strategic research plan template

How to write a research plan: Step-by-step guide

Last updated

30 January 2024

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Today’s businesses and institutions rely on data and analytics to inform their product and service decisions. These metrics influence how organizations stay competitive and inspire innovation. However, gathering data and insights requires carefully constructed research, and every research project needs a roadmap. This is where a research plan comes into play.

There’s general research planning; then there’s an official, well-executed research plan. Whatever data-driven research project you’re gearing up for, the research plan will be your framework for execution. The plan should also be detailed and thorough, with a diligent set of criteria to formulate your research efforts. Not including these key elements in your plan can be just as harmful as having no plan at all.

Read this step-by-step guide for writing a detailed research plan that can apply to any project, whether it’s scientific, educational, or business-related.

• What is a research plan?

A research plan is a documented overview of a project in its entirety, from end to end. It details the research efforts, participants, and methods needed, along with any anticipated results. It also outlines the project’s goals and mission, creating layers of steps to achieve those goals within a specified timeline.

Without a research plan, you and your team are flying blind, potentially wasting time and resources to pursue research without structured guidance.

The principal investigator, or PI, is responsible for facilitating the research oversight. They will create the research plan and inform team members and stakeholders of every detail relating to the project. The PI will also use the research plan to inform decision-making throughout the project.

• Why do you need a research plan?

Create a research plan before starting any official research to maximize every effort in pursuing and collecting the research data. Crucially, the plan will model the activities needed at each phase of the research project.

Like any roadmap, a research plan serves as a valuable tool providing direction for those involved in the project—both internally and externally. It will keep you and your immediate team organized and task-focused while also providing necessary definitions and timelines so you can execute your project initiatives with full understanding and transparency.

External stakeholders appreciate a working research plan because it’s a great communication tool, documenting progress and changing dynamics as they arise. Any participants of your planned research sessions will be informed about the purpose of your study, while the exercises will be based on the key messaging outlined in the official plan.

Here are some of the benefits of creating a research plan document for every project:

Project organization and structure

Well-informed participants

All stakeholders and teams align in support of the project

Clearly defined project definitions and purposes

Distractions are eliminated, prioritizing task focus

Timely management of individual task schedules and roles

Costly reworks are avoided

• What should a research plan include?

The different aspects of your research plan will depend on the nature of the project. However, most official research plan documents will include the core elements below. Each aims to define the problem statement, devising an official plan for seeking a solution.

Specific project goals and individual objectives

Ideal strategies or methods for reaching those goals

Required resources

Descriptions of the target audience, sample sizes, demographics, and scopes

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Project background

Research and testing support

Preliminary studies and progress reporting mechanisms

Cost estimates and change order processes

Depending on the research project’s size and scope, your research plan could be brief—perhaps only a few pages of documented plans. Alternatively, it could be a fully comprehensive report. Either way, it’s an essential first step in dictating your project’s facilitation in the most efficient and effective way.

• How to write a research plan for your project

When you start writing your research plan, aim to be detailed about each step, requirement, and idea. The more time you spend curating your research plan, the more precise your research execution efforts will be.

Account for every potential scenario, and be sure to address each and every aspect of the research.

Consider following this flow to develop a great research plan for your project:

Define your project’s purpose

Start by defining your project’s purpose. Identify what your project aims to accomplish and what you are researching. Remember to use clear language.

Thinking about the project’s purpose will help you set realistic goals and inform how you divide tasks and assign responsibilities. These individual tasks will be your stepping stones to reach your overarching goal.

Additionally, you’ll want to identify the specific problem, the usability metrics needed, and the intended solutions.

Know the following three things about your project’s purpose before you outline anything else:

What you’re doing

Why you’re doing it

What you expect from it

Identify individual objectives

With your overarching project objectives in place, you can identify any individual goals or steps needed to reach those objectives. Break them down into phases or steps. You can work backward from the project goal and identify every process required to facilitate it.

Be mindful to identify each unique task so that you can assign responsibilities to various team members. At this point in your research plan development, you’ll also want to assign priority to those smaller, more manageable steps and phases that require more immediate or dedicated attention.

Select research methods

Research methods might include any of the following:

User interviews: this is a qualitative research method where researchers engage with participants in one-on-one or group conversations. The aim is to gather insights into their experiences, preferences, and opinions to uncover patterns, trends, and data.

Field studies: this approach allows for a contextual understanding of behaviors, interactions, and processes in real-world settings. It involves the researcher immersing themselves in the field, conducting observations, interviews, or experiments to gather in-depth insights.

Card sorting: participants categorize information by sorting content cards into groups based on their perceived similarities. You might use this process to gain insights into participants’ mental models and preferences when navigating or organizing information on websites, apps, or other systems.

Focus groups: use organized discussions among select groups of participants to provide relevant views and experiences about a particular topic.

Diary studies: ask participants to record their experiences, thoughts, and activities in a diary over a specified period. This method provides a deeper understanding of user experiences, uncovers patterns, and identifies areas for improvement.

Five-second testing: participants are shown a design, such as a web page or interface, for just five seconds. They then answer questions about their initial impressions and recall, allowing you to evaluate the design’s effectiveness.

Surveys: get feedback from participant groups with structured surveys. You can use online forms, telephone interviews, or paper questionnaires to reveal trends, patterns, and correlations.

Tree testing: tree testing involves researching web assets through the lens of findability and navigability. Participants are given a textual representation of the site’s hierarchy (the “tree”) and asked to locate specific information or complete tasks by selecting paths.

Usability testing: ask participants to interact with a product, website, or application to evaluate its ease of use. This method enables you to uncover areas for improvement in digital key feature functionality by observing participants using the product.

Live website testing: research and collect analytics that outlines the design, usability, and performance efficiencies of a website in real time.

There are no limits to the number of research methods you could use within your project. Just make sure your research methods help you determine the following:

What do you plan to do with the research findings?

What decisions will this research inform? How can your stakeholders leverage the research data and results?

Recruit participants and allocate tasks

Next, identify the participants needed to complete the research and the resources required to complete the tasks. Different people will be proficient at different tasks, and having a task allocation plan will allow everything to run smoothly.

Prepare a thorough project summary

Every well-designed research plan will feature a project summary. This official summary will guide your research alongside its communications or messaging. You’ll use the summary while recruiting participants and during stakeholder meetings. It can also be useful when conducting field studies.

Ensure this summary includes all the elements of your research project. Separate the steps into an easily explainable piece of text that includes the following:

An introduction: the message you’ll deliver to participants about the interview, pre-planned questioning, and testing tasks.

Interview questions: prepare questions you intend to ask participants as part of your research study, guiding the sessions from start to finish.

An exit message: draft messaging your teams will use to conclude testing or survey sessions. These should include the next steps and express gratitude for the participant’s time.

Create a realistic timeline

While your project might already have a deadline or a results timeline in place, you’ll need to consider the time needed to execute it effectively.

Realistically outline the time needed to properly execute each supporting phase of research and implementation. And, as you evaluate the necessary schedules, be sure to include additional time for achieving each milestone in case any changes or unexpected delays arise.

For this part of your research plan, you might find it helpful to create visuals to ensure your research team and stakeholders fully understand the information.

Determine how to present your results

A research plan must also describe how you intend to present your results. Depending on the nature of your project and its goals, you might dedicate one team member (the PI) or assume responsibility for communicating the findings yourself.

In this part of the research plan, you’ll articulate how you’ll share the results. Detail any materials you’ll use, such as:

Presentations and slides

A project report booklet

A project findings pamphlet

Documents with key takeaways and statistics

Graphic visuals to support your findings

• Format your research plan

As you create your research plan, you can enjoy a little creative freedom. A plan can assume many forms, so format it how you see fit. Determine the best layout based on your specific project, intended communications, and the preferences of your teams and stakeholders.

Find format inspiration among the following layouts:

Written outlines

Narrative storytelling

Visual mapping

Graphic timelines

Remember, the research plan format you choose will be subject to change and adaptation as your research and findings unfold. However, your final format should ideally outline questions, problems, opportunities, and expectations.

• Research plan example

Imagine you’ve been tasked with finding out how to get more customers to order takeout from an online food delivery platform. The goal is to improve satisfaction and retain existing customers. You set out to discover why more people aren’t ordering and what it is they do want to order or experience. 

You identify the need for a research project that helps you understand what drives customer loyalty. But before you jump in and start calling past customers, you need to develop a research plan—the roadmap that provides focus, clarity, and realistic details to the project.

Here’s an example outline of a research plan you might put together:

Project title

Project members involved in the research plan

Purpose of the project (provide a summary of the research plan’s intent)

Objective 1 (provide a short description for each objective)

Objective 2

Objective 3

Proposed timeline

Audience (detail the group you want to research, such as customers or non-customers)

Budget (how much you think it might cost to do the research)

Risk factors/contingencies (any potential risk factors that may impact the project’s success)

Remember, your research plan doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel—it just needs to fit your project’s unique needs and aims.

