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10 Free Action Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp

Content Partnership Specialist

February 15, 2024

Blueprint, action plan, roadmap— tomato, to-mah-to! 🍅

Whether you’re pursuing a professional goal , developing a product, or building a house, you always start with a detailed plan to guide your next steps.

But it’s a little easier said than done. 👀

Powerful project management software is the key to creating and overseeing comprehensive action plans. And choosing the right action plan template for your software is the key to saving time on this step-by-step process while making sure you cover all the bases! 🔑

Even simple projects and goals require organized action plans, and action plan templates provide the perfect framework to help you turn these plans into a reality! While there are tons of templates at your disposal, they each carry a unique set of features and value depending on the size of your team, project, or goal.

Instead of combing through pages and pages of search results, start here, with 10 of the best action plan templates for ClickUp , Excel, and Word. You can access each template directly from this blog, and did mention they’re all completely free? 💸

What is an Action Plan Template?

What features make for a good action plan template, 1. clickup action plan template, 2. clickup corrective action plan template, 3. clickup employee engagement action plan template, 4. clickup cybersecurity action plan template, 5. clickup smart action plan template, 6. clickup daily action plan template, 7. clickup action priority matrix whiteboard template, 8. clickup management action plan template, 9. microsoft word action plan template, 10. excel business action plan template, step 1: define your end goal, step 2: break down the goal into manageable tasks, step 3: organize tasks into a timeline, step 4: assign responsibilities, step 5: define success metrics, step 6: review and adapt the plan, step 7: communicate and implement the plan, step 8: monitor progress and update as necessary, step 9: complete and review.

Your action plan is a detailed checklist of items that must happen in order to complete a project or reach a goal. You can make an action plan for virtually anything —and you probably already have!

Think of your action plan as a thorough list of every task included in a workflow or steps in a process. But what makes your action plan different than a simple to-do list is the amount of organization, information, and detail involved.

Your plan justifies the who, what, where, and when of your project and shows how each related task ties back to those ideas. This helps project managers streamline workflows and ensures that every action item is absolutely necessary.

Action plan templates take the “set up” out of setting up your roadmap. Your template may come in the form of a pre-built flowchart, list, document, or table where you can essentially plug and play your project’s information in the proper areas to guide your next steps in the process.

They’re excellent resources to have on hand for fleshing-out fresh ideas, during employee performance reviews when you’re planning professional growth, and so much more. Plus, action plan templates can be customized to more specific use cases and are designed to help you think more proactively and strategically about building processes .

What are the best features to look for in your next action plan template? In a nutshell, there’s a lot to keep in mind.

An action plan template helps you stay on top of your workflows and be more strategic about how you approach them. And since projects vary in complexity, industry, scope, and timelines, no two action plan templates will look or function the same. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re looking for the template that best suits your needs, rather than the one that’s just doing the most.

A good rule of thumb is to stick to these five qualities:

• Multiple views : The ability to choose the way you visualize and complete tasks will put the power back in your hands when it comes to structuring and executing your projects. Every team member works differently, and whether you’re a visual learner or prefer working from a list, multiple views make every person’s preference possible.
• Highly visual : Especially during brainstorming sessions and R&D, having the option to map out steps in a process is a major asset. Whether your team is using a digital whiteboard or mind map software , highly visual flowcharts and diagrams turn action planning into a more collaborative experience.
• Intuitive UI : Your template might have all the right features, but if the team can’t figure out how to use them, the value is gone! Make sure your action plan template is easy to navigate, customize, and edit.
• Collaborative and sharable : An action plan template can be for the entire team, not just the project manager. Everyone involved (including stakeholders) should have easy access to your template and the ability to add updates as needed.
• Tons of integrations : Integrations extend the functionality of your project management software and fill any feature gaps your template might have.

And that’s just to name a few! Your team or project might require a few other more specific features, but starting with these five will guarantee a powerful and useful business action plan template .

10 Free Action Plan Templates

Now that you’ve got the essentials down, it’s time to set your search in motion! Luckily, project management is kind of our thing. 🤓

We’ve done our homework to bring you 10 of the best project action plan templates for ClickUp, Excel, Word, and more. And the best part? You can download them directly from this blog without even spending a dime. 💰

Taking the time to create a plan with actionable steps can provide invaluable structure for simple to complex projects!

The ClickUp Action Plan Template sets the stage to review action plans daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly on a Whiteboard. This process will help make goal-setting easier by providing a simple way to structure the action items, determine deadlines and resources, and track progress toward your objectives. 

If this is your first time using a digital whiteboard , no worries! The Getting Started guide inside this template will walk you through how to set up your canvas. 🎨

A Corrective Action Plan (CAP) is a structured action plan outlining the steps needed to address problems and improve the performance of a role, process, or system.

With the ClickUp Corrective Action Plan Template , it’s easy to consolidate data and ideas so everything is in one place. The main elements of a CAP in this Whiteboard project action plan template are organized to shorten the time it takes from identifying a mistake to implementing a solution:

• Areas for Improvement : Identify the fields around your business operations or team performance that needs changes and attention
• Problems and Root Causes : Define the challenges, roadblocks, and supporting information of each to analyze and develop a solution
• Possible Solutions : Consider every factor involved in your corrective plan, and list down all the possible solutions to make a change for improvement
• Measure of Success : Define your success that’s measurable through key performance indicators or metrics that are applicable and beneficial to your team and overall operations
• Task Owners : Assign specific team members to every task 
• Timeline: Allocate enough time to prepare for transitions and improvement as you go through this template

The ClickUp Employee Engagement Action Plan Template is a Doc packed with examples to increase employee satisfaction and engagement. It offers step-by-step instructions to get the most out of your template to measure progress on common HR goals :

• Business strategy
• People strategy
• Strategic priorities
• Communication plans

And that’s just the beginning! You can assign tasks directly in the Doc or connect your employee action plan template to tasks and share it with stakeholders. This reduces the number of feedback channels and shortens the time it takes to approve a plan or assign tasks to team members. 

Pro tip : Use subpages to add training programs, reward systems, and other related activities to keep all your work in one place!

A Cybersecurity Action Plan is a written framework outlining the steps and resources required to improve security posture. TechTarget defines security posture as “an organization’s overall cybersecurity strength and how well it can predict, prevent and respond to ever-changing cyber threats.” 

A comprehensive cybersecurity action plan starts with an assessment of an organization’s current security posture —analyzing existing policies, procedures, systems, and infrastructure in order to identify any gaps or areas of vulnerability.

Based on this assessment, actionable steps can be taken to improve technical and non-technical aspects of security like implementing new technologies, processes, and practices. ⚙️

The ClickUp Cybersecurity Action Plan Template is a beautifully-designed Doc for any Security team to quickly customize for audience impact and understanding. As you go through the action plan process, you can collaborate with your team in real-time or async! 

Use this free template to easily protect your ClickUp Docs with the Privacy and Edit controls to prevent unwanted changes to the content of your Pages.

The ClickUp SMART Action Plan Template helps project managers break down complex tasks into more manageable steps while considering the barriers of time, resources, and expertise. 

The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. This template organizes each SMART goal category while providing helpful prompts for success! After you’ve filled out each category, highlight your text to create actionable tasks and assign a completion date.

From there, you can navigate between your Doc and tasks easily without opening more browser tabs. 

Need to tweak or make mental notes on your action plan? There’s a section in this template just for that—the Follow Through section. Jot down the review date, key accomplishments, improvement areas, and support needed to keep track of all your work! 

The ClickUp Daily Action Plan Template is a worthy rival to your coveted to-do list on your company-branded notepad. 

