Change Management Strategies and Project Life Cycle at Ford

This report examines change management within Ford Motor Company, focusing on the Electrical/Electronic Systems Engineering department. It provides a brief overview of the case study, highlighting the department's structure, objectives, and challenges. The report then delves into change request analysis, outlining the steps involved in determining scope, incorporating changes, gaining approval, communicating changes, and managing the process. Furthermore, the report explores the project life cycle (PLC) and how changes are analyzed and implemented at each stage, including project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and project closure. The report underscores the importance of structured processes, communication, and governance in effectively managing change and ensuring successful project outcomes, referencing PMBOK guidelines. The assignment is a comprehensive analysis of Ford's approach to project and change management. The report also highlights the challenges faced by Ford and provides insights into effective change management strategies.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
Change Management in Ford's Case Study
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
Executive Summary
The major objective of the report is to know about change management in the case study of
Ford Motors Company. Management of change is the development or change in a business
that helps in controlled recognition as well as deployment of the required changes within any
computerized system. The objectives of incorporation of change in any project or
organization is to impact on four significant factors, which include processes, systems,
organizational structure and job roles and responsibilities. Change generally results as a
specific reaction to the problems and opportunities that the company is eventually facing on
the basis of internal and external stakeholders. Various details regarding analysis of change
request and justification for changes in the case study of Ford Motors Company are provided
in the report.

2
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
2.1 Brief Description on the Case Study................................................................................3
2.2 Change Request Analysis.................................................................................................4
2.3 Change Detail in the Project Management Process and Every Stage of Project Life
Cycle (PLC)...........................................................................................................................7
2.4 Integrated Change Controls and Justification to the Required Change.........................10
3. Conclusion............................................................................................................................12
Appendix..................................................................................................................................13
References................................................................................................................................14

3
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
1. Introduction
Management of change could be referred to as a scientific approach for dealing with
an effective alteration of each and every organizational goal, process and technology (Burke,
2013). The documentation is termed as the major elements for effective change management.
It is required for audit trail maintenance and also to make sure of the compliance with their
external or internal controls. The best practice frameworks could easily provide major
guiding principles as well as help the managers in aligning the scope of every proposed
change with every accessible non digital and digital tool (Project Management Institute.
2017). The following report will be outlining a brief description on change management for
the case study of Ford Motor Company. A brief description of the case study will be provided
in the report. Moreover, change request analysis and justification for changes will also be
provided here.
2. Discussion
2.1 Brief Description on the Case Study
Ford Motor Company has total revenues of 164196 billion dollars with total
employees of 327531 employees worldwide (Project Management Institute. 2013). The
electrical and electronics system engineering department of the organization eventually
develops the electrical systems, which are valued at 800 dollars to 1000 dollars at cost to
more than 80 vehicle programs. This particular department comprises of around 740 staff and
the electrical program management team consisted of more than 25 engineering resources
each (Hayes, 2018). The electrical and electronics system engineering department is
substantially aligned with the mission of product creation and has set its priorities of
improvement in quality, development of subsequent products, accomplishing competitive

4
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
revenues and costs = (Project Management Institute. 2013). They focus on better
communication process so that the priorities are set perfectly and removal of barriers.
The respective department even emphasizes that all team members must improvise
the working procedures after simplification, stabilization, standardization, setting subsequent
cadence as well as sustaining of the processes (Cameron & Green, 2015). It even acts as one
governance to complete the working frameworks. One of the best practices in this case study
is management of resistance. A proper transfer to the leaderships as well as ownerships of
project from every professional project manager so that Ford is able to obtain positive
outcomes. Such transfer has enabled better entrenching of company’s objective to increase
maturity of project management (Doppelt, 2017). The three levels of project management
organization or methodology include level of governance of the executive directors,
stakeholders as well as professional project manager.
They have used the PM maturity model of Berkeley for quantification of management
of project needs assessment results with every discipline of project management. Structuring
and negotiating of project scope is required to be prepared on the basis of a discovery phase
approach (Kuipers et al., 2014). In spite of having distinctive management advantages, they
had been facing few of the greatest measurement challenges. The first challenge for the
respective department was to realize that the approach of project management office is
required for improvement of the process.
2.2 Change Request Analysis
Ford Motor Company requires certain changes in their existing electrical and
electronics system engineering department. A change request can be referred ti as a formal
approach for subsequent alteration to some system or product (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). In
PM, the request for change mainly occurs when the respective client is wanting any type of

