Force Field Analysis and Its Impact on Project Quality Management

This report delves into the application of force field analysis (FFA) within project quality management. It begins with an introduction highlighting the necessity of maintaining quality standards in projects and the challenges project managers face in complex scenarios. The report then provides a comprehensive literature review on FFA, exploring its origins in psychology and its relevance in various fields, particularly project management. The review examines how FFA aids in identifying driving and restraining forces, enabling managers to make informed decisions regarding quality and change management. The study emphasizes the importance of equilibrium between these forces for project success. Furthermore, the report discusses a step-by-step process for implementing FFA in change management, including defining the change, brainstorming forces, evaluating and reviewing them, developing a strategy, and prioritizing actions. Finally, the report applies the FFA technique to a light rail project in Malaysia, analyzing the specific driving and restraining forces at play. The assignment follows the guidelines set for the EMQM5103 course, adhering to the word count and submission requirements specified in the assignment brief.

Running Head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Quality Management in Project Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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1. Introduction
Any project demands the maintenance of a particular quality standard that must be
fulfilled at any cost. During the planning phase of most of the projects, the project manager
develops certain guidelines regarding the project standard or quality required. Again, these
guidelines are mainly derived from the client requirements and irrespective of schedule and
budget, these standards have to be followed. In small and medium case projects, the project
managers as well as the project stakeholders have generally clear idea about the quality
requirements of the project. However, mostly in case of complex projects, in spite of setting
suitable quality standards, the project stakeholders may not have clear idea regarding the same
and also what to achieve in the project. Again, there arises a situation when, although the project
requirements and the quality standards are clear to the stakeholders, the project starts to move out
of scope and beyond control of the project manager. In this case, the project manager introduces
certain changes in order to bring back the project under control. These changes may include
termination of contract and hiring new contractor, reallocation of budget, extension of final time,
recruitment of new workers and others. While some of the changes work perfectly, others do not
and the project continues to go out of control of the project manager. This is mainly because the
project manager fails to determine whether the changes were applicable to the project or whether
the changes actually aided the restraining forces on the project. Again, this happens because
these project managers rely on their own knowledge and instincts to propose and implement the
changes to immediately address the highlighted issues. However, this does not ensure high
percentage of success and often leads the project to failure. One technique that can aid the
project managers in this case is the force field analysis technique. This technique allows the

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project manager to accurately identify the actual driving and restraining forces of the project and
take suitable actions accordingly. Additionally, the project managers can monitor the progress of
the progress and at certain intervals, they determine whether the quality is maintained or changes
are required. Based on the analysis, the project is controlled and change management is
introduced if the project manager determines that the project is not maintaining a sufficient
quality standard. The project managers can also determine the quality standard of the ongoing
project or a particular operational system by determining the driving and restraining forces that
are associated with the project and prepare suitable strategy following the priorities of the
changes of forces as determined from the force field analysis. Again, in order to determine
whether equilibrium is reached, the project manager can use statistical data regarding the driving
and restraining forces that he can easily gather from the project itself.
This report has been developed in order to conduct a detailed literature review on force
field analysis and its impact on the project and additionally apply the technique on the ongoing
light rail project in Malaysia in order to determine the driving and restraining forces that are
acting on the project.
2. Literature Review
Force field analysis is a decision making tool that is mainly utilized for taking major
decisions after considerations of both driving and restricting forces. In other words, this analysis
is utilized to determine what factors will be there to ensure success and what factors will act
against the progress of a particular action. Although this analysis tool was first utilized in the
field of psychology by Kurt Lewin, it finds use in various fields like research project,
construction project and other common activities.

