I sort of stumbled into a process like this. I built a game as a hobby project with the intent to hand it off to a community that I thought totally wanted it. Interest in the project was minor. So for the next project I tried to actually engage the community as much as possible to see if anyone actually wanted to try it. Turns out the answer was still no, but at least I got a chance to prove my thesis that the project was doomed and I couldn't blame the lack of engagement.