A daily action plan is a blueprint template for organizing and prioritizing tasks throughout the day. It helps us to stay focused and productive, while also helping us to better manage our time. The process involves creating a list of tasks that need to be accomplished each day, assigning a time frame for each task, and most importantly, committing to completing them within that time frame. ⏳

Individuals or teams will benefit from its organized layout and connected view of organizational goals. To begin, open the Getting Started guide within the project action plan template to make it your own so you can use it every day! 

Discover more to-do list templates !

An Action Priority Matrix is a visualization tool to help anyone assess and rank tasks based on how much effort is required and how important completing the task is for achieving the overall goal. 

The action priority matrix typically includes four sections: action item/task, importance level, timeline, and completion status. This allows teams to easily rank action items by importance so they can make sure important tasks are completed first and within the allotted time frame. 

Tasks with the potential to improve performance or mitigate risks should be given higher priority than those with no direct impact. Similarly, tasks with short-term deadlines should be treated as a higher priority than long-term goals in an action plan’s timeline.

The ClickUp Action Priority Matrix Whiteboard Template is perfect for project managers looking to optimize their action plans in order to improve performance over time. Teams can more easily identify which tasks need attention first while tracking progress along the way. The Getting Started guide in this template includes formatting tips and examples to get your Whiteboard action plan ready!

Check out more matrix templates and matrix structure examples .

This ClickUp Management Action Plan Template is built to handle any project, but it’s especially helpful for larger or more complex situations. It provides a structured framework to explain your approaches while tracking progress!

The Doc comes with helpful tips and is organized by the following sections:

• Introduction to provide context on the problem
• Goals to list the plan’s success criteria and desired results
• Action Plan to detail specific tasks, projects, and team members
• Review and Approval to assign the responsible party

This detailed work plan template in Microsoft Word gives you an organized space to document a clear planning process. To track progress on your detailed work plan template, consider using a project management platform (like ClickUp) so you can bridge the necessary resources!

If you’re looking for a free sales action plan template in Microsoft Excel , we recommend this one! It comes with all the essential categories ( Action Item, Rank, Priority, Owner, Assigned, Due, Done, Status , and Notes ) to develop an effective action plan. 

Listing sales team members might become an administrative burden as roles change or new hires come on board. (Try the No. 6 ClickUp Daily Action Plan Template to avoid this issue!) 

You can also use this as a sales action plan template to keep track of budgets, progression, and sales employees. Using this as a sales action plan template could be a faster way to track your team’s work.

Explore other ClickUp action plan templates:

• Community Engagement Action Plan Template
• Real Estate Action Plan Template
• Fundraising Action Plan Template
• Construction Action Plan Template
• Outreach Action Plan Template
• Contingency Plan Templates

How to Create an Action Plan to Complete Tasks?

Creating an effective action plan is a critical step for businesses seeking to achieve strategic goals and operational improvements. This is where a comprehensive business action plan template becomes invaluable. Use the steps below along with one (or more!) of the ClickUp action plan templates above to get started!

Before diving into the planning process, it’s vital to have a clear understanding of what you aim to achieve with the project. This overarching objective will guide all subsequent actions and decisions, ensuring that every task contributes effectively to the end goal.

Once your goal is defined , list down all the tasks that need to be completed to achieve the goal. Breaking down the goal into smaller, more manageable tasks will make the action plan more approachable and easier to manage.

After task identification, organize them into a logical sequence with a start and end date. Consider dependencies between tasks and ensure there is a realistic timeline that accommodates potential delays or challenges.

Determine who in your team is best equipped to take on each task. Assigning tasks to individuals or teams based on their skills , expertise, and workload to ensure a balanced distribution of responsibilities.

It’s crucial to establish clear metrics for success to evaluate the progress and completion of tasks. This will help keep the project on track and ensure that the outcomes meet the expected standards.

An action plan should be a living document. Periodically review the plan to assess progress and make adjustments as needed. This allows you to address any issues promptly and adapt to changing circumstances.

Ensure that all team members understand the action plan and their roles within it. Clear communication is key to effective implementation. Once everyone is on board, put the plan into action.

As tasks are executed, continuously monitor progress against the plan’s timeline and success metrics. Update the plan as necessary to reflect any changes or shifts in strategy.

Upon completion of all tasks, conduct a final review of the project against your initial goals. This is a time to evaluate the effectiveness of the action plan and gather insights for future projects.

Create a Project Action Plan Template by ClickUp

Any of these 10 templates will start your project planning off on the right foot. But while they all share similarities, a select few stand out for their ease of use, customization abilities, power, and functionality…

Templates by ClickUp. 🙌🏼

ClickUp is more than your average project management tool—it’s the ultimate productivity platform and the only software powerful enough to centralize your work across apps into one collaborative hub.

In fact, ClickUp Whiteboards , Docs, and its 15+ unique project views are just a few of the reasons why teams across industries rely on ClickUp, and how it makes your action plans more valuable from start to finish.

Access the templates linked above and hundreds more from ClickUp’s Template Library , and tons of rich project management features across every pricing plan . Plus, ClickUp integrates with more than 1,000 other work tools to streamline business processes even further.

Sign up for ClickUp today and watch your action plans come to life. 🏆

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65 Free Action Plan Templates For Excel, Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and Google Docs

Last Updated on April 1, 2024 by Owen McGab Enaohwo

Featured Bonus Content: Get 65 Free Action Plan Templates! Click Here To Download It.

If you don’t want to spend years wishing you achieved your goals, you need to act on them now. The best way to do so is to have an action plan.

Having a long list of tasks to complete can be overwhelming. As you see the list grow, you may lose the motivation to do any of them. That said, if you have a step-by-step action plan that spells out your chores in achievable pieces, you can accomplish them without noticing.

Action plans assist in keeping track of your work progress. With an action plan in place, you’ll have an official start and end date, as well as an estimate of how long each step will take. You won’t have to spend mental energy each day trying to decide when and how to start. 

Also, you can use an action plan to keep track of your project budget and determine whether you need to change your time or resource estimates.

In this in-depth post, you’ll learn what an action plan is, why you need one, and how to make action plan templates on Microsoft Excel, Word, PDF, PowerPoint, and Google Docs.

We’ll also answer some frequently asked questions about action plans. Finally, we’ll give you access to 65+ free, editable, and downloadable action plan templates for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and Google Docs.

Let’s get started.

Chapter One: What is an Action Plan and Why Do You Need One?

Chapter Two: Action Plan Templates For Excel

Chapter Three: Action Plan Templates For Word

Chapter Four: Action Plan Templates For PDF

Chapter Five: Action Plan Templates For PowerPoint

Chapter Six: Action Plan Templates for Google Docs

Chapter Seven: How to Make an Action Plan on Excel, Word, and Google Docs

Chapter eight: action plan templates frequently asked questions (faqs), chapter nine: create and manage your action plans using sweetprocess.

Every situation benefits from having an action plan. It is a simple success roadmap if used judiciously. In your job, business, or personal endeavor, a well-designed action plan will highlight what to do at every point and assist you in tracking achieved tasks. 

For instance, do you want to switch to a tech career by a specific age? An action plan helps you consider your existing qualifications, identify your existing strengths, and point you to the courses you’re going to need to take to successfully achieve this transition. You can also include the top tech organizations you’ll hopefully transition into.  

If you’re working on a project, the action plan forces you to consider the number of resources you have at your disposal, the complexity of the project or objective at hand, and the level of detail necessary when executing the project. 

What is an Action Plan?

Action plans are communication tools that simplify complex tasks and initiatives. It is an organizational strategy framework for identifying steps that you must take to achieve a goal. 

When using an action plan, you should consider and map out specific tasks to help the organization set quality standards and save costs. This enables you to avoid trial and error as much as possible. 

An action plan is a social planning tool. With it, you can document actions that serve as a symbol of a company’s or nation’s accountability. 