Customizing a research plan template

Some companies offer research plan templates to help get you started. However, it may make more sense to develop your own customized plan template. Be sure to include the core elements of a great research plan with your template layout, including the following:

Introductions to participants and stakeholders

Background problems and needs statement

Significance, ethics, and purpose

Research methods, questions, and designs

Preliminary beliefs and expectations

Implications and intended outcomes

Realistic timelines for each phase

Conclusion and presentations

How many pages should a research plan be?

Generally, a research plan can vary in length between 500 to 1,500 words. This is roughly three pages of content. More substantial projects will be 2,000 to 3,500 words, taking up four to seven pages of planning documents.

What is the difference between a research plan and a research proposal?

A research plan is a roadmap to success for research teams. A research proposal, on the other hand, is a dissertation aimed at convincing or earning the support of others. Both are relevant in creating a guide to follow to complete a project goal.

What are the seven steps to developing a research plan?

While each research project is different, it’s best to follow these seven general steps to create your research plan:

Defining the problem

Identifying goals

Choosing research methods

Recruiting participants

Preparing the brief or summary

Establishing task timelines

Defining how you will present the findings

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Free Strategic Planning Templates

By Joe Weller | May 16, 2018

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The success of your organization — no matter what size or industry — depends on the thoroughness of your planning and vision. A strategic plan can provide a roadmap for accomplishing specific goals, and will increase your chances of reaching objectives on time and budget. In this article, we’ve rounded up the top strategic planning templates in Microsoft Word and Excel, all of which are free to download and fully customizable.

Additionally, we've provided customizable strategic planning templates in Smartsheet, a collaborative, real-time work execution platform that empowers you to better plan, manage, and report on strategic initiatives.

Strategic Business Plan Template

Download Strategic Business Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

A comprehensive, strategic business plan may include company information, SWOT analysis, research, goals, resources, risks and more. A template provides structure for your business planning process as well as a communication tool that’s simple to update or modify. Use the template as a guide for evaluating your business, identifying opportunities for growth and development, and creating a strategic plan.

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Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

Download Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

A nonprofit strategic plan often emphasizes vision, values, and mission as the foundation for future objectives. A template can be used to clearly define who is being served and what issues need to be addressed. As with a business plan, nonprofit planning may include sections for evaluating risks and opportunities, measuring financial resources, developing a marketing plan, and creating objectives for organizational change.

HR Strategic Plan Template

‌ Download HR Strategic Plan Template

Create a detailed human resources strategic plan for your organization, or modify the template to focus on one specific area, such as recruitment or employee relations. Use the template to translate strategies into measurable action plans. This simple layout makes it easy for readers to quickly view key information.

IT Strategic Planning Template

‌ Download IT Strategic Planning Template

IT is an essential part of any business, nonprofit, school, or government agency. While information technology is just one part of an overall business strategy, creating a separate strategic plan for IT will help ensure that you have a comprehensive roadmap to follow for managing and purchasing new assets, understanding your current and potential technology usage, and aligning your IT goals with business objectives.

Strategic Marketing Plan Template

‌ Download Strategic Marketing Plan Template

Use this free template to help shape your marketing strategy. It combines information on your target market and business with marketing tactics to help you think strategically and create a plan of action. The template can guide your research process or be used as a simple brainstorming tool.

Social Media Strategy Plan Template

‌ Download Social Media Strategy Plan Template

Social media is an integral part of online marketing, and creating a strategic plan can help ensure that you are using your time and resources effectively. Consider your branding, mission, target audience, competition and other factors to determine which social networks and types of content will perform best for your company. Keep track of KPIs and adjust your social media plan accordingly.

SWOT Analysis Strategy Template

‌ Download SWOT Analysis Strategy Template

This matrix template combines SWOT analysis with strategic planning. Examine the relationships between your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and then list related strategies to tackle your goals. The layout of this template allows you to view the SWOT categories and strategies side-by-side, which may be useful for a presentation or summary.

One-Page Strategic Planning Template

Download One-Page Strategic Planning Template

Excel | Word | Smartsheet

A one-page strategic plan is perfect for small businesses or for summarizing a longer planning process. Use this template as is, or edit the layout or included information to better suit your needs. This template includes all the essentials on one page, including values, strengths and weaknesses, goals, and actions.

Strategic Vision Template

Download Strategic Vision Template

Excel | Word

Summarize your strategic vision and plan, highlighting key information for stakeholders, management, investors, or for your own reference. Combining a vision statement with a brief summary of goals, actions and KPIs makes it easy to see how your business values and purpose relate to your objectives. It also provides a succinct summary for use in a presentation or meeting.

University Strategic Plan Outline

‌ Download University Strategic Plan Outline

This template provides an outline for university strategy planning. The actual strategic plan may cover multiple pages and provide an in-depth analysis and detailed mission and vision statements. Strategic planning is an opportunity for universities to look closely at campus needs, institutional values, infrastructure, long-term goals, important obstacles, and more. The strategic plan will be a guiding document that is reviewed and updated regularly.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organization’s process for defining their strategy so that they can accomplish specific goals and objectives. Strategic planning may be utilized on a large scale, such as planning for business growth over several years or to help a nonprofit or governmental organization reach its stated mission. A strategic plan can also be used on a smaller scale, such as crafting a marketing plan or developing strategy for the goals of one department within a business or organization. It is important to note that strategy is distinct from planning: While strategy looks at why certain steps should be taken, a plan outlines how to enact those steps. strategic planning marries these two concepts in order to determine the best possible course of action. The purpose of strategic planning is to provide a thoughtful, deliberate approach to reaching objectives based on an in-depth analysis of both internal and external factors affecting an organization.

A strategic plan often covers multiple years, addressing both short- and long-term goals. It also provides a way of tracking progress and measuring success. However, it’s not a document that is fixed in stone — instead, it’s wise to revisit and adjust a strategic plan periodically based on the evolving vision, objectives, needs, and resources of a business or institution.

Depending on the scope of your plan, you may be working with a team of multiple stakeholders during the strategic planning process. To keep the process running smoothly, make roles and responsibilities clear. Different parties may be responsible for providing data, reviewing the plan, or authorizing strategic decisions. As you prepare for planning, make sure all participants understand what’s involved in the process and have received any relevant information prior to meeting.

Benefits of Strategic Planning

There are benefits of strategic planning, including the following:

• Align the goals of a department or project with larger business goals
• Provide clear communication to team members, stakeholders, or clients
• Clearly define the vision and mission of an organization
• Provide clarity on how to deal with internal or environmental changes

Parts of a Strategic Plan

One way to think about strategic planning is that it identifies any gaps between a current state and desired future state, and then dictates how to close those gaps — how you get from where you are to where you want to be. To that end, various factors are taken into consideration in order to formulate an effective plan. Here are some of the elements often included in a strategic plan.

• Introductory Statement: The introductory statement should briefly describe why the strategic plan was developed and for what time period, and list the authors of the plan.  
• Background Statement: This section may provide information about the organization, such as history, management structure, and supporting partners or agencies. Alternatively, you could use this section as a brief business statement — more of an elevator pitch — to concisely describe your business.  
• Organizational Structure: Include this information if it’s relevant to evaluate how your business or organization operates and is structured, from governing board to staffing.  
• Vision: A vision statement should briefly describe what a company wants to achieve or become. This is one of the primary organizational tenets to consider, along with values and mission.  
• Values: These are the principles that an organization stands for and abides by. Many businesses create core value statements to guide company culture.  
• Mission Statement: A mission statement describes the purpose of a business or organization. This is distinct from a vision statement because it is not a projected goal for the future.  
• Problem Statement: Some plans include a problem statement, which can outline key or discrete issues that need to be addressed.  
• SWOT Analysis: A SWOT analysis provides a foundation and context for developing strategy by examining the strengths and weaknesses within and organization as well as external opportunities and threats.  
• Goals: As stated earlier, a strategic plan may include long-term as well as short-term (i.e, monthly or quarterly) goals. Objectives should be measurable and broken down into actionable steps, and the action plan for each goal should specify who is responsible for implementing the strategy, a timeline for starting and ending the action, and how the outcome will be evaluated.  
• Evaluation: Methods for evaluation should be spelled out in the strategic plan. This could include tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and documenting the progress of action steps on an ongoing basis.  
• Executive Summary : This final summary helps employees, investors, or other readers quickly understand your plan.

No matter what type of strategic plan you are working on, using a template provides a simple and quick outline to organize your process. In the following sections, you’ll find free, downloadable planning templates for business, nonprofit, human resources, marketing, IT strategic planning, and more.

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FigJam Prepare for your next experiment with our research plan example

From user personas and stakeholder analyses to a research plan sample that can help form a strong foundation for your experimentation, FigJam’s has plenty of resources to help you meet your research objectives.

Research plan

Use this interactive template to collaborate with your team and create a top-notch strategic research plan that will uncover the answers you’re looking for.

Ready, set, plan!

Keep your team on track by agreeing on important aspects of your test and providing stakeholders with the why behind the what of your plan.

Identify important details: Define your research questions, goals, and methods from the onset to keep you focused throughout.

Set yourself up for success : Develop an outline that’ll keep you on track from start to finish.

Gather data: Create a plan that allows you to assemble and analyze the data you need to improve your users’ experience.

