RunsheetDecision Making

Force Field Analysis

ComplexityLow

Time45-90 min

Participants3-12

FormatWorkshop

MaturityCanonical

Preparation

What needs to be ready before start

Materials

Whiteboard or Miro with T-shape: change objective at top, driving forces on the left, restraining forces on the right; sticky notes; pens; rating scale (for example 1-5 per force); timer.

People / roles

One facilitator; 3-12 stakeholders with change relevance; one sponsor with mandate; scribe for consolidation.

Pre-read

Change objective clearly defined; current state and desired state; known resistances from recent weeks; sponsor with change mandate.

Time needed

45-90 min

Setup

Set up T-shape with change objective at top. Left column for driving forces, right for restraining forces. Keep scale visible. Rule: fill one side per phase, not in parallel.

Core question

The one question this method answers

Which forces drive the desired change and which restrain it, and which interventions most strongly shift the balance?

Flow

Marker: Phase

Step	Duration	Action	Hint
1Phase 1: Clarify change objective	10 min	Define current state and desired state, name the gap, and make desired state concrete and observable.	Vague objectives (for example "we want to be more agile") produce arbitrary forces. Define clearly what is different after change.
2Phase 2: Collect driving forces	15-20 min	Individual collection: what supports the change? Examples: market pressure, intrinsic motivation, tooling, sponsor energy. Sticky notes on left.	Drivers are not wishes; they are actual forces. If someone cannot identify drivers, the change has no basis.
3Phase 3: Collect restraining forces	15-20 min	Individual collection: what slows the change? Examples: routine, fear of loss, tool lock-in, skill gaps, political conflict. Sticky notes on right.	State restraints openly. Overly polite discussion hides analysis. Offer anonymous collection when topics are sensitive.
4Phase 4: Evaluate	15-20 min	Rate each force by strength (1-5), aggregate. Visualize total score per side and use longer arrows for stronger forces.	When restraining sum is clearly higher than driving sum, change is unlikely without interventions. An honest assessment beats optimistic guessing.
5Phase 5: Interventions	15-20 min	Define interventions for top restraining forces to reduce them. Define interventions for top driving forces to strengthen them. Add actions with owner and date.	Reducing restrainers is often more effective than strengthening drivers. If only drivers are pushed, you often reinforce anchors.

Artifact

What comes out at the end

Form

Force-field diagram with change objective, all forces by side with ratings, aggregate scores, top interventions per side with owner, date, success criteria, and follow-up review date.

Versioning / ownership

One entry per analysis with date. A follow-up analysis after 3-6 months shows force shifts and makes intervention impact visible.

Tool alternatives

Miro with force-field template
FigJam with T layout
Notion or Confluence table
Whiteboard with photo export

force-field-analysis-working-template.md

Compact working template for Force Field Analysis with driving forces, restraining forces, and actions.

Force Field Analysis Working Template

Goal

Compare the forces that support change with the forces that hold it back.

Context

What change are we examining, and what decision should follow?

Input

Desired state:
Current state:
Evidence:
Stakeholders:

Working area

Driving forces:
Restraining forces:
Force strength:
Key leverage points:
Possible actions:

Output artifacts

Force field map:
Action plan:
Risk notes:

Open questions

Decision / next step

Owner, date, and success signal.

Example output

Concrete filled scenario, fictional example

force-field-analysis-beispiel.md

Concrete filled scenario, fictional example

Force Field — Introducing trunk-based development in engineering org (20.05.2026, 75 min, 10 engineers)

Current: Long-lived feature branches, lead time 3.2 days. Target: TBD with lead time under 1 day by Q4 2026.

Driving forces (score 1-5)

CTO mandate to improve DORA metrics (5)
Negative experience with merge chaos after Q1 release (4)
Successful pilot team Discovery (4)
External industry benchmarks and examples (3)
Tooling (CI, feature flags) available (3) Sum: 19

Restraining forces (score 1-5)

Fear of unstable main at small teams (4)
Missing feature-flag discipline in 3 teams (4)
Code review culture is still async and slow (4)
Open compliance question for auditing (3)
Skepticism in 2 senior engineers (3) Sum: 18

Finding: Forces are similarly strong; change is difficult without intervention.

Interventions (top restrainers reduced):

Feature-flag workshop for all 4 teams (Owner: @anna, by 13.06.).
Introduce code-review SLO: 4 h working-hours (Owner: @ben, from 27.05., success: median <4 h after 4 weeks).
Clarify compliance with security officer (Owner: @lisa, by 30.05., output: written confirmation).
One-on-one with the 2 skeptical senior engineers (Owner: @marcus, by 06.06.).

One-time analysis, no one checks whether forces changed after three months.

What to do

Schedule a follow-up review in the calendar. Comparing forces shows whether interventions had effect.

Stop criteria

Done signals checkable in under a minute

No sponsor, no change mandate.

The target is not clearly defined and forces remain arbitrary.

The group consists only of drivers or only skeptics, making the map one-sided.

Restraining forces cannot be named openly (taboo), analysis becomes polite and useless.

Actions from the analysis are not implemented, trust in the format drops.

Change is urgent and not shapeable (top-down mandate), making analysis ineffective.

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