For instance, an action plan might be used by a city to express plans to enhance a neighborhood. This could involve plans for adding green spaces, services, living streets, and better rail service.

Why You Need an Action Plan

Many companies have a growth strategy, but nothing gets done at the end of the day. This happens because they have no action plan to follow to provide a roadmap for how and when to complete each task. 

Your action plan is a working document that makes your strategy a reality. As a result, you achieve your tasks and allocate resources to your team for efficient job implementation.

You need an action plan so you can:

• Focus on specific goals

Action plans provide you with the framework to efficiently execute specific tasks, so you complete your work without distractions. 

• Logically complete tasks

It assists you in completing your tasks in a logical order and ensures that you do not overlook or miss any essential steps. 

• Effectively delegate tasks

Action plans make it easy to determine when you need to delegate or outsource tasks. The document quickly points you to what job to outsource and how to do it. That way, you’ll save time and effort as you’re able to delegate tasks that slow your progress or do not achieve the end goal for your business. 

• Efficiently keep records 

Having an action plan lets you document the time and resources you’ll likely spend on tasks. This way, you stay motivated and ensure that you complete your job in as short a period as possible.

• Avoid procrastination

With an effective action plan, you’ll avoid procrastination. This is because an action plan provides you with a visual map that documents achievement in a structured manner. As a result, it helps you see your progress when you need to complete each job faster. 

What You Should Include in Your Action Plan

Action plans are likely to fail for two reasons: You may not take action as written on the document, or you fail to include the essential points to make the path to success clear in the action plan.

When creating an action plan, here are the specifics to include to use it efficiently.

Define your goal

You need to understand your goal before creating an effective action plan. Having this at the top of your action plan motivates you to keep moving forward.

State the actions 

Write out the step-by-step actions that are involved in doing every task. This will help you to achieve your set goals and minimize decision fatigue.

List the persons in charge 

Mention the employees who will be handling each step. This introduces accountability to your action plan and creates a sense of responsibility in the mind of stakeholders.

Timeline 

You’ll be less likely to achieve your goals if you don’t attach your set goals to a particular deadline. Having a deadline for each step keeps you on your toes to effectively deliver your tasks.

Resources 

Identify the assets you need to allocate for each step. When resources are not available, your action plan will experience a delay. Therefore, in your action plan, ensure that you include plans to acquire the necessary resources to meet your project delivery deadline. 

Potential barriers 

Be mindful of the factors that can potentially hinder the completion of each step. Considering this will force you to have mitigation strategies in place for every foreseeable problem that arises.

Track your progress

It won’t be fair to realize that your goals won’t be met at the end of your task. You should track your progress to avoid this. Not tracking each process leads to mistakes and inefficiencies, and you’ll waste time going back to fix your errors. 

Why Use an Action Plan Template?

Are you a worker who wishes to enhance your job performance, or a project manager whose task is to delegate responsibilities to team members? 

You need an action plan to help organize human and material resources. With this, you can identify a clear route to meet your objectives and confidently manage related tasks in the most effective sequence to attain your goal.

But creating an action plan from scratch could be time-consuming for you. Hence, the need for an action plan template.

Action plan templates are industry-specific, ready-made documents that you can instantly download and use. 

You need to use action plan templates because they not only help you stay motivated and track your progress toward your goals, but they also help you save time as you can adopt them very quickly.

Whether you’re working alone or with others, action plan templates guide you in all categories of your work and can be a reference for those who should be held responsible for each task. Using an action plan template helps you prevent delays and errors.

Action plan templates enable you to transform your vision into attainable objectives and tasks. 

How to Make an Effective Action Plan

To make an action plan, here are steps to consider:

Step 1: Define the problem

The first step to solving a problem is to understand what it is. By identifying the problem, you can assess the circumstances surrounding the problem and examine possible solutions.

At this point, you’ll consider all ideas and ask for feedback from your team and the parties interested in solving the problem. 

Step 2: Gather and analyze information

The next step is to gather and analyze the collected data to support or reject whether the problem exists or has a different root cause than you anticipated. 

You would figure this out by asking questions like: 

• What is the root source of the problem?
• What do others think about the situation? 

Step 3: Define and prioritize the problems

In cases where you find there are more problems than the ones you envisioned, there is a need to prioritize them so that you may focus on the most pressing issues first. 

Ask yourself the following questions to assist you in sorting the concerns:

• Which issue is likely to cause more problems?
• Which problems have the most considerable influence on the operation’s long-term financial stability?

Step 4: Write a goal statement for each solution

Now that you’ve identified the problems and gathered information associated with it, write out the goals’ statement for each solution using the S.M.A.R.T framework. Setting S.M.A.R.T. objectives or goals means the goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. 

You should then look through the solutions and analyze them for difficulties. If you identify any, then find a solution as you proceed.

Step 5: Put solutions into action—the action plan

Next is to itemize the actual steps to solve the issues. 

An action plan developed this way will let you complete your tasks effectively and efficiently. It will also transform your elusive goal or strategy into a people-oriented solution. 

Then create your resulting action plan. This should answer what, when, how, where, and who.

Step 6: Evaluate your process

Walk through each action’s process. Evaluating the process is the best strategy to determine if the goal and action plan effectively resolve the issue. 

Sticking to a well-designed monitoring technique will assist you and your team in determining when the action plan requires revision.

Chapter Two: Action Plan Templates for Excel

Excel is an intuitive tool for creating an action plan template. We’ve compiled some free action plan templates for Excel below, which you can download, tweak, and use for your organization.

• Work action plan template 

Click here to download the Work Action Plan Template

The work action plan template contains a list of actions you must complete to accomplish a simple project. In addition, it has sections documenting needed resources, possible difficulties, and results. 

You can use your action plan to structure tactics and modest stages toward reaching long-term objectives. 

• Corrective action plan template

The corrective action plan template lets you spell out the steps needed to deal with an issue disrupting your organization’s operations. 

Businesses can streamline their procedures and remove errors when they use these templates. Corrective action can take numerous forms, including training, product redesigns, and other enhancements. This template enables users to make a cohesive action plan. 

• Mentoring action plan template

A mentoring action plan template identifies the mentor and mentee relationship’s actions and goals. With this template, you’ll have the themes to focus on to help your mentee define their professional goals.

• Excel sales action plan template

The Excel sales action plan template helps you plan your sales targets using the built-in flexibility of an Excel spreadsheet. This sales plan template is segmented into 12 months and divided into product lines. 

It includes columns for last year’s performance, current sales goals, and outcomes. It also lets you create a yearly sales strategy and compare statistics across products and over time.

• Maintenance action plan template

A maintenance action plan template is a document that outlines what must be done to keep assets in a facility in good working order. The information in the template will assist you in ensuring that an asset is used to its full potential. You can keep track of maintenance schedules using the estimated time column, and check and record accountability when the task is complete.

Chapter Three: Action Plan Templates for Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most straightforward tools for making an action plan template. It provides you with easy-to-use features to achieve an easy-to-read, comprehensive document.

Here are some free action plan templates for Word, which you can

download, tweak, and use for your organization.

• Project action plan template

The project action plan template provides you with a place to document the steps needed to finish a simple project or goal. In addition, it identifies the vital tasks you need to focus on to deliver your projects within timelines successfully. 

• Blank action plan template

The blank action plan template outlines a series of stages or activities that must be done to complete the work or task correctly. It helps you keep track of task accomplishments and the money and equipment needed to execute the action. 

• Sales action plan template

A sales action plan template outlines what you’ll do to meet your sales objectives, with an emphasis on the transactions and relationships you can build with clients.