5
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
alteration or addition to subsequent agreed upon deliverable for the work. This type of
changes might involve an extra feature as well as extensions or customization of services,
amongst few other aspects. Since, change request is beyond scope of the agreement and
hence it refers to the fact client has to make payment for all extra resources needed for
satisfying them. One of the major challenging aspects of this change management is to make
sure that every detail is adequately explicated and that every party is present in the agreement
according to expectation (Matos Marques Simoes & Esposito, 2014). A detailed and explicit
documentation helps in better identification of time, when change request is needed to be
provided.
The change requests mainly originate internally. The internal change requests could
easily involve a wider variety of activities after inclusion of patching or hardware and
software up gradations (Hamraz, Caldwell & Clarkson, 2013). As soon as the request for
change is successfully made, the entire procedure of the change control is required to be
undertaken for ensuring that request gets effectively satisfied and without any type of
utilization of resources. A change request is declarative in nature and it requires to be
accomplished successfully. The most important and significant elements of the change
request include deadline, customer and reason for changes in the project or organization
(Hechanova & Cementina-Olpoc, 2013). The change requests mainly originate from few
sources like problem reports identifying bugs, required to be fixed, system enhancement
request from the users, major events in system development, and change in underlying
standard or structure and demand from senior management (Donnelly & Kirk, 2015). An
important reason of change request in project management would be an unclear or ambiguous
understanding of objectives as well as goals of the respective work.
It is extremely vital to analyse the request for change, before changes are being
implemented in work. The five steps for requesting change in any project are as follows:

6
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
i) Determination of the Change Scope: The foremost step within change request is
determination of change scope. The change request is associated to the functional
requirements, businesses and stakeholders (Cook, 2015). Each and every impacted
stakeholder is involved in this step for elicitation of change requirements, analysis of the
requirements before validating them completely. The advantage of making change and
business need is needed for driving change and it helps in change approval team to determine
whether the changes are as per effort (Verhulst & Lambrechts, 2015). Before a change
request form is being submitted for approval, it is required to be understood for effective
implementation of changes. In the case study of Ford Motors Company, the change scope is
needed to be determined properly (Langley et al., 2013). They are having issues related to
auditing procedures, utilized by project management office for the purpose of measuring
project delivery and addressing the quality issues with scope change management.
ii) Determination of Scope for Change Incorporation: The second step is to
determine the scope for change incorporation (Lines et al., 2015). When proposed change has
been understood, the respective project team eventually requires formulation of a response to
that particular change. In ford Motors Co, it refers to the proper identification of change
impact on technical designs as well as project schedules by simply putting a high level
deployment plan even before determination of level of effort for making the change. The
business stakeholders are involved in this specific step for better evaluation of trade off as
well as solution approaches (Lozano, Ceulemans & Seatter, 2015). A main objective of this
step is presenting the information that the change approval team is requiring to make the
decision informed regarding changes.
iii) Gaining of Approval or Rejection of Change: The next distinctive step is to gain
approval or rejection of changes. With change scope, proper information is needed to be
implemented for changes in hand and with several levels of approvals (Free et al., 2013). The