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According to Emmrich et al. (2015), force field analysis is an important tool in
determining all the positive and negative forces acting on a particular system or activity. The
main focus of an observant is to ensure that the driving forces and restraining forces affect the
system in such a way that a balance or equilibrium is generated on the system.
Arnott and Pervan (2016) discussed the tool with the help of a single and simple example.
As per the authors, let a boy sits on a chair. With the help of force field analysis, it needs to be
determined what forces are there to keep the boy seated and not make him fall. As per the results
of force analysis, it can be said that there is one driving force and one restraining force acting on
him. Gravity (driving force) lets the boy sit on the chair and not drift away and the opposing
force of the chair (restraining force) lets the boy to remain in the sitting position. These two
forces are so well balanced that the boy perfectly sits on the chair without any other major
impacts of forces. It is important for the systems to maintain equilibrium and establish balance
between the driving and restraining forces. However, as per the authors, although this case is an
equilibrium, this might not be same in all systems i.e. the driving and restraining forces are not
equal in nature and thus the desired equilibrium is not achieved. Considering similar example of
sitting on a chair, let the weight of the boy be such that the pull of gravity is much higher than
the restraining force of the chair. As a result, the chair breaks and the boy falls on the ground.
Kaiser and Schulze (2018) used the same technique in systems of much larger scale, for
instance, a business. According to the authors, a business is also a system that is formed by the
equilibrium between driving and restraining forces. While business is benefitted from the greater
driving force than the restraining force, it faces obstacle when the restraining forces are high.
Some examples of driving forces in business are quality of product or service, low
manufacturing or service cost and others while some restraining forces are low market demand,

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unavailability of raw materials and others. While some of the forces are unavoidable, the effects
of some forces can be managed in order to bring the system towards equilibrium.
On the other hand, Mainzer and Luloff (2017) applied this force field analysis technique
in the field of project management for the purpose of quality and change management.
According to the works of these authors, quality management is an important aspect of any
project and the top priority of project managements should always be to ensure the desired
quality is maintained in the system. The authors also reported that there are several methods of
ensuring the quality of the project of which, the most popular and widely used is by monitoring
and controlling of the project on a regular basis. The project managers monitor the progress of
the progress and at certain intervals, they determine whether the quality is maintained or changes
are required. Accordingly, the project is controlled and change management is introduced if the
project manager determines that the project is not maintaining a sufficient quality standard. As
per the authors, this is quite a long and error-prone process that may not be always accurate and
often relies on the personal points of views of the project managers rather than a more realistic
approach. Hence, the authors suggested the use of force field analysis in order to conduct the
quality management process. According to this analysis process, the project managers can
determine the quality standard of the ongoing project or a particular operational system by
determining the driving and restraining forces. Again, in order to determine whether equilibrium
is reached, the project manager can use statistical data regarding the driving and restraining
forces. From the statistical data, if it is found that the one of the forces is higher than the other,
he will be able to take suitable actions to bring the system back to equilibrium. This is a far more
realistic approach and does not depend on the personal point of view of the project manager.

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According to the project management researcher Van der Hoorn (2016), force field
analysis can also be utilized to undertake change management process in a project once it is
evident that the project requires change to be brought back to its original path or to remain within
the overall scope. The author suggested a step by step process that will ensure force field
analysis is appropriately used for the introduction of change management in the project. The
steps are discussed as follows.
Define the Change – While bringing the change in a project, many project managers
often fail to define the exact target for which the project is to be changed. There have been many
cases where changes were introduced in the project by the project manager but he had no idea
what would be achieved after the implementation of the changes except only solving the initial
issue faced (Capatina et al., 2017). Hence, it is important to define the change and what will be
achieved through making the changes before they are actually implemented in the project.
Moreover, force field analysis also requires a clear idea of the system and the implications of the
driving and restraining forces on the system once some significant changes are introduced else
the analysis will provide inaccurate results.
Mind Map / Brainstorm – Mind map is an essential tool in project management that
helps to identify the driving and restraining forces acting on a particular project and hence, it
finds significant use in the force field analysis of a project. First, using brainstorm or mind map,
the favorable driving forces are identified. The identification of these forces is important so that
through change process, these forces are enhanced or at least kept intact. Second, again using
brainstorm or mind map, the restraining forces are to be identified (Greenwood, 2015). The focus
of the project managers will be to reduce these restraining forces to as much as possible through
the introduction of the changes. While some systems require equilibrium and balance between