Things included in this template are: 

• Who your top customer segments are
• Your revenue target
• How to structure your teams for success 
• Sample corrective action plan template

A sample corrective action plan template helps you lay out the process of prioritizing and correcting specific hazards or deficiencies in running your organization. In addition, it helps you to deal with any issue that may disrupt your workflow. 

It has sections to streamline your work process while eliminating errors.

• Startup action plan template

This startup business plan template includes the essential elements you’ll need to pitch investors and stakeholders on your business idea and strategy. 

An executive summary, a financial overview, a marketing plan, specifics on product or service offerings, and more are all included in the template.

• Personal development action plan template

The personal development action plan template provides you with an assessment for personal growth in the context of professional goals, education, relationship, or self-improvement. This is usually based on awareness, values, reflection, goal setting, and planning.

• Non-profit action plan template

A nonprofit action plan template outlines your organization’s current state and lays out a strategy for the next three to five years. It also details your objectives and plans for achieving your organizational goals. 

You need to consistently update your charity business plan to reflect your changing goals and circumstances.

• Account action plan template

The account action plan template provides your sales team with practical and effective strategies for transforming major account relationships into long-term partnerships. 

It serves as a tool for the sales team to plan and manage the account and keeps critical developments up to date for management. It’s also used to maintain control of the account’s performance.

• Basic action plan template

The basic action plan template contains sections to focus on when achieving your fundamental goals. It allows you to create action stages that you can prioritize and keep track of when completing your project while you measure progress and evaluate performance. 

• Education action plan template

An education action plan template allows you to monitor the progress of a new educator through the set objectives toward a goal of achieving professional growth. Also, it provides instructional assistance and comprehensive assessment across educational boards. 

•   Sample action plan template

This sample action plan template allows you to manage your work and complete tasks on schedule. It provides you with information such as the purpose of your plan, instructions for using it, goals, and action items. 

It also allows you to add the timeframe for completion, who is responsible, resources, potential hurdles, communication strategy, evaluation method, and so on.

•   Simple action plan template

The simple action plan template allows you to keep track of the tasks that must be accomplished daily to achieve a larger goal. You can document your objectives, task list, success criteria, timeframe, and available resources. Each page has a label where you may enter information about your firm in addition to tables and images.

Chapter Four: Action Plan Templates for PDF

You can easily create your action plan templates in PDF format. We’ve compiled 20+ free action plan templates for PDF, which you can

•  Recruitment action plan template

The recruitment action plan template helps you recruit potential partners for your company. It includes responsibilities for recruitment and appointment, and recruitment timing so that potential partners are tracked and approached on time.

• Team action plan template

The team action plan template includes sections for listing team members and keeping track of attendance at multiple planning sessions. 

It also includes all of the necessary components for producing an effective action plan for a team with a straightforward layout that makes group work more accessible. 

•   Epilepsy action plan template 

The epilepsy action plan template includes a section for healthcare providers and patients to collect data about the patient’s health. 

This template encourages healthcare practitioners to use a shared decision-making approach that allows the person with epilepsy and their family to engage as partners in all healthcare decisions in a collaborative relationship.

•   Emergency action plan template

The emergency action plan template outlines detailed procedures for dealing with any work-related situation that is likely to occur. An emergency action plan is a written strategy that specifies the proper response to several unforeseen emergencies. 

This template makes it easy to create and share emergency action plans that include names and phone numbers for emergency personnel, utility company emergency contacts, and training plans.

• Business action plan template

A business action plan template lays out the needed resources to achieve a goal, creates a timeframe for completing specific activities, and determines the resources required to achieve the business’s aim. 

This template has sections for recording required resources, future challenges, and ultimate outcomes. Successful completion of an action item may be the end outcome, or you might have discovered more actions needed during the process. 

• Incident action plan template

The incident action plan template is a written document that outlines the incident objectives and the techniques used to manage them over the operating time. 

It contains critical information on who to contact in an emergency, task assignments, resources, and safety requirements, based on the incident objectives.

• 90-day action plan template

A 90-day action plan template contains a framework for onboarding, acclimating, and educating new team members. It establishes expectations for what the person is expected to do in the first 90 days including learning and performance objectives.

A 90-day action plan template helps you set short- and long-term goals for new employees.

• Affirmative action plan template

An affirmative action plan template defines your company’s attempt to provide equitable employment opportunities and encourage employee progress regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, or veteran status. Based on federal rules, affirmative action should be reviewed and updated at least once a year.

• Strategic action plan template

A strategic action plan template provides you with steps needed to achieve strategic actions. It allows you to mobilize the resources needed to carry out those activities to ensure timely task delivery. 

• Housekeeping action plan template

The housekeeping action plan template shows how to recruit and train housekeeping staff. It delineates the goals and objectives for training as well as the training stages. 

• Human resources action plan template

The human resource action plan template provides a continual process of systematic planning beforehand to ensure that the organization’s most important asset (quality employees) are used to their full potential. 

Human resource planning ensures that employees and jobs are a good match while preventing labor shortages or surpluses.

• Church emergency action plan template

A church emergency action plan template is a document that provides answers to all questions of what, where, when, how, and who in a church emergency event. 

The more detailed the plan is, the less valuable time will be lost in a calamity. In addition, this plan can provide information on a familiar gathering spot in an emergency, ensuring that no one is left behind.

• Physical fitness action plan template

The physical fitness action plan template allows you to complete the daily fitness routine. By completing the fitness action plan you reduce the chances of developing certain illnesses and diseases that may arise due to inactivity. Physical activity aids in the maintenance of healthy bones, muscles, joints, as well as weight management. 

• Company emergency action plan template

The company emergency action plan template documents all the critical and significant information to create a solid emergency action plan. This template comes with various headers, sections, and fields that you can modify to suit your company’s specific needs.

• Discipline action plan template

A discipline action plan template contains the information necessary to maintain a company’s or organization’s standards of behavior. In the workplace, the purpose of discipline is to correct wrong behavior step-wise and document each step in the process. 

A disciplinary action policy can shield you from legal implications while also preventing issues from impacting your staff and company. 

•   Diving emergency action plan template

The diving emergency action plan template provides explicit instructions to help uneducated witnesses contact emergency personnel and provide them with details about diving accidents.

In an emergency, processing too much information wastes time. So information that includes a scuba-specific emergency hotline, standard emergency numbers, and diving locations are essential. 

• Personal mental health action plan template

The personal mental health action plan template makes personal health goals simpler for you, although planning personal health does take time and effort. 

Still, the template emphasizes the significance of prevention while also recognizing the critical role of mental health in achieving health for all individuals.

• Early years action plan template

The preschool or early years action plan template allows you to create the school action plan for your children, making it easier for them to learn and grow. 

As a teacher, you must establish an action plan for your students to benefit both the students and yourself.

• Library action plan template

The library planning action plan templates aid institutions in addressing broader shifts in how information is sought, accessed, and consumed so that students prepare ahead for success in an increasingly data- and knowledge-based world. 

Higher education institutions can use library strategic planning to save money, control rising student fees, and meet accreditation requirements.

• Presentation action plan template

The presentation action plan template provides a blueprint to prepare slides or collections of slides that you can use for a meaningful presentation. It includes layouts, colors, fonts, effects, background styles, and content to guide your presentation.

• Gender action plan template

The gender action plan template contains a road map for gender activities that a company or organization has adopted. 

Its goal is to make institutions’ operations more gender-responsive, transformative, effective, efficient, and successful by redressing existing gender disparities and redefining women’s and men’s gender roles and relationships through gender mainstreaming guidelines.

• Church mission action plan template

A church mission action plan template provides a hopeful and optimistic glimpse into the future. It’s the church’s inspiring, long-term plan for what they’ll be able to do, who they’ll help, and how they’ll be seen in the future. 

