Project Management Analysis: Ford Motor Co. Electrical Systems

This report provides a detailed analysis of integrated project management at Ford Motor Co., focusing on the Electrical/Electronic Systems Engineering department. It examines the company's project management processes, including change request analysis and the formulation of project life cycles. The report highlights the importance of change management, the steps involved in the project life cycle, and the implementation of integrated change controls. Furthermore, it explores justifications for the required changes, emphasizing the significance of communication, vision, and empowering personnel. The study uses the 8-Step Model by Kotter to provide a framework for understanding the change management process. The report concludes with a discussion on anchoring new approaches within the corporate culture and consolidating achievements to ensure long-term success.

Running head: ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
Electronic Systems Engineering
(Ford Motor Co. Electrical)
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note

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Executive summary
In this report, the integrated project management taking place at Ford Motor is considered. The
recommended changes for planning project management is also discussed here. It includes the
formulation of various life cycles and the process of project management. Here, the learning
outcomes are elaborated and included. In the analysis of the change request, the detailed analysis of
the process of project management is evaluated. This is done for every stage of the life cycle of the
project. Lastly, various integrated change controls and justifications are provided that has been
demonstrated in the study.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction:......................................................................................................................................3
2. Change request analysis:....................................................................................................................3
3. Details of changes in the process of project management and every phase of the project life cycle:5
4. Integrated change control:.................................................................................................................9
5. Justifications to the required changes that occur:............................................................................14
6. Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................16
7. References:......................................................................................................................................17

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1. Introduction:
The Ford Motor is the fifth largest automaker and ranks second in the U.S. market. Its
company has been making revenue of about 160,000 billion with approximately 300,000 staffs
throughout the world. Its department of electronic and electrical system engineering has developed
the electrical systems that have value to more than 70 vehicle programs.
The following study deals with the integrated project management at Ford, after the suggested
changes to the plan of project management is provided. This also involves the formulation of the life
cycles and project management processes that should incorporate and elaborate on the discussion
results. For this, the change request analysis, the details of changes in project management processes
and every stage of the project life cycle are analyzed. Further, integrated change control and
justifications for the needed changes occurring has been demonstrated in the study.
2. Change request analysis:
While working with the project, the change is definitely expected. However, the change has a
notable effect on the project. The request to change has been approved properly, communicated and
incorporated. It has been causing notable issues and comprises of adverse effects. It has often been
spiralling out around the Ford. Here, the change request analysis of the study is listed.
The first stage includes the determination of the scope to change. This involves the finding of
new requirements for the project at the initial place. Here, Ford has also affected every stakeholder to
elicit the changes in the requirements, analyzing various requirements and then it must be validated
(Hornstein, 2015)). Then, the scope to include the changes are to be determined. As the changes
needed are understood, the project team must be formulating the response to the suggested changes. It

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indicates that the effect on the change on the project schedule and technical design has been put into
the greater level of a plan of implementation. Then approval must be gained with rejecting the
changes. Mature companies like Ford has comprised of particular criteria to place the outlines of what
the stakeholder groups can approve the change types. Then the changes are to be implemented and
communicated to the change request approved (Too, Le & Yap, 2017). As the up gradations are
facilitated by the formal change of the notification process, the business analyst and project manage
notifies the team of the project of the change. Here, every document owner has been including the
proper adjustments to the project deliverables.
Figure 1: “Purpose of change management”
(Source: Martinsuo & Hoverfält, 2018, pp. 134-146)

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3. Details of changes in the process of project management and every phase of the
project life cycle:
The steps are analyzed hereafter.
Step 1: Deploying the concept of urgency
This has been vital to implement the idea of urgency and requirements of the project at Ford
from the starting. As a number of staff members have been under the company and the project team
has been catching on there have been greater motivation to be set to get the project moving. Since the
project manager has been demonstrating the convincingly and honestly. The project has been required
for getting accomplished. It has been useful to outline the chances of the project even at the scenarios
of worst cases (Heckmann, Steger & Dowling, 2016). This has been happening as the project has not
been occurring smoothly. Thus for Ford, as more people have been talking about the project, there is
more idea of urgency that can be developed for the company.
Step 2: Forming the powerful coalition
As the individuals at Ford are convinced, there is the necessity of the project such that the task
continues to proceed. Project manager at Ford has required to keep up the urgency sense constantly
through winning on the primary persons under the project enterprise (Bresnen, 2016). Here, the
people have not been necessarily owning the influence on the staff members to the place at the
company’s organizational chart. It is seen that frequently that various other criteria has been decisive
like the years, status and specialized knowledge and so on.