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driving and restraining forces, systems like business and projects require greater driving force
and restraining force and it is the duty of the project manager to ensure the same.
Evaluation of the Forces – After determination of the driving and restraining forces, it is
important to determine the magnitude or extent of the effects of the forces on the project. This
can be done by rating the forces with some specific magnitudes and prioritizing them
accordingly.
Review of the Forces – There are some forces that are out of control and cannot be
changed (for example, market condition). While the target of the project manager is to reduce the
restraining forces to as much as possible, the out of control forces cannot be reduced and hence,
the project manager should target other restraining forces to be reduced. Hence, it is important to
review and identify the forces that can be changed using the change management process.
Strategy – The success of change management in a project often depends on the strategy
implemented by the project manager after determining the driving and restraining forces. While
some project managers prefer to enhance the driving forces, some other project managers prefer
to reduce the restraining forces first and some others prefer to do both simultaneously (Brand &
Ekkekakis, 2018). However, to suit the requirements of the project, the project manager needs to
make the most appropriate strategy for the project.
Prioritization – During change management processes, there are often a number of steps
needed to be taken to achieve the desired result. However, these steps need to be taken priority
wise in order to ensure the desired goal is achieved. Hence, after force field analysis, the project
manager needs to arrange the proposed changes according to the priorities and then implement
them accordingly.

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According to the researchers Berthaume et al. (2014), other than the project itself, force
field also significantly affects the change management itself. While in the previous section, force
field analysis is proposed to be undertaken on the project, here, the researchers focus on how the
force field affects the change management process during its proposal, management and
implementation. As an example, the researchers said that let there be a particular business that
requires some changes due to lack of progress (increase in the resistive / restraining forces).
Accordingly, the project manager, with discussion with the stakeholders of the business and
using force field analysis on the business, decides to introduce a number of changes in the
business itself. In this particular change management process, there are a number of actions or
entities as well that act as driving and restraining forces. Instant need for change, business
performance and operational requirements are driving forces in this change management while
customer feedback, market condition and employee dissent may act as restraining forces. Hence
again, force field analysis will play an important role to determine whether a particular has to be
applied in a project or the project manager should look for other alternative changes due to
extreme restraining forces in the already proposed change.
Yager and Stichler (2015) said that people often mistake driving and restraining forces as
pros and cons i.e. many of the people believe that force field analysis is simply the process to
determine the pros and cons of a particular system. However, it is a general and common mistake
and this needs to be resolved or else the project managers will be driven towards the wrong goal
and target while working on a project or on the change management of the project. This is
because these project managers believe changes are required regarding the project pros and cons
so that only the pros remain and the cons are solved or mitigated. However, it is to be noted that
every project has its own pros and cons that remain constant in spite of repeated changes for

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improvement. On the other hand, every project may not have driving force, restraining force or
both and may require additional control, management or changes to bring the same. Driving and
restraining forces are not constant and are subjected to change based on various external and
internal conditions. As a result, the project managers need to ensure they are working on actual
driving and restraining forces and not wasting time on constant pros and cons that need not be
addressed in the project.
Hence, from the entire literature review and analysis, it can be said that force field
analysis is a very useful and important tool in order to determine the equilibrium state of a
system. Although this analysis was first applied in the field of psychology, it now finds extensive
use in almost every field like business, construction, project and others. If not confused with
other aspects, force field analysis is a very simple tool and can be used to determine the driving
and restraining forces on any system and make suitable changes accordingly. While some
systems require equilibrium state i.e. equal driving and restraining force while some systems like
business require greater driving force than restraining force. Force field analysis can help to
identify these forces, analyze, review and prioritize them and then allow the actor (project
manager is case of projects) to make suitable changes to achieve the desired state of the system.
3. Force Field Analysis
The company is interested to design Klang Light Rail system within a cut of cost of almost $4
Billion in Malaysia. This light rail system will be able to link the port of Klang and Kuala
Lumpur altogether. The Government of Malaysia is expecting to obtain high commercial
revenue and competitive advantages through the appropriate application of the Force field
analysis. In order to undertake this specific project the sponsor and developing company both are

