As a project manager or a business leader, you’re expected to be quick and critical. But when the organization is undergoing massive change, you have various opinions pushing and pulling you in a million directions.
It’s truly maddening, and no matter how hard you try, the list of priorities is endless. Fortunately, there’s a workaround for this.
You can employ the force field analysis technique—a powerful framework for visualizing the driving and restraining forces that influence organizational and business goals.
In this article, we’ll examine the history, benefits, and drawbacks of force field analysis using practical examples from various industries. More importantly, we’ll learn how to control and manage forces influencing smart and strategic decision-making. Ready? Let’s go.
How to Use Force Field Analysis (with Examples)
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is Force Field Analysis?
Force field analysis is a technique for identifying and analyzing the driving and restraining forces that influence a change initiative.
Developed in the 1940s, force field analysis is the brainchild of Kurt Lewin, a German-American pioneer in social, organizational, and applied psychology.
In the modern age, the framework is used to help project managers, business leaders, and decision-makers understand what’s pushing the change they want and what’s holding it back. The insights from this technique aid decision-making and reduce resistance to the strategic changes the management wants to introduce.
Did You Know? The technique is a part of Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory, which suggests that people are the sum of all of their influences. Behavior involves the complex effects of many influences and our interactions within our environments.
Difference between force field analysis and SWOT
Force field analysis (FFA) and SWOT analysis in project management are equally powerful frameworks in decision-making and strategic planning. That said, each has its unique uses and quirks.
FFA is designed for business professionals to help identify the forces that drive or impede change.
SWOT analysis, on the other hand, can help you make high-level assessments of internal strengths (S), weaknesses (W), external opportunities (O), and threats (T) to an organization or a market opportunity.
Here’s a quick comparison of the two:
| Aspect | Force field analysis (FFA) | SWOT analysis |
| Purpose | Identifies forces for and against a specific change | Identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in an organization |
| Focus | Targets change management, focusing on particular forces | Offers a broader view of internal and external factors |
| Output | Provides actionable steps to increase driving forces and reduce restraining forces | Primarily offers insights without direct action plans |
| Application | Best for managing transitions or organizational changes | Used for general strategic planning and risk assessment |
| Analysis type | Force-based analysis: Weighs the strength and impact of forces pushing for and against change | Comparative analysis: Compares internal capabilities with external factors |
| Decision-making focus | Helps decision-makers strategize to create a proposed change by altering the balance of forces | Helps identify the current strategic position and explore future opportunities |
| Process complexity | Focused on the intensity of specific forces, more detailed for change initiatives | Is simpler, more overview-focused, and valuable for broad evaluations |
Although FFA and SWOT are for making decisions, they have different focuses. FFA looks at specific changes, while SWOT evaluates an organization’s overall situation in its environment.
Conceptualization of force field analysis by Kurt Lewin
Lewin’s force field analysis identifies and evaluates the forces that drive and limit proposed change. It’s still widely used to guide successful transitions in organizations.
Kurt Lewin, born in 1890 into a Polish Jewish family, was a visionary psychologist whose work reshaped how businesses approach change management. Lewin, often called the father of social psychology, pioneered influential research on group dynamics, leadership, and change management.
His force field analysis concept relies on the following:
- Driving forces: Factors that drive change include market demand, technological advancements, and leadership support
- Restraining forces: Factors that make change difficult include employee resistance, scarce resources, and the organizational culture
Let’s understand the concept with a simple example.
Suppose you’re planning a dinner with your friends. You want to go to a lively bistro, but one of your friends prefers a quiet café. In this scenario, your desire for a lively night out is your driving force, while your friend’s preference is the restraining force.
To reach a decision, you could increase your driving force by persuading your friend to give the restaurant a try. Or, you could decrease the restraining force by finding a restaurant with a quieter section where your friends can enjoy themselves, too.
Lewin’s Field Theory states that human behavior is shaped by multiple forces competing at any given time in a specific environment. When people want to maintain the status quo, these forces either drive change or resist it to balance the opposing forces.
The key to making the change is shifting this balance by strengthening (increasing) the driving forces and weakening (decreasing) the resisting forces.
With enough practice, project managers can use FFA to map out both forces and take strategic actions to ensure smooth transitions for the team or organization.
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe Process of Conducting a Force Field Analysis
Analyzing a force field requires specific steps to recognize and assess the factors that support and impede a specific change or project. Here’s a detailed guide on how to conduct a force field analysis.