FigJam When the planning gets tough, the tough get planning

Work together to align your team’s ideas and goals for the ultimate research plan, complete with a clear objective, timeline, and other necessary components. Brainstorm and swap thoughts with ease, then use your insights to create a game plan that brings every research question to the real world.

Keep your eyes on the prize

With everyone on the same page—or plan—you can stay focused on a clear-cut outcome. Set your plan in motion, then use FigJam’s other templates to move forward into the next phase with ease.

User personas

Gain a better understanding of your target audience’s needs.

Stakeholder analysis

Identify and prioritize your stakeholders to ensure all participantsare satisfied.

Other templates from the community

Gather all the right tools to execute your plan and analyze your data.

What is a research plan?

A research plan example is a document that introduces your main question and how you intend to uncover the answer. They often include details like the surrounding context, objectives, methods, budget, timeline, and more to help you learn more about and eventually solve a customer’s pain point or an ineffective interface.

What are the contents of a research plan?

Research plans generally contain information such as:

Background information with general insights into what you already know, why you’re conducting the study, and what the problem is

The objective of your research and what you’re trying to accomplish

Research questions , both primary and secondary, to guide your experiment

The participants and recruitment methods to bring together a relevant, unbiased sample group

Your budget and timeline to plan around any logistical constraints

Intended results , describing what you hope to or anticipate finding

Out of scope elements that will not factor into your experiment

How to write a research plan?

Begin by gathering your team, downloading a shareable FigJam sample research plan, and brainstorming to figure out the issues you’re trying to understand and solve. With that information, you can narrow down your team’s top suggestions to one concrete objective. Then, decide on a few select research questions that will help you achieve your research goal.

As with any good scientific process, you’ll want to thoroughly interrogate and refine your questions using insight from your entire group, until you’re confident in your main question and research method. Don’t be afraid to solicit feedback, leave comments or suggestions, and move questions around—the flexibility is part of what makes FigJam’s market research plan template so valuable to any experiment.

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Writing a Research Strategy

This page is focused on providing practical tips and suggestions for preparing The Research Strategy, the primary component of an application's Research Plan along with the Specific Aims. The guidance on this page is primarily geared towards an R01-style application, however, much of it is useful for other grant types as well.

Developing the Research Strategy

The primary audience for your application is your peer review group. When writing your Research Strategy, your goal is to present a well-organized, visually appealing, and readable description of your proposed project and the rationale for pursuing it. Your writing should be streamlined and organized so your reviewers can readily grasp the information. If it's a key point, repeat it, then repeat it again. Add more emphasis by putting the text in bold , or bold italics . If writing is not your forte, get help.  For more information, please visit  W riting For Reviewers .

How to Organize the Research Strategy Section

How to organize a Research Strategy is largely up to the applicant. Start by following the NIH application instructions and guidelines for formatting attachments such as the research plan section.

It is generally structured as follows:

Significance

For  Preliminary Studies (for new applications) or a Progress Report (for renewal and revision applications).

• You can either include preliminary studies or progress report information as a subsection of Approach or integrate it into any or all of the three main sections.
• If you do the latter, be sure to mark the information clearly, for example, with a bold subhead.

 Helpful tips to consider when formatting:

• Organize using bold headers or an outline or numbering system—or both—that are used consistently throughout.
• Start each section with the appropriate header: Significance, Innovation, or Approach.
• Organize the Approach section around the Specific Aims.

For most applications, you need to address Rigor ous Study Design  by describing the experimental design and methods you propose and how they will achieve robust and unbiased results. See the NIH guidance for elaboration on the 4 major areas of rigor and transparency emphasized in grant review.  These requirements apply to research grant, career development, fellowship, and training applications.

Tips for Drafting Sections of the Research Strategy

Although you will emphasize your project's significance throughout the application, the Significance section should give the most details. The farther removed your reviewers are from your field, the more information you'll need to provide on basic biology, importance of the area, research opportunities, and new findings. Reviewing the potentially relevant study section rosters may give you some ideas as to general reviewer expertise. You will also need to describe the prior and preliminary studies that provide a strong scientific rationale for pursuing the proposed studies, emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses in the rigor and transparency of these key studies.

This section gives you the chance to explain how your application is conceptually and/or technically innovative. Some examples as to how you might do this could include but not limited to:

• Demonstrate the proposed research is new and unique, e.g., explores new scientific avenues, has a novel hypothesis, will create new knowledge.
• Explain how the proposed work can refine, improve, or propose a new application of an existing concept or method.

If your proposal is paradigm-shifting or challenges commonly held beliefs, be sure that you include sufficient evidence in your preliminary data to convince reviewers, including strong rationale, data supporting the approach, and clear feasibility. Your job is to make the reviewers feel confident that the risk is worth taking.

For projects predominantly focused on innovation and outside-the-box research, investigators may wish to consider mechanisms other than R01s for example (e.g., exploratory/developmental research (R21) grants, NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program (DP1), and NIH Director's New Innovator Award Program (DP2).

The Approach section is where the experimental design is described. Expect your assigned reviewers to scrutinize your approach: they will want to know what you plan to do, how you plan to do it, and whether you can do it. NIH data show that of the peer review criteria, approach has the highest correlation with the overall impact score. Importantly, elements of rigorous study design should be addressed in this section, such as plans for minimization of bias (e.g. methods for blinding and treatment randomization) and consideration of relevant biological variables. Likewise, be sure to lay out a plan for alternative experiments and approaches in case you get uninterpretable or surprising results, and also consider limitations of the study and alternative interpretations. Point out any procedures, situations, or materials that may be hazardous to personnel and precautions to be exercised. A full discussion on the use of select agents should appear in the Select Agent Research attachment.  Consider including a timeline demonstrating anticipated completion of the Aims. 

Here are some pointers to consider when organizing your Approach section:

• Enter a bold header for each Specific Aim.
• Under each aim, describe the experiments.
• If you get result X, you will follow pathway X; if you get result Y, you will follow pathway Y.
• Consider illustrating this with a flowchart.

Preliminary Studies

If submitting a new application to a NOFO that allows preliminary data, it is strongly encouraged to include preliminary studies.  Preliminary studies demonstrate competency in the methods and interpretation. Well-designed and robust preliminary studies also serve to provide a strong scientific rationale for the proposed follow-up experiments. Reviewers also use preliminary studies together with the biosketches to assess the investigator review criterion, which reflects the competence of the research team. Provide alternative interpretations to your data to show reviewers you've thought through problems in-depth and are prepared to meet future challenges. As noted above, preliminary data can be put anywhere in the Research Strategy, but just make sure reviewers will be able to distinguish it from the proposed studies. Alternatively, it can be a separate section with its own header.

Progress Reports

If applying for a renewal or a revision (a competing supplement to an existing grant), include a progress report for reviewers.

Create a header so reviewers can easily find it and include the following information:

• Project period beginning and end dates.
• Summary of the importance and robustness of the completed findings in relation to the Specific Aims.
• Account of published and unpublished results, highlighting progress toward achieving your Specific Aims.  

Other Helpful Tips

Referencing publications.

References show breadth of knowledge of the field and provide a scientific foundation for your application. If a critical work is omitted, reviewers may assume the applicant is not aware of it or deliberately ignoring it.

Throughout the application, reference all relevant publications for the concepts underlying your research and your methods. Remember the strengths and weaknesses in the rigor of the key studies you cite for justifying your proposal will need to be discussed in the Significance and/or Approach sections.

Read more about Bibliography and References Cited at Additional Application Elements .

Graphics can illustrate complex information in a small space and add visual interest to your application. Including schematics, tables, illustrations, graphs, and other types of graphics can enhance applications. Consider adding a timetable or flowchart to illustrate your experimental plan, including decision trees with alternative experimental pathways to help your reviewers understand your plans.

Video may enhance your application beyond what graphics alone can achieve. If you plan to send one or more videos, you'll need to meet certain requirements and include key information in your Research Strategy. State in your cover letter that a video will be included in your application (don't attach your files to the application). After you apply and get assignment information from the Commons, ask your assigned Scientific Review Officer (SRO) how your business official should send the files. Your video files are due at least one month before the peer review meeting.

However, you can't count on all reviewers being able to see or hear video, so you'll want to be strategic in how you incorporate it into your application by taking the following steps:

• Caption any narration in the video.
• Include key images from the video
• Write a description of the video, so the text would make sense even without the video.

Tracking for Your Budget

As you design your experiments, keep a running tab of the following essential data:

• Who. A list of people who will help (for the Key Personnel section later).
• What. A list of equipment and supplies for the experiments
• Time. Notes on how long each step takes. Timing directly affects the budget as well as how many Specific Aims can realistically be achieved.

Jotting this information down will help when Creating a Budget  and complete other sections later.

Review and Finalize Your Research Plan

Critically review the research plan through the lens of a reviewer to identify potential questions or weak spots.

Enlist others to review your application with a fresh eye. Include people who aren't familiar with the research to make sure the proposed work is clear to someone outside the field.