• Wellness recovery action plan template

A wellness recovery action plan template is a framework that teaches how to make positive personal adjustments in your feelings and how you respond to life’s obstacles. 

It is a self-designed preventive and wellness planning technique based on mutuality, self-determination, and the concept that resilience, recovery, and wellness have no bounds.

• Employee action plan template

An employee action plan template contains an incorporated performance planning process that maps out the steps an employee plans in order to achieve a particular goal or objective. 

It provides a process that an organization must develop to identify and prioritize their actions and identify quick and simple changes to demonstrate to employees that it is committed to implementing an action plan in response to employee engagement feedback.

• Family emergency action plan template

The family emergency plan template is a valuable document that helps you identify each family member’s roles in an emergency and guides you and your family members to work together as a team in the event of a disaster. 

It’s an essential aspect of any preparedness strategy and may help protect people’s lives, limbs, and property before, during, and after a disaster.

• Advertising action plan template

A marketing action plan template is a crucial tool that can assist your marketing department in determining the subsequent measures to take to improve the company’s marketing procedures. 

It has both a marketing strategy and an action plan. The vision, goals, and target audience of your organization are defined in the strategic component of the design.

• Printable action plan template

The printable action plan template provides you with a solid reference point for gathering and printing actual copies of action plans without the need for any special software or device. In addition, it gives ease in writing on them and highlighting essential portions of relevant themes. 

• Internal audit corrective action plan template

The internal audit corrective action plan template helps you adhere to the step-by-step instructions to conduct the financial inspection of your company. In addition, it allows you to determine cost-saving strategies and reveal spending deficiencies.

It is the state where you can discover the answer to your financial situation’s nonconformity. The strategy aims to avoid and regulate the recurrent problem. It addresses the issue at its source and reduces the likelihood of recurrence.

Chapter Five: Action Plan Templates for PowerPoint

PowerPoint helps you visualize your action plan. Here are some free and downloadable action plan templates for PowerPoint, which you can download, tweak, and use for your organization.

• Meeting minutes action plan template

The meeting minutes action plan template contains written notes taken during a meeting. They emphasize the essential subjects debated, motions made or voted on, and activities carried out. 

You can use the meeting minute template to keep track of your project or company meetings. This easy-to-follow, step-by-step template for minutes contains a formatting style that everyone in the conference will appreciate.

• Task action plan template

A task action plan template is a document that outlines the steps necessary to achieve your goal. A solid action plan will specify all of the required procedures to attain your goal and assist in reaching your target efficiently by giving each stage in the process a start and end date. It also breaks down the goal into short, quantifiable activities, which might assist in achieving your objectives. 

• Project planning timeline

A project planning timeline template encompasses the whole duration of your project, from beginning to end, and includes the dates of each deliverable and project milestone in chronological sequence. It allows the project manager to see all the tasks in one spot, making planning easy.

Chapter Six: Action Plan Templates for Google Docs 

Google Docs helps you create action plan templates for your business

from scratch. Here are some editable and downloadable action plan

templates for Google Docs, which you can download, tweak, and use for

your organization.

• Retention action plan template

The employee retention action plan template contains an easy-to-edit format to assist with adjustments to the employer-employee contract. Using retention action plan templates makes it easy to keep your valuable human resources team . 

Some of the standard components of the retention action plan include survey and exit interview analyses, the employer’s strengths and weaknesses, the retention plan’s purpose, and finally, the exact measures to be implemented.

• Reading action plan template

The reading action plan template outlines the steps you’ll take to reach your reading objective. This involves the reading exercise, rewriting the learned concepts through the recall process, and taking meaningful notes. Maybe you need to ace an exam or teach an idea to others; the reading action plan template is a tool to achieve reading success.

• One-page action plan template

A one-page action plan template allows every organization, particularly new start-ups, to quickly develop new versions of their business plan to keep track of the most recent assumptions and strategy changes. 

Sequential planning is essential when you’re starting your business plan. List your original assumptions, and then try to validate the assumptions. Most of your premises will be incorrect, and you will need to shift course.

• Employee engagement survey action plan template

As the name implies, an employee engagement action plan template provides a strategy that necessitates deliberate action. The goal of an employee engagement action plan is to help your team members become more engaged, have a better working environment, and increase staff retention. 

An employee engagement action plan is an essential process that organizations should go through to determine the activities to improve the organization’s structure. However, you must demonstrate the changes to your staff through employee feedback and meetings.

• Work action plan template

The work action plan template is a detailed work plan template that guides you in achieving success in your initiatives. The steps of the work plan, as well as critical data, are clearly described. The template also makes it easier to focus on the most vital issues like: 

• What resources are available?
• What resources are required? 
• What are the points of resistance you must address? 
• What is your strategy for each step’s communication?
• Change management action plan template

A change management action plan template can assist you in document management including tracking document owners and responsible parties. 

You’ll need a change management strategy to thrive in business. During the control and execution stage of your change management plan, this template describes all of your duties in managing and controlling change.

•   Company action plan template

The company action plan template sets out every piece of a standard business plan to help you develop your own. It includes space for companies seeking investment to add finance information. 

• Personal action plan template

If you want to achieve your goals systematically, use the personal action plan template. A personal action plan template can influence you to achieve more productive and efficient results. 

• Sales and marketing action plan template

The sales and marketing action plan template outlines how you intend to attract, engage, and convert prospects into paying customers. The template directs marketing and sales in their day-to-day actions, assisting them in defining agreed goals, and strategies for achieving them.

• Compliance corrective action plan template

Compliance corrective action plan template includes compliance action plans to ensure that your organization and staff follow the standards you’ve set for a work environment, as well as the standards set by local and national governments. 

The contents, such as actions and tasks, must be as precise as possible so that your team members understand what needs to be done right away.

• Easy action plan template

An easy action plan template consists of a list of actions or tasks that must be accomplished to achieve the goals you’ve set. This easy action plan template will guide you to get through the disorderly situation and help you reach your goals faster. 

• Stay interview action plan template

A stay interview action plan template includes a planned conversation that a leader has with each employee to understand the precise steps that must be taken to improve the organization’s engagement and retention.

•   Rescue diver emergency action plan template

The rescue diver emergency action plan template provides potential diving accident victims the aid and guidance to help themselves and assist rescuers during response.

• 100-day action plan template 

A 100-day action plan template provides you with a structure to onboard, accommodate, and educate new team members. It outlines expectations for what the person should do in the first 100 days, including learning and performance goals.

• 30-day action plan template 

A 30-day action plan template provides you with a structure for figuring out how to onboard and educate new team members . In addition, it defines expectations for the individual in the first 30, 60, and 90 days as they learn to manage social media.

• Case management action plan template

A case management action plan template allows case managers to record, plan and execute case actions. It includes the overall administration of cases and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of service needs.

• First aid action plan template 

The first aid action plan template assists you in dealing with a health crisis. Following it helps keep a person breathing, lessen their discomfort, or mitigate the effects of an accident or unexpected sickness before the ambulance comes.

You can take first aid training so you can recognize an emergency and provide basic first aid until expert help comes.

Below are some ways to make an action plan template. 

How to Make an Action Plan in Word

Word is a popular commercial word processor created by Microsoft. It is included in the Microsoft Office productivity package and is available as a standalone application.

You can create an action plan on Microsoft Word.

Here is how to do so:

• Open your Microsoft Word application

Select a blank document on your Microsoft Word application home tab and click on create. This will create a new Word application for you.

• Insert table into the document

Next is to click on the “Insert” tab, then select “Insert Table.” Create a table of five columns and five rows.

• Type text into your table

Insert text headers: Action, Who, Due Date, Status, and Additional Action to your table. 

Then, under each header, state the action you want to achieve, who’s responsible for achieving it, the due date for completing the action, its current status, and additional tasks or actions that may arise from that task.