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However, it must be kept in mind that every level of ford can be affected by the project. This
must involve the primary personalities. In this way, the later must have enough expertise, powers and
qualities of leadership.
Here, for a change request, the project manager must place the coalition of primary personalities
alive. This must be done through meetings. In this sense, the necessity of the urgency of the project
has been persisting under the company.
Step 3: Developing the strategy and vision of the change:
After the tasks have been for the managers is to generate the easy-to-understand and simply
remembered the vision of solutions and ideas across the project. Here, the concrete strategy on the
basis to assist the gaining of the goal of the project is to be developed (O'Donovan, 2017). The better
the project manager of Ford understand where they are going towards, the more it is easy to focus on
placing the vision to practice.
For example for Kotter, the vision consists of six characteristics. The first one is conceivable and the
vision should be providing a credible and clear idea for the future. Then, the vision has been
worthwhile for appealing the long-term interests of the stakeholders for the company. Then for
managing the changes, the vision must be feasible to be achievable and realistic. Next, the project
managers must be focused and the vision should be formulated clearly for serving the aid of decision
(Shirazi, Kazemipoor & Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, 2017). While necessary the project managers must
be flexible. Here, the vision has been reacting to changing situations. Lastly, the situation has been
communicable and the focus is easy to make communication and quick to explain.
Step 4: Communicate the vision of change

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Then the vision towards the change is to be communicated. It is must be assured that the
vision has been permanently fixed at the minds and hearts of the employees. In order to gain that, one
can bring that repeatedly at presentations, emails and meetings. In this way, one must convey the
central message, particularly in a tailored and broad manner.
The project manager of Ford can bring changes by communicating the vision beyond the project at
the company. Thus, one can manage the commitment and acceptance of the members of the staffs on
the complete project life cycle (Walker & Garrett, 2016).
Step 5: Empowering people involved and eradicate the barriers:
Here, the vision can be easily communicated in a smart manner and most of the people have
been ready to get over the board with those changes. Hence, the previously remaining barriers are to
be removed and identified. This involves the systems and structures of Ford. In this way, they have
adapted the necessities of the project. In this way, change management has been accompanying the
introducing of project portfolio management. In this way, the staffs are able to act in the sectors and
consider the liabilities for the changes announced that is entailed by the project. It must be providing
the employees with the scope to seek the innovative resolutions for ultimately gaining the intended
results of the project. At this phase, it is vital to generate the culture that rewards or promotes the
knowledge exchange under the company. As the project manager one can play a vital part in working
under that.
Step 6: Creating quick wins:
Nothing is motivating like success. This is the cause one must gain partial success over the
project. It is helpful to consider the energy and momentum that is collected for the further course of
the project. Gaining positive results in the short term, it has been vital for the change initiates for the

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long terms. It is the only manner to put the critics to focus and even swayed away ideally (Carpenter
& Agrawal, 2018). Here, one requires to determine the attainable aims under the short term of the
project planning and place then as the project schedule. In this way, one can prove that the project and
the related changes have been paying off the staffs and enterprise.
Step 7: Consolidating the achievements and introduce future changes:
Kotter has stated that this has been fatal to take rest over the laurels. The actual changes need
time and are intended to run deep. Thus the partial success is gained in the project offering the
probability to be created on. It is on the change manager and the project manager to sustain the idea
of urgency and the requirements in the team under the company. One must try to seek extra backers
for the changes and project involved. This is of vital significance for making the corporation of
corporate culture consistency with various patterns of behaviours and practices that originate from the
change.
Step 8: Anchoring new approaches under the corporate culture:
Thus through the project conclusion, it has been important in anchoring the changes that are
gained constantly under the corporate culture. It is currently the time to prove the latest manners that
is better than the old. However, there is the risk that the project can be criticized and it has been
resulting to resurfaces. Thus, one can communicate and make the publishing of the changes and
success that are gained actively over the complete enterprise. Apart from that, the primary people and
senior staffs that has been continuing for supporting the changes. Thus, they have newly the recruited
staffs required that is to be aligned in a smart manner.