7
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
first level is the change needed to be approved in project teams by the primary sponsor of
business. The second level is a change needing more time for getting approval by the middle
level team of management, who could easily approve the change and having negligible
effects on other project (Mader, Scott & Abdul Razak, 2013). The final level of approval is
the change requiring excess time for getting approval at executive level since it has a major
impact on high level organizational initiatives. The managers of Ford need to perform audit
processes for successful progress of a change management procedure. It is needed to manage
the updates for existing project management tools (Lozano, Nummert & Ceulemans, 2016).
Finally, the governance board will be responsible for reviewing the changes before giving
approval.
iv) Communication or Implementation of Approved Change Request: Fourth step
for Ford would be communication or implementation of the approved change (Stark, 2015).
When request for change is being accepted, the project team requires to be notified and the
deliverables are to be up graded. For the core purpose of maintaining a proper structure
regarding consistent project delivery in Ford Motors, it is highly needed to meet monthly for
change control regarding processes and tools of project management. Proper communication
is needed amongst the employees of electrical or electronics systems engineering department
(Samuel, Found & Williams, 2015). The governance board of the organization will be
communicating these details with the project team.
v) Management of Changes: For change management, it is needed to sustain
reliability in delivery of project management (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017). The tools,
procedures and methodologies are required to be standardized and actions for monthly
change control are to be undertaken for improvement of gaps and project management
outcome is being provided.

8
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
2.3 Change Detail in the Project Management Process and Every Stage of Project Life
Cycle (PLC)
PLC refers to a distinctive five step procedure, which is being monitored by each and
every project manager while moving through the subsequent phases of the execution of
project work. It eventually provides a proper framework to manage all types of projects in the
organization (Mader, Scott & Abdul Razak, 2013). The leaders of project management have
accompanied researches for determination of the best processes and running project. It is
being observed that following a PLC is extremely important for the services organization.
Due to constant inclusion of clients, there is a better requirement of professional services for
unique life cycle an ensuring project success. The changes are required to be analysed in
project life cycle (Lozano, Ceulemans & Seatter, 2015). The phases of this PLC are as
follows:
i) Project Initiation: The first and the foremost phase in the project life cycle is
project initiation. In this stage, the value as well as feasibility is being measured and the
project managers utilize two tools for evaluation and taking decision regarding project
persuasion (Lines et al., 2015). Since two important tools of feasibility study and business
case document are being involved in the step, an estimation of potential financial benefits and
determination of project execution are much easier. For the case study of Ford Motors
Company, they should implement their changes in the first stage of PLC (Donnelly & Kirk,
2015). They would be able to balance the major requirements of project with ever available
resource. The electrical or electronics system engineering department in Ford allocates
resources to the projects on the basis of project priority, available resources and scope.
ii) Project Planning: The second step is project planning, in which a proper plan is to
be made for guiding the team and keeping them on budget and time (Verhulst & Lambrechts,
2015). This type of project plan provides better guidance to obtain resources, acquire finances

9
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
and then procure required materials. Such planning provides team direction to produce
quality outputs, handling of risks, creation of acceptance, and communication of benefits to
the stakeholders before management of suppliers (Hechanova & Cementina-Olpoc, 2013). It
even prepares the teams for obstacles that are needed to be encountered and helping them in
understanding the costs, scope and time frame of the project.
iii) Project Execution: The next significant step is project execution, where the
project is being executed as per planning (See Appendix). This execution is most commonly
related with project management and the team leaders allocate resources to keep the team
members completely focused on every assigned task (Matos Marques Simoes & Esposito,
2014). In Ford Motors Company, the project execution requires to be done properly, for
ensuring that every approved change is being analysed properly. Scope changes associated to
the resources are required to be analysed properly and a governance board should review the
proposed changes before giving an approval or rejection. Ford Motor Company is building
project portfolios after prioritization of projects and reviewing of governance board. An
allocation of development funds and resources mainly are dependent on the corporate
scorecard objectives (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). For better enhancement of ongoing
management decisions with project portfolio, Ford has been utilizing engineering quality
operating system for measurement of program delivery success.
iv) Project Monitoring and Control: The fourth step in project management is project
monitoring and control. These are combined together as they require to happen at the same
time (Cameron & Green, 2015). When project teams substantially execute the project plan,
they need to continuously monitor their own progress and for guaranteeing delivery of
expected thing for prevention of scope creep and calculation of key performance indicators as
per allotted time and cost. A continuous vigilance is helpful in keeping the project moving
(Burke, 2013). In Ford Motors Company, the changes to the personnel and project are needed