Below is a video tutorial that walks you through how to do this:

How to Make an Action Plan in Excel

Excel is a spreadsheet tool available as a web, mobile, and desktop application. It’s perfect for creating an action plan and similar to Google Sheets.

This is the step-by-step process for creating an action plan in Excel.

• Open an Excel spreadsheet

Open your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and click on the “New” tab. Then double click on a blank document or click on the “Create” tab.

• Select a portion of the sheet 

Left-click, hold, and drag your cursor to the portion of the Excel spreadsheet that you want to use as your action plan.

• Give your area selection a border

After selecting, click on the icon as shown in the image below, then select “All Borders.” This will give the selected area a nice full border, making your selected area stand out from the entire spreadsheet.

As shown in the image below, type text in the headers of your table and label each as What, Who, When, Status and Comments.

Now you can fill in what your action is, who will be in charge of it, when the action should be completed, the status of the completion, and any needed comments.

This video tutorial below shows how to create an action plan on Microsoft Excel:

How to Create an Action Plan in Google Docs

Google Docs is a word processing tool that comes with Google’s free,

web-based Google Workspace suite. It’s perfect for creating an action plan template similar to Microsoft Word. Its sweet spot is that it allows you to share the document with your team easily.

This is the process for creating an action plan on Google Docs.

• Open Google Docs from Drive

Make sure that you log in to your Google accounts. Then, from Google applications, open Drive, then open Google Docs as shown in the image below. 

• Title your action plan

Give your action plan a befitting title. 

• Insert a table

Now click on Insert, then Table. 

• Type in header text

After that, type in the header text and label each, as shown in the image below.

Below is a video tutorial on how to create and share action plan templates with your team:

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about action plan templates.

How do I make a simple action plan?

To make a simple action plan template, you need to: 

• Determine your goals. State what you want to achieve with your action plan. 
• Write down your objectives. It will be challenging to track what you want to achieve if you don’t write it down.
• Establish a deadline. Setting a deadline is the next step.
• Make a checklist. Create a list of your actions. 

What is a good action plan template?

A good action plan template guides you to achieve your goals and objectives and evaluate your progress.

Is there an action plan app?

Yes, there are different action plan apps. Examples are the 90 Day Action Plan on Google Playstore, My Action Plan app on AppStore , and InPhase Assurance app. 

You can also use SweetProcess iOS and Android apps as an action plan software to create and manage your company’s processes, procedures, and policies.

How effective are action plans?

Action plans are effective because they make your goals clearer. They also aid in forming consensus toward a goal and foster a sense of responsibility and accountability. 

What is the main purpose of an action plan?

The main purpose of an action plan is to specify the resources you need to achieve your goals and provide a schedule for when you must perform certain activities. 

How do I write a better action plan?

To write a better action plan, you should have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, then make the objectives quantifiable. After this, download the relevant templates specified in this article and tweak them to represent your required actions.

SweetProcess helps organizations document their company’s policies, procedures, and processes.

If you want your team members to achieve their goals on time and become more productive at work, you can use our software to do so.

Here are some companies who have leveraged the power of our software to manage their employees effectively and efficiently in one place.

Spark Marketer is a marketing agency for small- and medium-sized local businesses that want to leverage digital marketing to grow their businesses. Its dedicated team works closely with companies to navigate the digital space and achieve measurable results. 

The Nashville-based company has a track record of success working with chimney businesses in the home services space. It is committed to offering its clientele a custom experience and more than essential online services. They also create marketing campaigns focused on the unique attributes of each business to generate continuous income.

One of the biggest problems Spark Marketer faced was a lack of documentation. As a result, employees depended on tribal knowledge to get things done, which resulted in disorganization in the workplace. 

“When you’re doing work to a standard, then you can measure against that standard. Before, we would have these nebulous conversations when we had to let someone go: ‘Well, we don’t feel like you’re doing the job well.’ ‘Show me where I wasn’t doing it well, and I’ll change.’ This is horrible to admit now. I’m almost ashamed to say it but you know, there was no objectivity,” said Carter Harkins, co-founder of Spark Marketer.

Then they adopted SweetProcess to foster growth . Carter and his partner were introduced to SOPs by a business consultant, and they gave it a shot using Google Docs. However, they soon began to see the importance of documentation, and as their business began to grow, they realized that Google Docs was insufficient to sustain their growth. 

Carter said, “Growth causes you to think differently. You start realizing what got us to this point will not get us to where we want to go, so it’s time to shift gears. It’s time to look for efficiencies, so I started looking for systems that would help us document our processes more easily and more uniformly, and I just literally went out and started scouring the web.”

How SweetProcess Changed the Game at Spark Marketer

SweetProcess has a reputation as a results-oriented software. Like many businesses, the team at Spark Marketer has been enjoying the benefits of the system. Carter provides more details of how the software has improved operations at his organization.

1. Simplified process documentation

Capturing the right amount of information makes the difference in business process documentation . On the other hand, your processes may not be of much help if they are overly detailed and clustered—this is often the case when you use manual tools such as Google Docs for your documentation. 

“In a Google Doc format, you’re grabbing an entire section of text and moving it up above and just trying to organize things, but with SweetProcess, it’s super simple to break things out into new tasks and reorder them so that everything flows in a much more natural way.

2. Decentralized knowledge base

Documenting business processes goes beyond writing a bunch of information. There is a need to sieve out relevant information from the shaft and make it easily accessible by team members using a knowledge base software . 

“The ability to group things into procedural or process-based groupings has been a real change for us. For example, in Google Docs, it was just turned into one folder that was shared with everybody, and nobody knew exactly how to find what they needed.”

All that time spent by employees looking for specific information for their tasks could be used better, and SweetProcess made that possible. 

“SweetProcess not only standardized the format but made it easy to create the teams that we needed so that you only see the processes that you need to see, which makes it so much easier for people to go find what they need.”

Another company, Zen Media , is a public relations (PR) firm specializing in the tech niche. Established in 2009, the Dallas-based organization captures key moments in a brand’s life and turns those moments into the talk of the town. Plus, they have a track record of offering results-driven PR services to B2B and B2C brands worldwide. 

The new generation PR agency gives brands their desired level of exposure and ensures that this translates into money. It uses various techniques to measure the performance of its PR campaigns to understand their efficiency and round up the numbers. 

When Stephanie Chavez resumed her role as the company’s chief marketing officer, she found out that they had a series of great products that catered to their client’s needs but lacked operational structure underneath this excellent performance. 

“We were always producing great products and doing a great job for our clients; that wasn’t debatable. What was debatable was the ‘how can we streamline?’ and so that was one of the first things that I noticed,” Stephanie said. 

In the absence of a central knowledge base , employees relied on tribal knowledge to get by. Little could be done when the people who knew how to perform specific tasks were indisposed, holding the organization hostage. 

“What happens if one of the employees is out or sick? Every client is a little bit different—the way we research their content topics and their hashtags and whatnot, they are all different,” she said. 

Having noticed the structural gap in the organization, Stephanie was keen on finding the right system to resolve the problem. She found her answer when she attended a marketing class organized by a friend on LinkedIn. He recommended SweetProcess as an effective tool for streamlining business operations , and she checked it out. 

“Anthony talked about SweetProcess, and I thought, well, I’m going to check that out, and it’s been really wonderful. I have each department go through it, and we have a list of all the things that they do that are repeatable each month so that I can make sure, ‘Hey, what did you put in this month? Let’s run through it and make sure it makes sense to everyone.’”

How SweetProcess Raised the Bar at Zen Media

Read on to see exactly how SweetProcess facilitated the growth at Zen Media.