Step 1: Define the problem (change) statement
- First, define the change you plan to implement or create a problem statement that clearly outlines the issues you’re trying to solve for your organization
- Gather your team for a brainstorming session to pinpoint the precise challenge you’re aiming to address and distill it into a clear problem statement or change statement. For example, if you want to replace your current project management software, start by creating a clear problem statement
- Outline the expected benefits you hope to achieve (e.g., increased efficiency, better collaboration) and the challenges you might encounter (e.g., learning curve, cost)
- After brainstorming, the problem statement may look something like this: “The current project management tool is not cost-effective, hindering efficient project tracking across the organization. A project management tool, priced below $5 per user, is needed to enhance efficiency and facilitate project tracking across the organization.”
To define your change (problem) statement, you can start with ClickUp Docs. It can help you with:
- Collaborative brainstorming: The real-time editing feature enables team collaboration in one document, ensuring everyone is on the same page from the start, making it easier to clearly define the problem
- Structured documentation: Create organized documents outlining the expected benefits of the change. With nested pages and templates, you can format the documents, making sure information is accessible and structured
- Task creation and assignment: Convert comments into actionable tasks and assign them to individuals within the document for accountability and clarity on the next steps
- Privacy controls: Manage who can see or edit your documents, especially when dealing with sensitive info. Plus, keep everyone updated by tagging them in the comments
Engagement, collaboration, organization, and awareness—this integrated approach via ClickUp Docs simplifies change management for your organization.
Step 2: List the driving and restraining forces
After identifying the changes, label the forces that drive or resist the change. These include:
- The benefits of driving forces, such as improved productivity, simplified workflows, or cost savings
- The challenges or restraining forces, such as employee resistance, the learning curve, or potential costs
To effectively analyze the driving and restraining forces in your change management process, leverage ClickUp Table View.
Here’s how ClickUp Table View features can enhance your force field analysis:
- Visualize influencing decisions and assess their impact on proposed changes
- Get sharable links for projects, or export the data as easily accessible spreadsheets
- Quickly adjust categories or update statuses as new information arises
- Draw task relationships, linking driving forces with restraining factors
Step 3: Assign scores and weights to each force
The next step in process mapping for FFA is to quantify each force’s impact by assigning scores. Without these scores, it’s easy to overestimate or underestimate the influence of specific forces.
For example, you might score ‘increased productivity’ as a driving force an 8, while ‘steep learning curve,’ a resisting force, could receive a 6.
The problem: someone else, or yourself, might second-guess the scores.
ClickUp Custom Fields can help you assign and share numerical values and weights with others. It’s a great way to get stakeholders involved and know if they agree with your views.
Here’s how Custom Fields enhances analysis:
- Tailor your scoring: Create custom fields for each force, ensuring that you capture the specific metrics relevant to your project. Whether it’s a simple number field for scores or a dropdown for categorizing forces, you can choose the type
- Objective insights: Share these custom fields across your organization so you know that every team member can see and understand the factors that matter most. This objectivity promotes alignment and clarity
- Advanced calculations: Formula fields automatically calculate totals or averages from your scores. This means no more manual math errors—just accurate insights every time
- Custom reporting: Gain insights by grouping results from custom fields in reports. You can filter and sort data to visualize how different forces are impacting your project
In short, the process is purely objective; every team member can identify the factors that are crucial priorities for your project.
Step 4: Analyze the results
Now, total and compare the scores for driving and restraining forces.
If the total of the driving forces significantly outweighs the restraining forces, it suggests that implementing the change is feasible. Otherwise, you may need to investigate the opposing forces further to develop more viable options to reduce the resistance.
Keep in mind that you can change the rating for each force.
For instance, if you feel that the ‘learning curve,’ an opposing force initially, isn’t a hurdle—lower its rating. Similarly, you can rate the ease of use as a higher driving force if it’s a key motivator for your organization.
Mind Maps
To visually analyze the results of your research, consider ClickUp Mind Maps. Besides improving your process through force field analysis, ClickUp Mind Maps can:
- Visualize relationships: Represent driving and restraining forces. Seeing these connections can clarify how they interact and impact your project
- Simplify complexity: Break down complex ideas into manageable parts. By mapping out each force, you can identify which factors need more attention or adjustment
- Dynamic adjustments: Easily reorganize your Mind Map as you refine your scores. With a simple click, you can move nodes around to reflect new insights or changes in perspective
- Turn ideas into actions: Convert your mapped ideas directly into actionable tasks within ClickUp. This ensures that every insight has a pathway to implementation
As for balancing the forces, we recommend the ClickUp Force Field Diagram Template. It’s one of many change management templates used by project management professionals and business leaders for error-free decision-making.
ClickUp Force Field Diagram Template
The ClickUp Force Field Diagram Template is a comprehensive root cause analysis tool.