10
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
to be reviewed and approved by governance for ensuring that excess cost is not incurred
under any circumstance.
v) Project Closure: The final phase is project closure. It is the most important step in
project life cycle for better evaluation and documentation of project with the help of building
stronger processes (Lozano, Ceulemans & Seatter, 2015). Project management helps in
breaking down into five distinctive cycles for better utilization of time and resources. The
flexibility in the measurement systems is important for achievement of high rate of successful
project results (Mader, Scott & Abdul Razak, 2013). The electrical or electronic systems
engineering department helps to make sure that every alteration in the project scope is perfect
and it is being reviewed by the governance board.
2.4 Integrated Change Controls and Justification to the Required Change
The integrated change controls can be referred to as a procedure to review every
change request, approval of change as well as management of change to the deliverables,
project documents and communication with disposition (Fernandez & Rainey, 2017). It
mainly reviews every request for change and modification towards project documents,
baselines and deliverables regarding approval and rejection of changes. The core aim of the
change management would be deploying several major strategies for effecting changes,
control changes as well as helping people to get adapted to these changes. The distinctive
strategies include a structured procedure to request for any changes and mechanism for
responding to these requests and hence following them. To be completely effective, the
process of change management should be taken into consideration, so that replacement or
adjustment having impact on the processes, employees and systems in the company. There
should be a distinctive procedure for planning as well as testing changes, communication
changes, implementation and scheduling changes, documenting changes and even evaluation
of the effects. The organizations that develop a change management program from ground up

11
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
to face the major challenges (Lozano, Nummert & Ceulemans, 2016). Moreover, after a
thorough understanding of the organizational culture, this entire procedure of change
management needs a correct system accounting, employees and applications to be affected by
the changes.
The three distinctive levels for management of change includes individual
management of change, initiative and organizational management of change and finally
enterprise management of changing capabilities (Samuel, Found & Williams, 2015). The first
and the foremost level for management of change is the individual management of change.
This type of level needs a proper understanding of process by which people can experience
changes and requirement of changes (Stark, 2015). It even needs knowing that what people
needs to hear when and from whom changes are required and apply actionable frameworks.
The second important and significant level is initiative and organizational management of
change (Langley et al., 2013). It provides the user with significant actions and steps for taking
part at the respective project level for supporting several people, who are eventually effected
by the project.
The organizational management of change includes very first identification of people
and groups, who require changes to result of the project and process to change (Verhulst &
Lambrechts, 2015). It involves formation of a customizable plan to ensure every impacted
employee to receive the awareness, training, coaching and leadership, which are needed to be
changed properly. Driving successful individual transitions is referred to as the centralized
focus on activities in such change management. The third effective and important level of
change management would be enterprise management capability of changes (Hechanova &
Cementina-Olpoc, 2013). It is the core competency of organization, which gives with
competitive differentiation and capability in properly adapting to the ever changing world.