1. Employee onboarding and training

Hiring more employees is necessary as a business grows, but it is a challenge for many organizations to bring new hires up to speed with the processes and procedures in place. The team at Zen Media now enjoys a seamless onboarding process thanks to SweetProcess. Rather than going through a rigorous onboarding process, they direct new employees to the standard operating procedures in the system to get all the information they need about their duties.  

“When we hire new interns or employees, I send them to a whole bunch of the SweetProcess steps that we have, and I just send in the email, link it, and say watch all these, go through these processes, and that’s the very first onboarding process.”

Employee training on SweetProcess is not a one-off. New and established team members can always go back to the system if they doubt any process or procedure.

2. Quality control and assurance 

Achieving desired results at the workplace is more feasible when team members operate on the same level and produce consistent results. Beyond creating uniformity in organizational output, quality assurance and quality control help to win customer trust and loyalty as the customers are sure to get great results repeatedly. SweetProcess has helped the company work consistently as a team rather than individually. 

“It helps from a consistency perspective because everyone might be doing something a little bit differently, and I think it’s really hard to scale. Think about McDonald’s: if everyone in every franchise were making their hamburgers a little bit different, it wouldn’t be McDonald’s because you couldn’t expect the same thing every time. So by having everyone on the same page with SweetProcess, they can have a more efficient and predictable result.”

Want to improve efficiency in your team? 

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of SweetProcess today to create

and manage action plans at your organization. The best part? You do not need to add your credit card details to use the software for free.

An action plan helps you to achieve your goals. It transforms your vision into attainable results that boost your company’s growth. It also assists you in staying focused and success hungry. 

In this post, you’ve learned what action templates are and why you must use them to speed up your workflow instead of creating from scratch.

We also showed you 65 free action plan templates which you can download, tweak, and use for your organization.

Want to choose the action plan templates that are best to use for your

company? 

Click here to download the templates relevant to your industry , and get ahead of thousands of other businesses who have to build them from scratch. 

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How to create an action plan (with free templates and examples)

An action plan template provides a ready-made framework for quickly adding the steps — like tasks, due dates, and assignees — to achieve your project goals. It’s a great way to ensure your project action plans are effective and consistent so everyone understands what’s expected.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to write an action plan step-by-step, with examples for inspiration. Plus, you can download two free action plan templates — including one from our Work OS — to get started immediately.

Download Excel template

What is an action plan?

An action plan is a detailed blueprint that outlines the steps you, your team, or your organization will take to achieve a specific goal. It includes specific tasks or actions with due dates and assignees, a timeline, and the resources required to accomplish your goal.

Action plans include detailed information, such as:

• A description of each action or task to complete
• The person responsible for each action
• Due dates for each task
• Resources required to complete the action
• Space to reflect or take notes after you have completed a task

What is an action plan template?

An action plan template is a pre-structured document that gives you a framework for crafting your new action plan. A practical action plan template has designated spaces for each aspect you need to cover, often presented in a table format like this.

Free action plan templates

Here are two free action plan templates you can download and use today:

Try monday.com’s Action Plan Template:

This action plan template breaks down goals into actionable steps that you can prioritize, assign ownership, and track progress. You can also add start and end dates for each action, plus relevant details and files.

Get the template

Download the free action plan template for Excel:

Why is an action plan template important?

Leaders and managers use action plan templates to speed up the strategic planning process . Rather than spending unnecessary time designing the document used for planning purposes, project managers can simply pull up their template, save a new copy — keeping the existing template intact — and get straight to work scheduling and assigning tasks.

Action plan templates ensure consistency

Additionally, templates help to ensure consistency across plans and teams. When your organization uses the same action plan template for the whole company, it’s easier for team members to interpret and understand the plan — because they’re familiar with the format — and it contributes toward an organized, professional appearance.

Action plan templates help you plan more effectively

Action plan templates help project organizers plan more effectively by offering predefined categories and columns, reducing the chance of human error or omitting information from an action plan. In addition, you can apply any learnings from the project management process to your template. That way, you’ll consistently improve subsequent action plans.

While completing a project, you might find that some of the tasks in your task lists didn’t have clear outcomes. In addition, it wasn’t immediately obvious how to identify when the task was complete. So, you could borrow from the SMART goals framework — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound goals — and include a new column in your action plan template to note how you’ll measure if the task is complete.

And when using an action plan template built on a Work OS like monday.com, you can add your action plan to relevant project boards, create cross-team automations , and more — making it easier to collaborate with a distributed team in real time.

What are the essential features of an effective action plan template?

Action plan templates should contain the following features:

• Multiple views — such as tables, timelines, Kanban boards, and Gantt charts to visualize tasks.
• Task notifications — to detail and assign tasks to team members.
• Structured layouts — to plan tasks based on priority, status, and resource allocation.
• Collaboration ability — to maintain notes, comments, and files in one place.
• Automations — to update task status and notify owners.
• Status columns — to show the current status, such as Stuck, Working on it, and Done.
• Dashboards — to track overall progress, timelines, and budgets.

What is the difference between an action plan and a project plan?

A project plan is more detailed than an action plan. Both list the tasks, timelines, and resources required to achieve a desired goal. But project plans also include:

• Project goals and objectives
• Project milestones and deliverables
• Project scope and budget
• Project roles and responsibilities
• Project stakeholders and communication schedule
• Project risk mitigation and contingency plans
• Project success criteria

You can create an action plan from your project plan to outline the steps required to achieve your project goals.

What are the key elements of a well-written action plan?

A well-written action plan consists of seven components:

• Goals: define what the action plan aims to accomplish.
• Steps: detail the actions required to achieve each goal.
• Items: determine the task dependencies and priorities.
• Timeline: maps out the schedule and milestones from start to finish.
• Resources: identify the people, tools, and budget required.
• Responsibilities: assign tasks to an individual or a team.
• Review: monitor the overall progress of action items completed.

What are some examples of action plan templates?

Now that we know what they do, let’s look at a few action plan templates.

Business action plan template

This template outlines how to write an action plan to track progress toward a specific business goal.

( Image Source )

This action plan begins by detailing the primary goal, with the first column dedicated to a breakdown of each action required. For example, if your business goal was to design and launch a new website, your activities might include:

• Gathering design assets
• Choosing a color scheme
• Copywriting for new website pages
• Assembling design and development teams
• Creating design wireframes
• Design and development
• Launch and promotion

Note that the second to last column in this action plan template is reserved for noting potential hazards. This helps identify roadblocks that might get in the way of achieving your goals to plan around them.

Personal development action plan template

Though action plans are most often used in a business context, they can be a handy tool to help you stay motivated and work toward your personal goals.

This template allows you to break down your actions into a step-by-step sequence and includes a “How will I know I’ve been successful?” column to ensure that the actions you write down have a clear outcome.

Corrective action plan template

Creating an action plan can also be a great way to solve a specific business problem or even an issue with a particular employee’s performance. This is known as a corrective action plan, as shown in the example template below.

A corrective action plan template includes important columns, such as “metrics and constraints” — to help users complete tasks and plan for potential roadblocks — and “percent completed” — to help measure the progress toward the goal.

monday.com’s Action Plan Template

As you’ve seen in the examples above, the typical action plan format is a PDF or Microsoft Word document. While this is fine for goal setting and creating the plan itself, it’s not so great for putting it into action.

That’s why we’ve purpose-built a flexible, customizable, intuitive action plan template to use with monday.com.

When you design your action plan on monday.com, you can:

• Access multiple views (such as a table, Kanban, and timeline) to work in a manner that suits your needs.

• Assign tasks to individuals and notify them instantly.
• Comment and collaborate on tasks to keep communication contextual.
• Design custom automations to save valuable time and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
• Report on progress with the Progress Tracking Column.

Once there is buy-in from the team on the plan, it is easy to copy actions, dates, and assignees over to the task management board.