When finalizing the details of the Research Strategy, revisit and revise the Specific Aims as needed. Please see Writing Specific Aims . 

comments Want to contact NINDS staff? Please visit our Find Your NINDS Program Officer page to learn more about contacting Program Officer, Grants Management Specialists, Scientific Review Officers, and Health Program Specialists.

Research Strategic Plan

In 2019, the Department of Medicine invested considerable effort and resources to devising a strategic plan that will provide a roadmap for our research mission today and into the future.

This work was guided by a Research Planning Committee that convened throughout the first half of 2019, reviewing the current state of research in the Department, generating recommendations for strengthening our research efforts, and developing the following plan. Many of our faculty and research administrators participated and contributed ideas as part of this process—through interviews, a survey, and robust discussions at the 2019 Research Retreat.

The result of this combined effort is the clear, direct, ambitious, and ultimately achievable research strategic plan that follows.

We identified five strategies for achieving our vision.

We will foster the success of our current faculty by enhancing our faculty development, mentoring, and funding programs while also strengthening the pipeline of the next generation of outstanding investigators in Medicine.

Lead: Andrew Alspaugh, MD

Initiatives:

• Strengthen faculty career development programs (Xunrong Luo, Matthew Crowley)
• Build a diverse and inclusive Department of Medicine (Laura Svetkey, Julius Wilder)
• Foster a culture of outstanding mentorship in the Department (Alspaugh, Cathleen Colon-Emeric)
• Expand physician-scientist recruitment and programmatic support (Rodger Liddle, Matt Hirschey)
• Launch a Department partnership hires program (Xunrong Luo, Chris Holley)
• Expand cadre of independent PhD investigators (Scott Palmer, Amy Porter-Tacoronte)

We will enhance our partnerships with other departments, centers, institutes, schools, and programs across Duke University.

Lead:  David Simel, MD, vice chair for veterans affairs

• Duke Clinical Research Institute
• Duke Cancer Institute
• Durham VA Medical Center
• Duke Molecular Physiology Institute
• Pratt School of Engineering and MEDx
• Duke Human Vaccine Institute
• Duke Global Health Institute
• Center for Applied Genomics and Precision Medicine

We will solidify a leadership position in data science by leveraging the clinical disease expertise of our faculty; building our data assets; and improving our data collection, storage and analytics resources.

Lead: Chetan Patel, MD, vice chair for clinical affairs

• Cultivate DOM data assets into open science platform
• Augment biostatistics & bioinformatics resources
• Create new leadership role for data science
• Implement learning health units
• Continue implementation of Science Culture and Accountability Plan

We will foster a community and culture of rich scientific investigation by making research easier while achieving the highest levels of research integrity.

Lead: Erica Malkasian

• Provide outstanding grants and administrative support to investigators
• Position Duke as a leader in site-based research
• Develop next-generation biorepository capabilities
• Catalyze innovation and entrepreneurship
• Expand international research efforts

We will invest in emerging research content and method areas that leverage our strengths and address important unmet patient-centered medical needs.

Lead: Heather Whitson, MD

Cross-cutting themes:

• Immunology, inflammation & fibrosis
• Aging, resilience & pain
• Energy, obesity & metabolic disease
• Precision medicine
• Population health & disparities research

To learn more about our research strategies and initiatives, contact

• Scott Palmer, MD, MHS, Vice Chair for Research
• Saini Pillai, MBA, Senior Program Coordinator, Research

Researchers Strategic Plan Template

• Great for beginners
• Ready-to-use, fully customizable Subcategory
• Get started in seconds

As a researcher, you know that effective planning is the cornerstone of successful research. That's why ClickUp's Researchers Strategic Plan Template is here to help you streamline your research process and achieve your goals with ease.

With this template, you can:

• Define clear research objectives and align your team around a common vision
• Strategically allocate resources to maximize your research output and impact
• Collaborate seamlessly with colleagues and institutions to foster innovation and knowledge exchange
• Track and measure progress towards your research milestones and deliverables

Whether you're working on groundbreaking scientific discoveries or pushing the boundaries of knowledge in your field, ClickUp's Strategic Plan Template is your go-to tool for research success. Start planning your next breakthrough today!

Benefits of Researchers Strategic Plan Template

When researchers utilize the Researchers Strategic Plan Template, they can reap numerous benefits, including:

• Streamlining the research process by clearly defining goals, objectives, and strategies
• Facilitating effective communication and collaboration with team members and stakeholders
• Maximizing the chances of securing funding by presenting a well-thought-out research plan
• Enhancing the visibility and impact of research findings through strategic dissemination strategies
• Increasing efficiency and productivity by providing a roadmap for research activities
• Ensuring alignment with organizational goals and priorities
• Enabling continuous evaluation and adaptation of research plans for optimal outcomes.

Main Elements of Researchers Strategic Plan Template

ClickUp's Researchers Strategic Plan template provides a comprehensive solution for organizing and managing your research projects effectively. Here are the main elements of this List template:

• Custom Statuses: Track the progress of your research tasks with statuses like Cancelled, Complete, In Progress, On Hold, and To Do, ensuring clear visibility of project stages.
• Custom Fields: Utilize 8 custom fields such as Duration Days, Impact, Progress, Ease of Implementation, Team Members, Department, and Project Lead to capture relevant information and streamline your research process.
• Custom Views: Access 6 different views, including Progress, Gantt, Workload, Timeline, Initiatives, and Getting Started Guide, to gain insights, visualize timelines, allocate resources, and plan your research projects effectively.
• Collaboration and Planning: Leverage ClickUp's collaboration features like assigning tasks, setting due dates, adding comments, and utilizing task dependencies to enhance team productivity and ensure successful project execution.

How to Use Strategic Plan for Researchers

If you're a researcher looking to develop a strategic plan, here are four steps to help you get started:

1. Define your research objectives

Begin by clearly defining the objectives of your research project. What specific questions do you want to answer or problems do you want to solve? This will help guide your entire strategic plan and ensure that you stay focused throughout the research process.

Use the Goals feature in ClickUp to clearly define and track your research objectives.

2. Determine your research methodology

Next, decide on the methodology you will use to conduct your research. Will you be using qualitative or quantitative methods? Will you need to collect primary data through surveys or interviews, or will you be analyzing existing data and literature? Consider the resources and time available to you, as well as the most effective approach for answering your research questions.

Create tasks in ClickUp to outline each step of your research methodology and assign them to team members if necessary.

3. Develop a timeline and milestones

To ensure that your research stays on track, it's important to develop a timeline with specific milestones and deadlines. Break down your research project into manageable phases, and assign estimated timeframes for each phase. This will help you stay organized and accountable throughout the research process.

Use the Gantt chart feature in ClickUp to create a timeline with milestones and deadlines for each phase of your research project.

4. Monitor progress and make adjustments

Once your strategic plan is in motion, regularly monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed. Keep track of your research findings, analyze the data, and evaluate whether you're meeting your objectives. If necessary, make changes to your methodology or timeline to ensure that you're on track to achieve your research goals.

Utilize the Dashboards feature in ClickUp to monitor and visualize your research progress, and make data-driven decisions based on your findings.

Get Started with ClickUp’s Researchers Strategic Plan Template

Researchers and research organizations can use this Researchers Strategic Plan Template to streamline their research process, track progress, and achieve their goals.

First, hit “Add Template” to sign up for ClickUp and add the template to your Workspace. Make sure you designate which Space or location in your Workspace you’d like this template applied.

Next, invite relevant members or guests to your Workspace to start collaborating.

Now you can take advantage of the full potential of this template to create a strategic research plan:

• Use the Progress View to track the progress of each research project and ensure timely completion
• The Gantt View will help you visualize the timeline and dependencies of various research tasks
• Utilize the Workload View to allocate resources and manage the workload of your research team effectively
• The Timeline View will provide a comprehensive overview of all research activities and milestones
• Use the Initiatives View to manage and track different research initiatives and their progress
• Refer to the Getting Started Guide View to familiarize yourself with the template and its functionalities
• Organize tasks into five different statuses: Cancelled, Complete, In Progress, On Hold, To Do, to keep track of their status
• Update statuses as you make progress to keep stakeholders informed of the research project's progress
• Monitor and analyze tasks to ensure maximum productivity and successful completion of research projects.

Related Templates

• Archaeologists Strategic Plan Template
• Machinery Vendors Strategic Plan Template
• Growth Strategic Plan Template
• Web Designers Strategic Plan Template
• Security Teams Strategic Plan Template

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Strategic Plan Template

Use this free Strategic Plan Template for Word to manage your projects better.

When a company wants to map out its long-term business objectives and how it’ll get there, they use a strategic plan. Our free strategic plan template captures all topics that any company needs to define, so everything is aligned with the overall mission and vision of the company. More than that, the free strategic plan template guides you through the actions, resources and costs that will help you get there.

What Is a Strategic Plan?

A strategic plan is a document that company leaders use to capture the company’s future vision, goals and objectives. Unlike a business plan that focuses on short-term goals of serval months to several years, a strategic plan looks at the mid-to-long-term goals such as 3-5 years but is often longer than that.