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Figure 2: “The project and change management working parallel”
(Source: McLaren, Enemark & Lemmen, 2016)
4. Integrated change control:
The primary focus on integrated change control has been to calculate the effects of the
changes in the limitations of the project. Here, the changes to any section of the project are requested
as the course of the project goes on. This is particularly as the project monitoring and executing and
the phase of control occurs (Lines, Sullivan & Wiezel, 2015). However, it is not needed to perform
every change. For performing the integrated change controls, the changes accepted and rejected has
been lying on the basis of the effect and evaluation. As any change request takes place, it is advisable
for identifying the effect of the suggested changes over the project scope, resources risks, quality and
costs. This also involves customer satisfaction.

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Figure 3: “The 8-Step Model by Kotter”
(Source: Lines et al. 2015, pp. 1170-1179)
Here, two pre-requisites are there for measuring the effect of the change. This includes the
realistic plan of project management to get used as the baseline. Further, the overall process and
scope as applicable are to be considered. As the changes are inevitable, the managers of the project
must be working to prevent the exact reasons for the changes in the places wherever it is probable
(Hayes, 2018). At most cases, this indicates the unsuitable plan for the results of the project under the
change requests. However, the changes have been happening, they never get encouraged and maintain
of probable changes should be controlled, managed and planned. In order to control the changes for
the project, the manager of Ford must integrate the following controls.
 Determine the necessities at early as possible.
 A comprehensive determination of the risks that are related to the project.

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 Establishing the cost and time factors.
 Establishing the process of change management
 Following the process of change management
 Need the needed templates at the proper place for creating the requests of changes.
 Determine the clear responsibilities and role among different stakeholders for the approved
changes.
 As the amount of the changes turn to be disproportionate, the business case can be re-
evaluated.
 Further, they must consider the project termination as the amount of the changes is
disproportionate.
 Assure that the approved changes are included in the different baselines.
 Moreover, the changes consist of a couple of categories. The first one affects the plan of
project management, procedures, policies and baselines, contract, charter and working
statement.
Figure 4: “Change as a constant process”

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(Source: Shafiq et al., 2018, pp. 25747-25763)
Understanding the Change Dynamics:
Change control board:
This the basis of the level of authority of Ford’s project manager. Here, he is needed to
facilitate various decisions regarding changes instead of making any decision. Thus the necessity of a
change control board is present. Moreover, the reviewing and assessment must be done by the board.
Here, the board can approve or cancel the request to change (Pádár, Pataki & Sebestyén, 2017))
Further, the board also involves various stakeholders that involve the project managers, functional
managers, sponsors, experts and customers.
Figure 5: “Change management, training and communication”

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(Source: Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016, pp. 33-60)
The process for making the changes:
It is highly vital to secure the basic reason making the changes to take place. The management
of changes is a secondary matter here. The first thing for Ford’s project manager is to eradicate the
necessities of changes. Next, the following step is to determine the changes. Here, the originator of
the change is the project manager, stakeholders, customers and management, teams. Here, the project
managers are able to determine the changes in the sources proactively. As one is able to determine the
earlier changes, it can reduce the effect of changes (Cova, Skålén & Pace, 2019). Next, the effects of
the change are the following step. The last step is creating a request to change. This process of
undertaking the change must be followed by the plan of change management.
At last, lies the integration of change control. Here, the integration of change controls must
find the responses to some primary queries. For reacting to that, the initial thing can be done by
analysing the changes. Further, the options are to be looked at. The third part is to perform whether
the change can be rejected or approved. Further, the last point must be documenting the changes
under the system of change control (Han, Lee & Nyamsuren, 2015).
Figure 6: “Change management framework”