12
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
The main benefit of the process in Ford Motors Company would be that it eventually
enables for the documented change in this project to consider it in the most integrated manner
during reduction of project risks and hence ensuring success as per project goals and planning
(Project Management Institute. 2017). After getting approval from the governance board, it is
required to ensure that an integrated control of change is successful for the department of
Electrical and Electronics Systems and hence developing an effective working relationship
with the entire project management office before accepting any accompanying project
management methodology and tool (Project Management Institute. 2013). It was required for
participation of stakeholder board to the subsequent acceptance of each and every member of
project along with constant and effective communication. These changes were extremely
important as they would be able to provide better effectiveness and efficiency to the project.
3. Conclusion
Therefore, conclusion could be drawn that management of change is a discipline,
which provides guidance process of preparation and support to the individual for successfully
adopting the changes for the core purpose of driving organizational results and success. When
each and every change is unique, it is evident that such management of change is providing a
structured and systematic approach for supporting the peple within the company for moving
subsequently. Every individual can embrace changes more quickly and adopt new
technologies with lesser productivity impacts. The above provided report has outlined a
detailed analyses of case scenario of Ford Motors Company for change management with
relevant details.

13
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
Appendix
Change Management Process

14
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
References
Burke, R. (2013). Project Management Techniques (2nd ed.). US: Burke Publishing.
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.
Cook, N. D. (2015). Crisis management strategy: Competition and change in modern
enterprises. Routledge.
Donnelly, P., & Kirk, P. (2015). Use the PDSA model for effective change
management. Education for Primary Care, 26(4), 279-281.
Doppelt, B. (2017). Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Fernandez, S., & Rainey, H. G. (2017). Managing successful organizational change in the
public sector. In Debating Public Administration (pp. 7-26). Routledge.
Free, C., Phillips, G., Galli, L., Watson, L., Felix, L., Edwards, P., ... & Haines, A. (2013).
The effectiveness of mobile-health technology-based health behaviour change or
disease management interventions for health care consumers: a systematic
review. PLoS medicine, 10(1), e1001362.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hamraz, B., Caldwell, N. H., & Clarkson, P. J. (2013). A holistic categorization framework
for literature on engineering change management. Systems Engineering, 16(4), 473-
505.
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.

15
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
Hechanova, R. M., & Cementina-Olpoc, R. (2013). Transformational leadership, change
management, and commitment to change: A comparison of academic and business
organizations. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 22(1), 11-19.
Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., & Van der Voet, J. (2014).
The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public
administration, 92(1), 1-20.
Langley, A. N. N., Smallman, C., Tsoukas, H., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2013). Process studies
of change in organization and management: Unveiling temporality, activity, and
flow. Academy of management journal, 56(1), 1-13.
Lines, B. C., Sullivan, K. T., Smithwick, J. B., & Mischung, J. (2015). Overcoming
resistance to change in engineering and construction: Change management factors for
owner organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(5), 1170-
1179.
Lozano, R., Ceulemans, K., & Seatter, C. S. (2015). Teaching organisational change
management for sustainability: designing and delivering a course at the University of
Leeds to better prepare future sustainability change agents. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 106, 205-215.
Lozano, R., Nummert, B., & Ceulemans, K. (2016). Elucidating the relationship between
sustainability reporting and organisational change management for
sustainability. Journal of cleaner production, 125, 168-188.
Mader, C., Scott, G., & Abdul Razak, D. (2013). Effective change management, governance
and policy for sustainability transformation in higher education. Sustainability
Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 4(3), 264-284.

16
CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN FORD’S CASE STUDY
Matos Marques Simoes, P., & Esposito, M. (2014). Improving change management: How
communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management
Development, 33(4), 324-341.
Newtown Square, PA: PMI. Project Management Institute. (2013). Managing change in
organizations: A practical guide. Newtown Square, PM: PMI
Project Management Institute. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge
(PMBOK Guide) (5th ed).
Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the project management body of knowledge
(PMBOK Guide) (6th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: PMI.
Samuel, D., Found, P., & Williams, S. J. (2015). How did the publication of the book The
Machine That Changed The World change management thinking? Exploring 25 years
of lean literature. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, 35(10), 1386-1407.
Stark, J. (2015). Product lifecycle management. In Product lifecycle management (Volume
1) (pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.
Verhulst, E., & Lambrechts, W. (2015). Fostering the incorporation of sustainable
development in higher education. Lessons learned from a change management
perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 189-204.