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• Lopes, M. D. S. and R. Flavell (1998). 'Project appraisal--a framework to assess non-financial aspects of projects during the project life cycle'. International Journal of Project Management 16(4): 223-233.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V9V-3SX816N-4/2/361fab194e54daa7fbeae578b0294244
The methodology of project appraisal should assess the overall viability of a project for an organization. However, in many cases it has concentrated on the assessment of the financial and technical feasibility of a project only. A major reason why non-financial and non-technical aspects are not considered more fully during project appraisal is probably the lack of an analytical framework that would highlight the importance of those aspects and would provide guidelines on how to incorporate them into the appraisal. This paper tries to construct such a framework by extending published guidance through interviews with a number of project oriented organizations in the UK as well as a detailed examination of one very large and complex project. The framework identifies and analyses the non-financial aspects of projects, how they can be assessed, their relative importance to the success of the project, and how they can be incorporated in the appraisal procedure. These non-financial aspects include, in particular, the managerial role, strategic and synergistic effects with the rest of the organization, social, political, environmental and technical links, and organizational issues.