The strategic plan should be easily shared as it provides a map for the whole company to follow in order to meet its goals. The strategic plan isn’t only shared, but it’s thoroughly understood by company employees, customers, business partners and investors.

Strategic planning and the strategic plan that comes from this process isn’t a one-time occurrence. Teams should conduct strategic planning regularly to quickly respond to changes in the business, industry, legal and regulatory conditions. As conditions shift, so should the response plans.

Why You Need a Strategic Plan Template

A strategic plan template is a great tool in that it’s already laid out for you. Everything you need to define is outlined and saves you the time and effort of creating a new document. Templates are great for creating an archive of consistent documentation, especially as historical data can influence your current strategic plan.

In more general terms, all businesses need a target or direction to work towards. Strategic plans are like the roadmap that gets you there and defines the landscape. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know when you get there. That’s true from the highest executive to the newest employee as well as customers, investors and so on.

Strategic plans also help you track your goals across departments. Each department can then set its own goals to help the business achieve its larger goals. These various initiatives can be monitored and tracked with key performance indicators (KPIs). This can be extended to business units, teams and even individuals so everyone is working towards the same goals.

A strategic plan template is only a static document. To implement that plan you need project management software. ProjectManager has online roadmaps that allow you to manage all the projects that feed into your company’s overall mission. You can track your tasks, budgets, resources, processes and more, so you know you’re always progressing. Of course, you can build a strategic plan with milestones in the software, too. Try ProjectManager today for free.

Who Should Use This Strategic Plan Template?

The free strategic plan template can be filled in by any number of people depending on the business. Usually, though, this responsibility falls on the shoulders of the owner or top business managers.

However, sometimes specialists are employed or the whole company becomes involved in the strategic planning process. In fact, more voices provide a wider perspective. One person should oversee refining those different perspectives in order to rein in the possible chaos of too many chefs in the kitchen.

Once the strategic plan is finalized, it should be shared among the company. The strategic plan template acts as a guide to keep the long-term goal in sight and how to get there. For some businesses, the customer should also be aware of the strategic plan. Other companies will want to share the strategic plan with investors.

How to Use This Strategic Plan Template

When you download our free strategic plan template for Word, you’ll find it’s broken up into sections. The free template is completely customizable so you can add or subtract as many sections as you need to flesh out your strategic plan. What we provide you with is the backbone of any thorough strategic plan, which is as follows.

1. Executive Summary

To start, you want to summarize what will follow. That’s all the executive summary is; a short introduction to the important information that’ll be fleshed out in the strategic plan. It gives an overview to investors and stakeholders.

2. Vision Statement

A vision statement is a statement that declares the mid-to-long-term goals of the company. Think of it as the target you want to hit with your strategic plan. What this statement should do is project your company into the future and in so doing help to define the plan and execution of getting you there.

3. Mission Statement

The mission statement is a short description of the purpose of the company. It should be no longer than one to three sentences at most and explain what the company does, who it serves and how it’s different from its competitors. But more than a dry definition, it should be inspirational, offering direction and focus for employees and giving customers a clear picture of what they can expect from the company.

4. SWOT Analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A SWOT analysis is used to assess those four aspects of the company. This is how a company can capture its current performance and build a strategy to achieve its future goals. But beyond internal factors or charting the company, make sure to explore external factors as well. This provides a fuller picture of how a company can carve a route to reach its objectives.

5. Business Goals

Business goals should define the target that a company is aiming for in the future. By doing this, a company has a way to measure its success, communicate these goals to its employees and ensure the company is going in the right direction.

6. Marketing Plan

The marketing plan outlines a company’s advertising strategy. It can be used to generate leads and reach a target audience, outreach and PR campaigns. Also included is how the company will measure the effectiveness of the initiatives.

• Market research:  Uses competitive analysis, testing, surveys, etc., to determine the target audience and what needs the company is fulfilling or pain point it’s resolving.
• Marketing campaigns: These include promotions, value propositions, differentiation factors, pricing, distribution channels, etc., to see the product or service.
• Marketing KPIs: Using various metrics will help the company measure the success of its campaigns.

7. Operations Plan

The operation plan is an outline of the strategic plan’s goals and how the company plans to meet them. It’s an action plan that shows team members what they’re responsible for in achieving the goals of the strategic plan.

8. Financial Projections

When making financial projections for a company’s strategic plans they should include a forecast of the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. These financial projects like the strategic plan are mid-to-long term.

Identify the team members with the skills and experience who will be responsible for executing the operational plan set forth in the company’s strategic plan.

Other Templates to Help with Your Strategic Plan

The free strategic plan document template for Word is a helpful tool to outline a company’s mid-to-long-term objectives. We have dozens of other free templates for Word and Excel that can help you manage every phase of a project, from planning to closure. Here are just a few of the free templates that we offer for download that are related to strategic planning.

Executive Summary Template

If you need help with the executive summary portion of the free strategic plan template, this free executive summary template is a great asset. It breaks down the points you’ll want to capture for an effective executive summary and is a valuable tool to complete that section of the strategic plan.

Marketing Campaign Template

The marketing plan is another section of the strategic plan that can be fully fleshed out with the free marketing campaign template. It outlines all the steps you need to introduce your product or service to market. It has fields to collect the goals of the campaign, identify the target audience and much more.

SWOT Analysis Template 

We’ve included a small SWOT analysis table in the free strategic plan template, but you might want more space to capture this important data. If so, use our free SWOT analysis template for Word, which you can then attach to the strategic plan template. This colorful template helps you see where you are and offer guidance to get you where you want to be.

ProjectManager Is a Robust Planning Tool

Free templates are a great way to gather information and develop a strategic plan, but they’re not as good at managing that plan once you implement it. You need more robust tools, not static documents or spreadsheets. ProjectManager is online project management software that connects teams and helps them plan, manage and track their progress in real time.

Track Progress with Real-Time Dashboards

You’ve put the strategic plan in the Gantt chart and can now see the roadmap in a visual timeline. But to make sure you keep to that schedule you need to have a way to monitor progress and performance. Our real-time dashboards track metrics such as time, cost and more all in real time so you can respond quickly to changes that threaten your goals. Unlike other lightweight tools, there’s no configuration or set. It’s ready when you are.

Work How You Want with Multiple Project Views

Gantt charts are great for managers, but they’re not the ones who are will execute the strategic plan. It’s a group effort that involves every department in the company from marketing and sales to IT and manufacturing, and they all use different tools. That’s why we offer multiple project views that share the same real-time data whether you’re using a list view, the visual workflow of a kanban or a calendar to capture important dates. Everyone is working from a single source of truth.

Related Content

Strategic planning is a big subject and we’ve only scratched the surface. If you want to learn more, you’re in luck. ProjectManager isn’t only a great tool to create and manage your strategic plan, it’s also the online hub for all things project management. We have free blogs each week, tutorial videos, eBooks, white pages and, of course, free templates. Here are a few links to follow and read more about strategic plans.

• 15 Free Word and Excel Templates for Business
• Strategic Planning in Business
• Strategic Planning Models: An Introduction to 5 Popular Models
• A Quick Guide to Strategic Initiatives 

ProjectManager Helps You Reach Your Strategic Goals

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps you plan, manage and track your strategic plans. Our collaborative platform connects everyone across departments and time zones. With features that help you manage risk, tasks and resources you’re more likely to adjust to changes in the market and hit your target. See why teams in organizations as varied as NASA, Siemens and Nestle use our tool to deliver success. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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20 Free Strategic Plan Templates (Excel & Cascade) 2024

There are no shortcuts to success when it comes to driving profitable business growth. It’s hard. It’s challenging. It’s a grind. But you know what makes it even harder? Lack of guidance. No direction. No accountability.

That’s why we compiled our best-of-the-best, most popular, crème de la crème strategic plan templates to help you achieve business goals faster. And they are yours—for free.   You can use these templates to make strategic plans for your business strategy, different business functions, or teams. Or you can use them as an aid in your analysis as part of the planning process.

101,347 strategy pros have already used them and added them to their strategy playbook. What are you still waiting for?

In this article, you will get:

• 20 free strategic plan templates that will help you to build a roadmap and execute it
• A quick rundown of 7 steps you shouldn't miss in strategic planning

What Is A Strategic Plan Template?

A strategic plan template is a tool that helps leaders translate business strategies into actionable steps with a clear roadmap , projects, deliverables, budgets, and owners. It provides a decision-making framework and ensures that all initiatives and resources within an organization align with the overall business strategy.

Think of it like a map that helps you navigate from point A to point B. It lays out roads and milestones to help you get to your destination, all while keeping you focused on your company goals.

In other words, a strategic business plan helps you create alignment and focus across all levels of your organization to maintain momentum and successfully execute your strategies .

And the best part is that it allows you to monitor performance in one place without having to switch between spreadsheets and disconnected systems. This simplifies identifying areas for improvement and measuring progress in real-time. With a well-integrated system, data errors are reduced, and performance analysis and strategy reporting become easier.

With the right template, you’ll be able to keep your team (or teams) on track and identify red flags before it's too late.

20 Strategic Plan Templates To Turn Your Goals Into Action

Success doesn't follow a set path—that's why this article gives you multiple strategic planning templates. Each is for a specific use case or team within your organization. Plus, you can pick between Cascade or Excel version—whichever works best for you.

