DFV — Desirability, Feasibility, Viability — is the default Holistic Evaluation structure used within BRI Associates' Innovation Methodology and Growth Forge® Software's evaluation tools. It gives an innovation team a fast, comparable read on a strategy hypothesis across three questions: what customers actually want (Desirability), what the organization can credibly build and operate (Feasibility), and what makes economic sense at portfolio scale (Viability). As a stage-gate evaluation lens it produces a structured judgment without forcing a full multi-dimensional scoring exercise on every early-stage project.
The DFV lens is widely used in human-centered design; the framing was popularized by IDEO. BRI's refinement is the explicit separation of Feasibility from the financial dimension. In BRI's articulation, Feasibility covers technical, operational, and capability questions — can the organization actually do this, given what it has and how it works? The financial and economic questions live in Viability — does this sustain margins and earn its place in the portfolio? Treating Feasibility as a financial test, as some adaptations do, conflates two questions that need separate answers if a Continue / Pivot / Pause / Stop decision is going to rest on the right evidence.
DFV is the outcome-shaped simplification of BRI's six-dimensional Strategy Framework, and the two map cleanly: Desirability concentrates on Target Markets & Unmet Need and Competitive Differentiation; Feasibility on Whole Solution and Implementation Approach; Viability on Financial Logic and Staging. Most engagements use DFV as the default lens and shift to the six dimensions when an early hypothesis needs finer resolution to support a gate decision. Each dimension is informed by dozens of evaluation criteria — derived from BRI Associates' decades of practitioner experience, customized and prioritized per client, with the relevant quantity growing across stages, with higher model fidelity, and with higher investment levels.
Inside Growth Forge® Software, DFV is the default scoring structure in the evaluation tools — delivered not as a static rubric but as an interactive, guided tool with structured, inline guidance and built-in AI assistance that walks a practitioner through scoring a hypothesis and turning the result into a defensible gate decision. For the operational depth — how DFV runs inside the inner loop and across stage-gate progression — see the Innovation Methodology pillar at /supporting/methodology.
The three-lens balance of desirability, feasibility, and viability is the organizing idea of human-centered design, popularized by IDEO and its leadership through the design-thinking movement. BRI's contribution is not the three lenses themselves but their use as a stage-gate evaluation structure tied directly to a six-dimensional strategy schema, plus the deliberate "Feasibility not financial" separation that keeps capability risk and economic risk from being scored as one.