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(Source: Pollack, 2016, pp. 1245-1249)
Close Project and Phase:
The closing of project finalizes every activity around the process groups. This is to formally
close-out the project phase. Apart from this, the project manager must gain formal acceptance of the
project. It can be issued through the ultimate report showing that the project has been successful. The
ultimate lessons learnt must be issued and ultimately achieve and index all the records of the project.
Here, some steps must be done by project managers as they turn to conform to close the project.
 Archiving and indexing the documents.
 Finalizing the ultimate reporting of performances.
 Soliciting the feedback the clients regarding the projects.
 Finishing the product hand-offs.
 Finishing the ultimate closures.
 Receiving the ultimate acceptance of various products
 Finishing the formalities of the closure
 Confirmation that the task is finished according to the baseline.
5. Justifications to the required changes that occur:
The above change control is useful to gain the ultimate requirements very quickly. It is an
important element of the process of integrated change control. This is regarding the success of the
project. Further, since the necessities are the foundations of the scope of the project. As the project
scope is found out, the process of project planning begins. Thus, the improper and incomplete
gathering of requirement causes the unfinished and weak planning. Here, the outcomes include
various requests for changes as the project execution occurs. Since the risks are the main reasons for

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the different variances in the project. All the risks must be determined as the response strategy and
planning process for every risk is to be denoted. Moreover, they should be coming up with the cost
and time reserves. As any risk takes place, there are extra reasons regarding the delays and costs of
the projects. Further, the project manager should be comprised of the process in place for controlling
changes. Here, the changes are inevitable for the project and the process in which the submit gets
changed the ways to assess, approve and implement the changes to get documented in the processes.
Here, the stakeholders should be asking for the requests about the changes for particular
projects of the company. Here, the changes must be included to develop the project at any time as the
design phase for the ultimate completion. The change requests must be coordinated and are important
for the project manager to find the changes as needed. The integrated change control is helpful for
project management in evaluating all the change requests related to the project. Further, the objectives
of the integrated change include the controlling of preventive and corrective changes in securing extra
problems. This assures that the requests get fitted under the plan of project management and the
requests are integrated into the activity.
The required changes are thus helpful for the undertaking corrective actions. The project
management utilizes the integrated change controls for determining whether corrective measures
must be occurring as any issue occur. This process takes place as the corrective actions can fix the
issues as more issue is occurring and whether the suitable activities has been impacting the project. It
can be done through the probabilities prior to engaging the changes, assimilate the change controls.
Thus Ford can totally know the kind of change and anticipate the reverse impacts.
Moreover, the needed changes are helpful to undertake preventive actions. This analyzes as
the changes take place in the project, it has been unforeseen. The project manager can seek whether
specific preventive actions are needed to alleviate and avoid probable risks.

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6. Conclusion:
The above study is helpful to understand why a persuasive cause regarding why the changes
can occur at Ford. This is also helpful to understand what adverse effects can also occur. Tis the
report develops are motivating cause regarding why the change should be occurring. It also highlights
why benefits have been occurring for individuals. They are affected by the change necessary for
understanding how this has been beneficial for them. This must be known by the people and hence
managing expectations and communications are the primary keys. Moreover, the discussion is useful
to understand how the standards can be re-established. As the employee feel that they are under
constant flu and never know what must be done this can generate uncertainty. The implementation of
changes under a phased approach for Ford is analyzed here. This must be done with constant
reinforcement of the expectations helping people to understand what is intended. The change can take
place as there is an effective change quality process and there is a well-implemented protocol of what
is intended.

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7. References:
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Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the
models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Carpenter, D. A., & Agrawal, V. K. (2018). Infusing information technology into the core business
curriculum: a change management project. The Journal of Business Inquiry, 7(1), 3-20.
Cova, B., Skålén, P., & Pace, S. (2019). Interpersonal practice in project marketing: how institutional
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Klein, L. (2016). Towards a practice of systemic change—Acknowledging social complexity in
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