1. Strategic Planning Template

If you're tired of using complicated spreadsheets for strategic planning, you’ll love the Strategic Planning Template —Cascade version!

This Cascade template offers you a better way than Excel and other static tools. It’s packed with pre-filled examples and features that will help you create a clear roadmap with timelines, KPIs, goals, and owners. You’ll be able to bring in your team and collaborate to transform goals into results faster than ever.

And there’s more! 👀

You’ll also get access to additional features like Dashboards , Timeline View, and Strategy Maps . This will help you pinpoint performance at any given moment and track progress so you can take corrective action before it’s too late.

You’ll be able to plan, execute , measure, and adapt your strategic plan in one place. You can even create multiple strategic plans and link them together so you have full visibility into performance.

Looking for a way to save time and automate your reports?

Cascade makes it easy for you with powerful Reports . With this template, you’ll get access to integrations that will help you automatically track key performance metrics and pull data into reports that can be easily customized to fit your target audience's needs.

How to use this template? Check out this quick video:

Start by tweaking the objectives, goals, and KPIs to meet your needs, and start executing your plan right away!

💡Best for: This is a general, pre-filled strategic planning template, so you can use it as inspiration and set your own strategic goals. It’s suitable for outcome-oriented teams at any level of organization, regardless of industry or company size.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Strategic Planning Template (Cascade version).

2. Strategic Plan Template (Excel)

Not feeling ready to elevate your strategic planning and execution to the next level?

Our simple Strategic Plan Template in an Excel spreadsheet will help you fill out key elements of a strategic plan, including the vision statement, strategic objectives, and key performance indicators (KPIs). With this template, you can also add an executive summary and create a one-page strategic plan that you can quickly share with your team or leadership.

Download your Excel template here.

However, Excel isn’t the best way to create a strategic plan . Here’s why:

• You usually end up with multiple strategic planning documents that are difficult to align and track in real-time.
• When you are using manual methods, using spreadsheets to track performance, you run the risk of errors.
• You spend too much time collecting data and pinging your team members to collect the latest information on progress.

Excel is a great starting point for strategic planning, but you should consider the Excel alternative to streamline strategic planning and execution— Cascade , the strategy execution platform designed for teams of all sizes.

“ Cascade provides a readily accessible platform for hosting our strategy and enables us to generate live updates at the push of a button. It has increased transparency and accountability for our Strategic Priorities and has allowed us to remove silo working and improve alignment . The real game changer from my perspective is the reporting function. Cascade has turned a labor-intensive manual process into something which can be completed in minutes . ” - Enterprise user, Source: G2 review .

3. Business Strategy Template

Like the general strategic planning template above, the Business Strategy Template is loaded with features that will help you achieve business goals faster.

You’ll be able to set your organization’s strategic direction, long-term goals, business objectives, and KPIs to measure progress.

This business plan template will help you communicate business priorities, break down siloed teams, and gain real-time visibility into what’s happening across the business.

💡Best for: This is a pre-filled business strategy template, so you can use it as inspiration and streamline your business planning process. It can be used by leadership teams in organizations of any size, including enterprises and startups.

👉 Click here to get your Business Strategy Template.

4. Operations Plan Template

Operations are the core engine of an organization’s performance. With this Operational Plan Template , you'll be able to plan your company's operational strategy in a way that helps your employees maximize the resources you have and gain a competitive edge.

You can build a high-level strategic plan for your operations or set goals for each of your departments. This will help you keep your teams accountable for progress and have visibility into what’s happening in your key areas.

By using Reports , you can build tailored progress reports and provide up-to-date information to your executive team at any time. This will help you save time, ensure accuracy, and build trust with your board by giving them insights into the company’s performance.

On top of that, you can link your operational plan template with the overarching business strategy. This will help you stay aligned with business goals, and your teams will have the needed context to make aligned decisions on a daily basis.

💡Best for: Chief operating officers (COOs) and operations teams that need to align day-to-day operations with strategic business goals and ensure they deliver on performance.

👉 Click here to get your free Operational Plan Template.

5. Human Resources Plan Template

A strong HR Strategic Plan Template is very helpful not only in the hiring process but also in defining the workplace culture and the types of people your organization wants to work with. With this template, you can set KPIs and track progress toward set targets in real time.

💡Best for: Business leaders, HR managers, and HR teams that need to support business goals with a clear HR roadmap.

👉 Click here to get your free HR Strategy Template.

6. Balanced Scorecard Template

A balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategic planning tool that helps organizations track, monitor, and execute their business strategy.

This template will help you set goals, KPIs, and projects for each of the four perspectives within the balanced scorecard framework.

You’ll also get access to Dashboards where you can set up real-time dashboards to monitor progress within each perspective. Using the Cascade template, you will have a complete view of your balanced scorecard in one place.

💡Best for: Strategy teams, business leaders, and managers that are using a balanced scorecard methodology in their organizations.

👉 Click here to get your Balanced Scorecard Template.

7. OKR Template (Excel)

In recent years, OKRs have become one of the most popular performance management frameworks. Some are raving fans, and others cringe at their mention. If you fall into the first category, here's the OKR template that'll help you set and meet your OKRs.

You can use it to set OKRs at a company, team, or individual level.

💡Best for: Business and team leaders who are already familiar with the OKR framework and want to track performance.

👉 Read more and grab your OKR Template here.

8. Digital Transformation Plan Template

A digital transformation goes beyond implementing digital tools in your processes. It requires an organization-wide shift. This Digital Transformation Strategic Planning Template will help you build a digital transformation plan that takes into account all areas of your organization that need to change.

You'll be able to define focus areas, set clear goals, KPIs, and projects, which are all needed for a successful transformation.

Digital transformation is the responsibility of the whole organization. Using this template, you’ll make sure your team has the context and the right information so they can help you implement digital transformation initiatives across the organization.

Another key benefit of this template is that you’ll have all the data centralized in one place. This will help you make informed decisions and keep your digital transformation strategy from failing.

And yes, you can connect it with your favorite business tools , including Power BI, Tableau, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Microsoft Outlook.

💡Best for: Leadership, CIOs, transformation managers , and teams responsible for developing a digital transformation roadmap and implementing initiatives across the organization.

👉 Click here to get your Digital Transformation Strategic Planning Template.

9. IT Strategy Template

This Cascade IT Strategic Plan Template will help you outline your bold initiatives to transform, modernize, and optimize your IT landscape. Bring in your IT team and collaborate on shared goals.

Also, you'll be able to link your IT strategic plan to your business strategy and ensure the executive team understands how IT projects help achieve business goals. You’ll be able to demonstrate the interdependencies across IT initiatives that impact financial performance.

This template will help you prioritize key IT initiatives to support business outcomes and keep track of progress.  

💡Best for: CTOs, CIOs, IT directors, and IT teams that are responsible for IT strategic planning and implementation.

👉 Click here to get your free IT Strategic Plan Template.

10. Change Management Plan Template

Need a template to build a change management plan that will support your business strategy? Look no further.

This Change Management Plan Template will help you define a clear timeline, action steps, and clear expectations for those who will be involved in change implementation.

💡Best for: Leaders who own the change strategy and need to make a plan and monitor key metrics associated with change initiatives.

👉 Click here to get your Change Management Template.

11. Digital Marketing Strategy Template

Build your digital marketing plan with this free template. You’ll be able to set goals, assign owners, and track the performance of key marketing metrics. This Digital Marketing Plan Template can be your living document as you scale marketing activities and serve as a North Star for your marketing team.

💡Best for: This template is designed for marketing teams aiming to expand their presence virtually and businesses aiming to go global or gain an international customer base. Digital content creators, project management teams, social media managers, digital CRM analysts, e-commerce executives, public relations specialists, and user experience specialists might also find this template useful.

👉   Click here to get your FREE Digital Marketing Strategy Template.

12. McKinsey's 3 Horizons Strategy Template

This strategic planning template is based on McKinsey’s Three Horizons Framework . It helps you organize the organization’s goals into three timeframes:

• Horizon 1: Short-term initiatives and projects that will help you achieve business goals within a few months or a year. The focus of this horizon is to maintain and defend your core business.
• Horizon 2: This horizon focuses on extending your current business models that will pay off in 2 or 3 years.
• Horizon 3: Long-term strategic initiatives and investments that will create new business models or products in 3-5 years. Or later - depending on your strategic planning cycles.

The key benefit of the Three Horizons template is that it gives you a complete picture of your three horizons. On top of that, you'll be able to update key goals and initiatives with just a few clicks. A new update will be reflected in all subgoals or project plans that are linked. If you want to outperform your rivals or merely survive in uncertain times, you must be able to quickly adapt your strategy and plans.

💡Best for: Leadership and strategy teams who are responsible for strategic planning at a company level.

👉 Click here to get your Three Horizons Strategic Plan Template.

13. Retail Strategic Plan Template

This Retail Strategic Plan Template provides an example of a corporate strategic plan for companies in the retail industry. You can use it as inspiration to develop a strategic plan for your retail business .

