceed?)

Write the decision in one sentence: migrate, modernize, build a feature, replace a vendor, or scale for load. Define pass/fail criteria and who owns the decision.

Step 2: Set scope and boundaries (systems, environments, timebox)

List in-scope repos, services, infra accounts, environments, and dependencies. Explicitly list what’s out of scope to prevent audit sprawl.

Step 3: Map the current system (architecture + data flow)

Create a system map: components, integrations, data stores, and trust boundaries. This is the baseline for assessing existing systems and validating technical approaches realistically.

Step 4: Assess risk hotspots (security, reliability, performance, maintainability)

Review the highest-impact areas first: auth/permissions, data integrity, deployment pipeline, production monitoring, and known incident history.

Step 5: Validate feasibility with evidence (spikes, tests, proofs)

For each proposed approach, run lightweight validation: prototype a migration step, benchmark a critical query, test an integration, or simulate load. Don’t rely on opinions—prove it.

Step 6: Compare options and document trade-offs

Produce 2–4 options with trade-offs: cost, timeline, risk, maintainability, and team capability. Make assumptions explicit and testable.

Step 7: Build a prioritized plan (quick wins → phases)

Turn findings into action: immediate fixes, foundational work, and phased delivery milestones. This is where technical audits & feasibility studies become an execution plan.

Step 8: Align stakeholders with a short readout

Present the system map, top risks, recommended approach, and next steps. The goal is alignment—so delivery can start without re-litigating assumptions.