It visualizes and evaluates the forces that drive or resist the changes you want to make across your organization. With this force field analysis template, you can:
- Simplify the change management process
- Analyze how driving and restraining forces interact with change
- Track driving and restraining forces’ impact and prioritize actions based on real data collected using ClickUp Custom Fields
What’s more, this template integrates:
- ClickUp Docs for collaboration and to capture your entire team’s inputs
- ClickUp Dependencies to plan your next steps and structure tasks
- ClickUp Goals to track progress, keep the team aligned, and account for changes
Step 5: Action plan
Based on your analysis, involve stakeholders in devising an action plan on how to implement changes with minimal resistance. This is where clarity becomes your ally.
Assign tasks to your team, envision transitional challenges, and think of ways to address the challenges in the plan.
This could involve:
- Strengthening driving forces: For instance, offering more or improving the delivery of employee training
- Restraining resistive forces: Addressing potential budget concerns by cutting miscellaneous expenses
However, handling change management can be difficult and confusing. ClickUp Dependencies can help here by linking related tasks and structuring your action plan.
ClickUp Dependencies
Here’s what it can do:
- Link-related tasks: Create relationships between tasks to organize workflows. For example, if you’re launching a new training initiative, connect it directly to the tasks involved in its execution
- Establish operational orders: Use “blocking” or “waiting on” dependencies to establish a clear sequence of actions. This way, your team won’t waste time figuring out what comes next; they’ll know exactly what to tackle first
- Visualize connections: Jump between related tasks and documents effortlessly. Need to access training materials while working on a related task? It’s just a click away
- Automate task management: Keep your projects moving by automating notifications when tasks are interdependent. This ensures that no one is in the dark about their responsibilities
With clear steps defined, your team only needs to follow them to mitigate challenges. In doing so, restraining forces are curbed while forces that drive change are given a much-needed push.
Take productivity, which is considered a driving force, for instance. Within ClickUp, you can create a task dependency on your internal L&D team to track and improve employee training initiatives. In essence, with ClickUp Dependencies, you’re not just managing change; you’re orchestrating it with finesse.
Step 6: Monitor the change initiative
Post successful implementation, track the progress of your change initiative by measuring the performance of goals and objectives.
ClickUp Goals lets you:
- Set measurable objectives for each phase of your plan
- Monitor the success of implemented changes
- Measure team-goal alignment
What’s more, with ClickUp Goals, you can:
- Monitor success of implemented changes: Track progress via target types—numerical, monetary, true/false, and task-based. This versatility allows you to adapt your tracking methods based on the specific goals of your change initiative
- Align team efforts with objectives: By linking tasks to goals, ClickUp automatically tracks real-time progress as team members complete their tasks, promoting accountability and keeping everyone focused on achieving the desired outcomes
To demonstrate the power of FFA, let’s explore top examples from several organizational scenarios.
Summarize this article for me pleasePractical force Field analysis examples
The force field analysis is most effective when you can clearly define the forces, measure them, and tie them to your objectives. Here are some practical scenarios on how to successfully implement FFA.
I. Force field analysis for implementing remote work
Let’s say your organization is considering adopting a full or partial remote work model.
The first step in bringing about this change is to discuss it with the stakeholders and clearly define the problem based on their decision-making style.
⚡ Identifying the driving and restraining forces:
What follows is identifying the driving and restraining forces. And don’t forget: you need to measure the forces and rate them based on their importance and impact.
- Driving forces: Increased employee satisfaction due to flexibility, reduced overhead costs, higher productivity from reduced commute times, and access to global talent
- Restraining forces: Team collaboration difficulties, cybersecurity risks, employee isolation (burnout), and consistent productivity monitoring challenges
🎯 Critical focus areas:
- Even though remote work can satisfy some, it can be a key reason for burnout for others, so try to maintain a work-life balance
- Uncover and address potential security and collaboration issues, and invest in digital tools to mitigate the risk and minimize resistance
- Like your goals, each force should be quantifiable so that you can objectively decide if the benefits outweigh the risks
Key Takeaway: By assigning scores to each of the forces and analyzing their weights, you can determine if remote work is the right decision. If it is, additional collaboration tools or security measures may be needed.
II. Force field analysis in educational technology implementation
The decision relates to investing in new learning technology, such as a Learning Management System (LMS).
⚡Identifying the driving and restraining forces:
The analysis should help you identify the driving forces, such as improved learning outcomes. And the restraining forces, like the high cost of implementation and resistance from trainers.