💡Best for: Strategy teams and business leaders within the retail industry.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Retail Strategic Plan Template.

14. SWOT Analysis Template (Excel)

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps you identify the internal strengths, weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats that can impact the organization’s growth initiatives and pursuit of its goals.

You can also use it to perform a competitive analysis but you need to look at it through different lenses—from the competitor’s perspective.

💡Best for: Leadership, strategy teams, and other functional teams that are responsible for formulating strategies and strategic plans.

👉 Click here to download your SWOT Analysis Template.

15-17. Internal Analysis Toolkit

In this collection, you will find 5 different templates to help you with internal analysis, including:

• Gap Analysis Template
• McKinsey 7S Framework Template
• Core Competencies Analysis

An internal analysis is an important step before drafting a strategic plan. It will help you carry out your competitive analysis, identify your current situation, and set action plans and relevant strategic goals.

💡Best for: Leadership, strategy teams, and other stakeholders that are involved in the strategic planning process.

👉 Get your internal analysis toolkit here.

18. VRIO Strategy Template

What’s the point of analysis if you don't use those insights to solve your business problem?

VRIO analysis helps you look at your resources and skills to see where your business is lacking. This is important if you want your business to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Once you’ve found your gaps, you need to make a plan and set goals that will help you develop the missing resources and capabilities.

This VRIO Strategy Template will help you set clear strategic objectives, assign KPIs, and monitor performance so you can gain a competitive advantage and a market leadership position.

💡 Best for: Strategy teams, COOs, and portfolio managers who are in charge of business development and business strategic planning.

👉 Click here to get your free VRIO Strategy Template.

19. Nonprofit Business Plan Template

Our Nonprofit Business Plan Template provides you with a comprehensive framework to develop a strategic plan specifically tailored to the unique needs and challenges of nonprofit endeavors. It serves as a roadmap, guiding you through the strategic planning process and ensuring that your nonprofit's initiatives are aligned with your core mission and objectives.

💡 Best for: Nonprofit leaders, board members, and teams dedicated to advancing nonprofit missions.

👉 Get your Nonprofit Business Plan Template here

20. Operating & Financial Model Template (Excel)

This template is your go-to for turning numbers into smart moves. You can establish your financial projections, automate your P&L statements, key financial and operational metrics, and even gain access to real-time automated dashboards.

With our Operating & Financial Model Template in Excel format, you'll grasp what your financial and operational metrics are really saying and act on these insights. Keeping a close eye on these key indicators will allow you to approach your planning process with clear data rooted in reality.

👉 Get your Operating & Financial Model Template here!

📚 Read our article to learn more about this template : The Ultimate Operating & Financial Model Template (Free Spreadsheet)

👀 Did you find what you were looking for? If not, you can explore our template library with 100+ strategy templates that will assist you in planning and executing your strategy. You can select between various strategic planning templates tailored for business leaders, specific departments, or industries.

5 Steps You Shouldn't Miss In The Strategic Planning Process

Here’s a short recap of each step so you know what to keep in mind before diving deep into the strategic planning process.

Step 1: Decide on your key metrics

How can you make a plan if you don’t know where you want the plan to take you?

This is the moment where you define your desired future state and align on the key metrics the whole company will need to work on to get there.

These should be no more than 4-5 and present in every strategic discussion.

💡 Pro Tip : To be able to set realistic key metrics for the future, you need to understand where you are today. Maybe you have a clear diagnosis of your current state, but if you don’t, we suggest you assess it before setting these metrics. But beware of analysis paralysis! Make a quick analysis and move.

Step 2: Choose your focus areas

Now that you know where you need to go, you can give your plan a little structure by setting focus areas. These are the areas that you’ll want to focus on to achieve those key metrics you defined in the previous step.

📚Recommended reading : Strategic Focus Areas: How To Create Them + Examples

Step 3: Define your strategic objectives

Strategic objectives are high-level statements that outline exactly what you want to accomplish by a specific deadline.

In other words, it is something that can be tangibly achieved and should contribute to achieving at least one of your strategic focus areas.

📚Recommended reading : How to Write Strategic Objectives .  

Step 4: Assign projects & set KPIs

Projects and KPIs will ensure you move forward toward achieving your strategic objectives.

Projects will determine the actions that you’ll carry out to achieve the objectives, and your KPIs will help you understand and measure the progress toward them.

Having projects and KPIs in place will provide a clear roadmap with important milestones you need to hit to get closer to achieving your key metrics.

💡 Pro Tip : KPIs are necessary for any business, whether public, private, or non-profit, so think about the KPIs that are more relevant to your organization. To make them realistic and achievable, we suggest you use the SMART methodology.

📚Recommended reading:

• How To Create Effective Projects
• How to write KPIs

Step 5: Constantly monitor and iterate

Things don’t always work out the way we plan.

Part of building your strategic plan is to monitor its progress toward the goals you set. With real-time tracking, you can quickly pinpoint those things that aren’t working and adapt fast to get back on track. That’s why strategic planning must be an iterative process .

🎁 Bonus Tip: Don’t forget your core elements—Vision Statement & Core Values

This is not a step in your strategic planning process, but it’s an important consideration.

Always remember to align your plans with the overarching core elements of your organization:

• Vision statement— your company’s North Star that guides the direction
• Mission statement —the “why” behind your company’s existence
• Core values— the behaviors you celebrate and preach as a company
• How To Write A Good Vision Statement
• How to Create Company Values

Now that you know the steps you need to effectively plan your strategy, get your FREE strategic planning template to streamline the process!

Use Cascade To Plan And Execute Your Strategy 🚀

Too often, strategies live in the minds of intellectuals, spread through the organization via a fancy PowerPoint once a quarter. In truth, this approach will never work.

Organizations today are operating on razor-thin margins, and leaders need to be able to guarantee organizational-wide alignment, real-time visibility of the progress, and accelerated decision-making to maximize efficiency.

This is where Cascade becomes your favorite business tool. Cascade is the #1 strategy execution platform that helps organizations embrace a strategy rooted in reality.

With Cascade, you get less chaos, more visibility, and faster results. By connecting your metrics, initiatives, and investments to your business performance, you’ll be able to make better decisions, faster.

Here’s what you get with Cascade:

• Streamline strategy development by simplifying complexity.
• Directly link your business data to core initiatives.
• Gain insight into the synergy of various organizational plans.
• Monitor activity interactions, log dependencies, blockers, and risks.
• Utilize dashboards and reports to assess strategic performance and share with stakeholders.
• Enjoy over 1,000 integrations with popular business tools like Teams, Jira, Airtable, Microsoft Outlook, Power BI, and more.

Streamline your strategic planning process with our tested and proven strategic plan templates .

What is the purpose of a strategic plan?

A strategic plan helps you build a roadmap to get your business or team from where it is today to where it wants to be in the future. It provides strategic clarity to all involved stakeholders, so they can make informed decisions on a daily basis.

How do you write a strategic plan?

One of the most effective ways to write your strategic plan is to choose one of the strategic planning models and follow step-by-step instructions. Read more in this in-depth overview of the 5 best strategic planning models.

What are the 7 elements of a strategic plan?

The seven elements of a corporate strategic plan are vision, values, focus areas, objectives, KPIs, projects, and initiatives . You can write a strategic plan for a team or department focusing only on five key elements—without vision and values.

Who should use a strategic planning template?

Anyone in a leadership role who needs to align their team (or teams) on specific goals, objectives, and initiatives, should use a strategic planning template. It's also helpful for anyone who needs to create a visual representation of their strategies, so they can be communicated and implemented across the organization.

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Strategic Plan Template

Use our template to develop a strategic plan that you can adapt to reflect your institution's changing priorities. The template provides direction on four steps of the planning process: performance analysis, market assessment, plan design, and plan evaluation.

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People have different opinions about the schools they attended and graduated. Adjectives such as terrible, exhausting, sad, hard, gets mixed up with memorable, experiential, happy, full of learnings once one could encounter a question about where they got their education and some just have mixed emotions while remembering it. The school can be a good memory because of the friends you met and got to enjoy and yet at the same time, it can be so sad and tiring because of sleepless nights trying to study in order for you to ace a subject. You may also see IT strategy plan templates .

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• You can know when a theory can be used in its proper time
• It challenges you to become a better version of yourself
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How to create a marketing plan [free template].

What is a Marketing Plan?

What is a marketing plan template, use workamajig’s free marketing plan templates, how to write a marketing plan that works, build & execute your marketing plan with workamajig, browse more blogs.

As the famous Benjamin Franklin quote says, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This rings especially true in highly competitive industries, and even more so with the rise of social media and the vast array of options for selling products and services.

It can be easy to get lost among all the options available, which means you need a framework for quickly and successfully launching and supporting your brand, product, or service in the market.

This is where a marketing plan comes in.

A marketing plan outlines a company’s overall marketing strategy, including the research and data that support it. Key information that comprise a marketing plan include:

• Company information : highlighting its relevance to the strategy in place
• Company, market, and competitor research: isolating and informing high-value marketing opportunities
• Concrete marketing plans: outlining goals, activities, and resources for enabling success

Marketing plans are typically laid out over a year but can change depending on the team’s objectives—the more frequently you need to create one, the more valuable it becomes to do it efficiently. This is where a marketing plan template comes in handy.