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required to take proper decisions on the project management components. Due to lack of proper
decision making most of the times the companies have to struggle. In order to resolve the
decision making level issues it is necessary for the project undertaking companies to adopt all
suitable components (Nazarko et al., 2017). It is defined that id all the possible components and
factors from the business perspectives are undertaken then the company will be successfully able
to deliver a successful Light rail project for the Malaysia country. Whenever the companies have
to make challenging decision that times that project managers requires paying effective attention
on their decision making techniques.
The Light Rail Project covers a 37 kilometers light rail transit of 3 separate lines (3LRT) that
connects the Bandar Utama in the outskirts area of Klang. The actual budget estimated for the
Light Rail project is $2.2 Billion and the cost has rise up to $7.8 Billion though the current
budget estimated for the project is around $4.1Billion. The scope of the project is reduced and
thus the budget has also been reduced from $7.0 Billion to $4.1 Billion (DePorres & Livingston,
2016). In the previous planning a 2 kilometer of Tunnel was incorporated and that was dropped
in the current project along with a 5 stations. The total numbers of stations are also reduced from
26 to 21 now. No such network level security was available in the previous project plan whereas,
according to the change project details above are the mentioned changes will be incorporated
eventually. The reasons behind the total budget cut off are the above mentioned factors.
Force Filed analysis is one of the most widely used technique of organizational decision making.
It helps to improve the quality of the organizational decision and also increases the overall
chances of success. In order to incorporate changes in the existing projects with proper
rearrangements of necessary components the project can be implemented as successfully as the
Malaysian Government is expecting.

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With the proper application of Force Field Analysis technique, the driving forces can be
identified and applied at the same time. It also defines certain restraining forces also however the
driving forces are much stronger than the restraining forces. In order to make movements
towards and changes and resists changes the application of the Force Field Analysis is necessary
in the business organizations (Tröster et al., 2018). Either by strengthening the driving forces the
change management plan incorporated in the Light Rail projects can be implemented or through
weakening the restraining forces the change management programs associated to the project can
be easily incorporated.
Identification of the way through which improvement is possible using the Force field analysis
The factors associated to the Force Field Analysis include forces for changing and forces
for resisting changes. Based on the requested changes which one from the defined forces are
needed to change include usability of proper driving forces. Certain steps are there to be
followed by the project undertaken company to make sure that the project objectives are being
met by the developers with all the necessary features. First of all, the set of changes should be
defined by the project manager considering mind map driving forces, mind map for the
restraining forces, review of the forces and development of proper strategies (Balter, 2017). The
force driven factors are needed to be prioritized and accordingly proper actions are needed to be
undertaken. At the end of the day it is necessary for the project manager to apply Force Field
Analysis tools for implementing the light Rail project in Malaysia. This tool is useful to make
decision making through analyzing the forces for and also against the changes. Behind these
decisions communicating over the reasoning are very important.

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The required changes are being identified in the above section and if those changes are
considered then only the cut of cost of the project will drastically reduce. The followings are the
changes require to be implemented by the project executives and those are as follow:
Proper description of the panning and proposal for the changes: The main aim or
goal of the project should be identified at the initiation phase of the Force Field Analysis. Both
the driving forces and the restraining will be developed based on the goal of the project,
Identification of the forces for the changes: In order to drive the project both internally
and externally the driving changes those are being identified include the followings:
 The outdated machineries and products lines should be changed
 The declining team morale must be improved
 Identification of the factors for increasing the commercial profitability
On the other hand, the external drivers for the Force Field Analysis are as follows:
 A volatile, uncertain as well s operating environment
 Disruptive technologies
 Changes in the demographic trends
The third step is the identification of forces against the changes identified for the Light
Rail project of Malaysia. The internal resistors and the restrainers include the below factors:
 Fears generated from the unknown
 Current analysis of the existing organizational structure
 Commitment to the partner business organization
 Detail government legislation