- Driving forces: Increased employee engagement, tailored learning experiences, increased administrative efficiency, and global access to resources
- Restraining forces: Resistance from trainers who are comfortable with existing technology, high costs for hardware and software, potential technical glitches, and employee distraction
🎯 Critical focus areas:
- To reduce resistance, ensure in-house trainers are trained and receive adequate support. Work with them to craft quality training programs that help you turn them into a force of change rather than resistance
- Build a case on the long-term benefits, such as improved learning outcomes, rather than getting bogged down by short-term costs and challenges
- Collaborate with trainers on pilot implementations. They can help you assess the technological impact first before the final commitment
Key Takeaway: Evaluate the long-term benefits of personalized learning against short-term resistance. A head-to-head comparison will help you decide whether the technology will contribute significantly to process improvement, employee productivity, and mood as part of learning outcomes.
III. Force field analysis in risk assessment and mitigation
FFA can help you evaluate various potential risk mitigation techniques and strategies used for a project.
⚡ Identifying the driving and restraining forces:
Join forces with the risk team to find out the positive expected outcome of implementing the strategies (driving forces), as well as the obstacles or downsides (restraining forces).
- Driving forces: Reduced financial risk, increased regulatory compliance, enhanced safety, and preparedness for potential setbacks
- Restraining forces: High implementation costs, operational disruptions, extended project timelines, and complexity in integrating risk assessment templates and measures
🎯 Critical focus areas:
- Perform a cost-benefit analysis with your team to determine the upfront costs of implementing risk identification and mitigation strategies. Next, compare it with the long-term benefits of avoiding financial losses or project failure
- Identify risks that pose the greatest threat and focus your resources on mitigation efforts. Not all threats are alike, so critically evaluate them with equal seriousness and attention
- Ensure everyone is aligned, especially the tech and risk teams when dealing with complex integrations
Key Takeaway: With FFA, you can decide whether to implement the full range of risk mitigation strategies or evaluate more balanced approaches.
IV. Force field analysis for mergers and acquisitions
Force field analysis in M&As can reveal whether the benefits of the merger outweigh the costs and challenges. The driving forces, such as increased market share, should be weighed against restraining forces like cultural differences or integration complexities.
⚡Identifying the driving and restraining forces:
- Driving forces: Enhanced market share, cost synergies, and expansion of product lines and customer base
- Restraining forces: Cultural differences between merging companies, potential layoffs and their remunerations, difficulties with integrating systems, and legal challenges
🎯 Critical focus areas:
- Cultural differences between companies can lead to significant resistance during integration, so address early
- Ensure synergy benefits, such as cost savings and market expansion, are realistic and achievable
- Layoffs and restructuring can negatively impact employee morale, so focus on communication and transition planning management to retain top talent
Key Takeaway: Evaluating M&As through the FFA lens can help you predict if the deal will be a success and result in sustainable growth for the organization and its employees.
Summarize this article for me pleaseBenefits and Limitations of Force Field Analysis
There are both advantages and drawbacks to force field analysis. Here are some things for you to keep in mind.
Advantages of force field analysis
Some of the key advantages include:
- Structured decision-making: Clear, organized framework for you to assess various factors that may impact your decisions. With the outlining of the forces in favor of and against a decision, you can systematically evaluate the viability of the proposed change
- Clear visual representation: An easy way to open up the balance (or imbalance) between the driving and restraining forces. After finding out the complexities, teams can then decide which critical matters deserve attention
- Holistic perspective: Force field analysis considers internal and external influences. In other words, critical forces aren’t overlooked, making it easier to identify forces in favor and against the desired change
- Engagement and collaboration: All stakeholders collaborate and contribute, which promotes team collaboration and inclusivity
Limitations of force field analysis and ways to mitigate it
While highly beneficial, force field analysis does have its limitations.
- Subjectivity in scoring: Rating of the driving and restraining forces should be judicious. To reduce biases and subjectivities, rely on surveys, research, and historical performance data wherever possible
- Static snapshot: The FFA progress snapshot is time-sensitive, hampering its relevance as conditions change. Get regular and real-time reviews and analyses of developments, especially after key project milestones
- Oversimplification of complex issues: Generalizing complex decisions is a drawback that can be avoided by reducing the analysis into smaller, manageable parts. This approach entails a nuanced understanding of influencing factors at play
Summarize this article for me pleaseClickUp, Your Go-To Tool for Force Field Analysis
Force field analysis is a valuable tool for managing transitions and organizational changes. By identifying driving and restraining forces, businesses can strategically plan and mitigate resistance to change.
As a manager or decision-maker, you may want to try out conducting a force field analysis for yourself. Why not go for a tool that comes with pre-built templates and features to assist you? As a user-friendly platform that can help you streamline your business processes, ClickUp can help you with force field analysis—and much, much more.
Sign up on ClickUp today and take your change management strategies to the next level.
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