A marketing plan template is a tool used to build a comprehensive marketing strategy. It mainly eliminates the manual work of identifying and structuring the key information we outlined above. This allows you to focus on the actual task of building your marketing strategy, from setting goals and conducting research to identifying activities and resources essential to your campaigns. Our template is designed to cover these essentials while also leaving room for you to tailor content and sections to your specific needs.

Why Are These Important?

Alignment and efficiency are the overarching themes when creating a marketing plan and building an easy marketing plan template. For starters, a marketing plan helps establish a clear set of goals and objectives, which allows teams to optimize their efforts toward the same outcome. It also qualifies as an effective risk management tool when done right by clearly outlining stakeholders and their responsibilities for minimal overlap, as well as budget allocations and projections to ensure that planned activities are equipped to succeed.

When you create a marketing template, you achieve even more efficiency. This allows for more seamless creation of new marketing plans to fit new requirements and continuous learning from using and evaluating an established format.

The difference between a marketing plan and an effective one is subtle yet critical to your success. A basic marketing plan template should be:

•   Simple: by following a straightforward approach, using terms and a structure that’s easy to digest, both for the one creating it as well as those reading it,
• Interesting: with expertly designed layouts or formats that synergize well with the outline/structure and
• Versatile: allowing you to freely and easily add, remove, or rearrange sections and information to make sense of your strategy.

Below, we’ve created two free marketing plan templates that are designed around the above principles.

The Google Slides template is designed for more flexible layouts and more images.

The Google Docs template offers a more straightforward approach.

To begin using either template, click the matching link above and select File > Make a copy.

While you’re free to start populating the template however you like, there are ways to optimize this activity further. Below, we’ve reorganized the various sections in our template so you can populate them in an order that makes sense; these are grouped into five phases: Introduction, Research, two Strategy phases, and Polish. By following this section like a step-by-step guide, you would prioritize sections that inform other parts of the document so that you can complete each part almost in one go.

Introduction

First, fill in your Title Page before navigating to the Company Overview. This is like the ‘About Us’ section of a website and will help stakeholders learn about your business by filling in the following:

• Your Company Name
• Where your company is located (Headquarters)
• Your market category and a summary of the products or services you provide (Category, Products & Services)
• Your Mission Statement

It’s important to create a mission statement if you don’t have one yet—this gives both you and your audience a vivid impression of what your company is about and what it’s trying to achieve, which would be an important piece to understanding why your whole marketing plan can be expected to work. Your goal here is to write a mission statement that is clear and easy to understand.

An option to include information about your team or other specific individuals within the company is included. This would make sense if a specific group of individuals in your company is involved; the alternative implies that the plan may involve efforts from across the entire organization.

After wrapping up your introductory sections, it’s time to collect data to inform your marketing strategy. In this phase, we’ll be looking at your company, your customers, and your competitors and using that to identify your ideal client.

Start with the SWOT Analysis. This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Here is a quick rundown and some guide questions for identifying each section:

• Strengths refer to internal advantages that your company might have over your competition. For example, do you have a strong brand reputation? Do you have a tried-and-tested pipeline and track record for launching successful marketing campaigns? Do you have a sizable budget? How about highly skilled employees?
• Weaknesses outline the opposite—these are factors that might put you at a disadvantage against competitors. These are often related to either a limited budget or a lack of skills or experience.
• Opportunities serve to highlight external factors that you might be able to use to your advantage. Consider this: are there relevant changes to market trends or consumer behavior? Have new market segments emerged? Are there new business models you can utilize in your strategy?
• Threats, on the other hand, are external factors that could negatively affect your business. Look into the following: Have new competitors emerged, or have existing competitors experienced substantial growth or change? Has the economy taken a turn for the worse? Are your customers’ preferences seemingly changing? Are there notable changes in technology or the environment to worry about?

Next, move to Customer Analysis. This is the process of evaluating and understanding different aspects of your consumer base, including their preferences and habits. This is fundamental to your overall strategy, as customer satisfaction almost always directly correlates to greater returns. A customer analysis is mainly broken down into demographics, which relate to their biological, educational, professional, and marital information, and psychographics, which relate to their behaviors, thought processes, and preferences. This also includes exploring various external factors that might influence their purchasing decisions, such as events and the offerings of competitors.

Once that’s finished, navigate to your Competitor Analysis section. This is the process of analyzing competitors who offer similar products or services or operate within the same industry or market as your company. This includes inspecting their overall strategy, including branding, operations, and promotion, identifying strengths and what resonates with their market or yours, and looking into areas where they might be lacking. This helps inform opportunities for your plan to stand out and succeed.

Finally, you can jump back to the Buyer Persona. A buyer persona is a detailed description of your target audience or customer built on the market research you conducted above; this includes existing data on your customers—this would include demographic information, motivations, and behavior, among other details. This helps businesses build a deeper understanding of their audience and is used to anchor marketing, sales, communication, and product development strategies to satisfy a given persona’s needs and preferences. Creating an effective buyer persona now will help build strategy for meaningful engagement.

Strategy-Building (Part 1)

Completing the previous sections should result in a clear picture of your position in the market. You can now use that to build the marketing plan's meat thoroughly. For starters, you will want to find the Goals section—our guide on SMART goals has everything we believe you will need to fill in this part of the plan.

Next, we will be tackling the Marketing Mix in two parts.

Product. In this section, discuss the products and/or services you intend to release or market as part of this strategy. This means outlining various features, design elements, or variants that will be available to customers.

Pricing. This is where you’ll be outlining amounts—how much will each of the products you included previously cost? When determining these, it’s critical that you consider your buyer persona, as well as competitor pricing and any promotions or discounts that might be part of your strategy. This will further increase your products’ perceived value among customers, especially your target market. Tables are a great formatting tool here; you can also link to an external spreadsheet, where you have more room to create a detailed pricing scheme.

Place. This section discusses how you would make products or services available to customers. It includes the method by which sales are generated (e.g., retail, online, direct), as well as strategies for storing, housing, and distributing inventory. Your main consideration here is making sure that your products and services are as convenient and efficient to access as possible in order to sufficiently meet customer demand.

The second part of the marketing mix covers both the Promotion and Marketing Channels sections. This is done so you can cross-reference between the two sections, ensuring that they are updated to synergize with one another.

The Promotion section primarily focuses on how you will help customers understand the value of your products and services, including tools and techniques for providing support across the customer journey (before, during, and after a sale.) A critical consideration here is ensuring the methods align with your goals while respecting your brand identity.

Marketing Channels then focus on the what or where of your promotion plan, which is typically broken down into traditional, digital, retail, and event marketing channels. Building this section relies heaviest on your buyer persona and the specific products and services you’re looking to promote—understanding where you can best reach your existing market or attract new eyes is important here.

Working on these sections first allows you to transition seamlessly to your Unique Value Proposition. Use this section to talk about how or why your products/services are a better choice than the competition. Your customer and competitor analysis would feed a lot of information here.

Strategy-Building (Part 2)

The second phase of your strategy will move between the template's Performance Management and Budget sections.

Under Performance Management , it’s time to identify your Key Metrics. Also known as key performance indicators (KPI) are quantifiable measures that determine your campaign or strategy’s progress or success. To assist with this, look back at your Goals section to see what factors can be represented by numbers and data—for some of these, you may need to derive them from computations of other factors. Common key metrics include total conversions, conversion rate, click-through rate, and social media engagements.

At this point, you can freely work on two sections simultaneously: Monitoring & Evaluation Methods and  Projected Expenses.

Monitoring & Evaluation Methods answers the question of how you will collect the metrics listed. Include relevant tools and data collection methods to be used here.

Projected Expenses refer to an itemized list of unique costs required to execute the strategy. This includes hardware and software needs, resources needed to run online or in-person events and promotions, travel and other logistics, and even compensation for in-house or outsourced manpower. A table is a great way to format information here.

Once all of that is ready, you can begin working on Projected Returns . In this section, you want to outline how this strategy is expected to generate value beyond just the immediate sale of whatever products or services are being offered and how much each of these sources is expected to contribute. From here, you can define your expected return on investment (ROI) by subtracting the total earnings from the costs in your Projected Expenses section.

You will notice that only one section remains—jump back to the early part of the template to work on your Executive Summary. This section combines all of the sections into a big-picture pitch. Your highest priorities here are summarizing your Goals, Marketing Mix, Unique Value Proposition, and Projected Returns sections.

Now that you’ve filled in all template sections double-check everything for errors or omissions.

A marketing plan serves as the blueprint for your success over time. A marketing plan template ensures that you can quickly and expertly craft a strategy while allowing for continuous improvement.

With Workamajig, the premier agency management software , you have an all-in-one solution for planning, organizing, and delegating these efforts and easily transitioning between the phases of every project. Easily adjust your schedule or modify task requirements and assignees to ensure efficiency, and use native reporting tools to measure your progress and identify and address roadblocks along the way.

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