Because monday.com is a comprehensive Work OS, any action plans you create with this template also integrate with relevant project boards. In addition, comprehensive analytics make tracking easy.

How to write an action plan step-by-step

Never created an action plan before? Then, follow this simple guide and get started with the free template above.

1. Determine your goals

First, you need to understand what you’re trying to achieve. Then, make this goal as specific as possible.

For example, “increase sales” is not a clear enough goal. “Increase sales by 20% in quarter three” is more specific and allows you to set a metric for achieving it.

2. Break down the steps required to achieve each goal

What actions are necessary to get there?

In this example, that might include:

• Hire three new sales development representatives
• Increase content marketing budget by $20,000
• Implement a new sales training program for new hires

3. Determine task dependencies and priorities

Remember: you can’t do everything at once! So now that you’ve broken down that big goal into bite-sized chunks, you need to figure out the perfect order for completing the tasks. In the above instance, you need to hire new sales representatives before starting a sales training program.

4. Set milestones

Now, set some milestones for significant events or checkpoints along the project. Some typical milestones are:

• Completion of a substantial task or phase of the project
• A significant event, such as a product launch
• Important meetings, like customer review meetings

5. Add deadlines

When do you need to complete each task? Setting deadlines for each task helps your team stay on track and allows you to identify if your timeline for the larger goal is realistic.

6. Identify the resources you need

What’s getting in the way of completing these tasks? What do you require — perhaps from leadership or another team — to meet or exceed your goals? In our sales team example, we might need some assistance from the HR department to advertise an open role and attract new applicants.

7. Assign tasks to individuals

Who is responsible for each action? Assign a clear task owner to each task. Ownership doesn’t just make someone feel accountable; it empowers them to take the initiative and solve problems without dragging in management at every twist and turn.

8. Agree on a plan to review progress

Before you jump in and start your project, determine how you will measure progress toward your goals. For example:

• Will you review your action plan every day or every week?
• Will the task assignees or the project leader be responsible for updating the plan to reflect progress?

Determining these answers upfront means the action plan remains a living document reflecting actual progress.

Customize our Action Plan Template to your needs today

Prepare and present your action plans with our flexible, customizable Action Plan Template. Team members will love the multiple views, automations, and collaboration features to keep them on point. And you’ll benefit from the Progress Tracking column in your weekly reports to stakeholders.

FAQs about action plans

What’s the difference between an action plan and a to-do list.

An action plan and a to-do list are helpful tools for organizing tasks and achieving goals. A to-do list is a list of tasks to complete, but not necessarily for the same goal or project. Typically, to-do lists are less organized than action plans and can change daily. In contrast, an action plan follows specific steps and includes tasks that all lead to completing a common goal.

What's the difference between an action plan and a strategic plan?

An action plan and a strategic plan are essential for an organization’s long-term and short-term planning. A strategic plan outlines an organization’s vision for the future and helps prioritize goals, make resourcing decisions, and unite employees. On the other hand, an action plan makes the strategic plan operational by providing detailed instructions on how to accomplish those goals.

What’s the difference between an action plan and an implementation plan?

An implementation plan and an action plan are essential documents that help teams execute a project successfully. An action plan focuses on the specific tasks needed to achieve a goal. In contrast, an implementation plan is a more holistic document outlining the steps, teams, and resources required to execute a project successfully.

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Action Plan for Excel, Word, Google Docs, Google Sheets

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• The template is available for download in Excel and Microsoft Word or accessible in Google Sheets and Google Docs.
• In the Google Sheets and Excel files, our action plan template includes a task summary section that automatically counts completed, uncompleted, and overdue tasks.
• Our action plan template also allows you to easily insert your logo, adding a professional touch to your action plan document when sharing it with team members or stakeholders.

What is an action plan?

An action plan is a document that sets out the steps required to complete an objective. It is often used in project management to help meet goals promptly. An action plan is more than a laundry list of tasks that need to be done. Rather, it’s a detailed breakdown of how you plan to achieve something. Your action plan may touch on objectives, resources, methods, and constraints.

Benefits of an action plan

As the saying goes, “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” Without a clear action plan to keep you on track, it’s easy to lose sight of important tasks and miss project deadlines. By using an action plan template, you can expect the following benefits:

• Clearer objectives: Writing an action plan helps you pinpoint objectives for you and your team.
• Better accountability: Having an action plan in place with set processes and objectives helps you stay accountable to yourself, your colleagues, and your stakeholders.
• Increased productivity: With an action plan in place, you can save time and make your project workflow more efficient.

How to create an action plan

While this action plan can be used by anyone, it’s specifically designed for business owners and project managers. Follow these steps:

• Define your goals: As Zig Ziglar said , “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” You should use the SMART goal framework to help with pinpointing your objectives.
• Clarify key tasks: These are the steps you’ll take to achieve your desired outcome. For example, a new product release could involve tasks related to design, development, and production. Establish the priority level of all tasks and set milestones for their completion.
• Communicate responsibilities: Each team member should understand how they fit into achieving the goal.
• Identify challenges and dependencies: Clarify difficulties related to the task and mark when the undertaking of one task relies on the completion of another.
• Set realistic deadlines: This step requires careful consideration because if you have many task dependencies with overly tight deadlines, one missed due date could derail the entire project timeline.
• Amend your action plan: Regularly review your plan and adjust it as needed so that it continues to align with your objectives.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i create an action plan template, what’s the difference between an action plan and a project plan, related tags:.

• Business Plans
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets

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Action Plan with Excel

At work and in private life, there are always events that should be planned. For example, the creation of an advertising campaign or planning a party. Of course, nothing should go wrong with this event and all steps should be well planned. To guarantee this with simple means, this Excel template was created.

By the way, you find a detailed event planner here.

Table of Contents

What is an action plan, how does the action plan template work, screenshot of an action plan template, download the template of the action plan for excel, other action plans i found on the internet.

An action plan is a detailed and specific set of steps or strategies that outline how to achieve a particular goal or objective. It is a document that breaks down a larger goal into smaller, actionable steps that can be taken to make progress towards that goal.

Action plans typically include a timeline or deadline for each step, as well as the individuals or teams responsible for completing each task. They may also include resources required, such as budget or personnel, and any potential obstacles or risks that may arise.

Action plans are commonly used in business, education, healthcare, and personal goal-setting to provide a roadmap for achieving specific outcomes. They can be created for short-term goals or long-term objectives, and may be updated and revised as progress is made or circumstances change.

• Download the template from the bottom of this page.
• Open it with Excel or any other program comfortable with tables.
• In the worksheet “Action Plan” you can see an example. Change it as you like.
• Or open the worksheet “Action Plan Blank” and fill it out without any premade content.
• Now you can print it and / or send it with e-mail to your workmates.

If you like my templates, I’m looking forward to a little donation 🙂

• 10 free action plan templates (on clickup.com)
• Excel project plan template (on smartsheet.com)
• Action plan template (Excel file or online-tool on projectmanager.com)

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The 9 Best Project Management Templates for Excel (Free)

Project managers are known for their decisiveness and time management.

A project’s success depends on how a project manager identifies, plans, and employs the resources available for any given project (especially the timespan).

If you, too, have a complicated project ahead of you that requires sophisticated planning – don’t sail all the way along alone. 😃

Bringing you the best templates, Excel consistently provides a solution for everything. It offers a wide variety of project management templates that make your job all the easier.

To learn what these templates are and how you may use them, continue reading.

Table of Contents

Why Project Management in Excel?

Template 1: Gantt Chart

Template 2: Project Budget

Template 3: Action Item Report

Template 4: Project Dashboard

Template 5: Multiple Project Tracking

Template 6: Status Report

Template 7: Critical Path Method

Template 8: Project Timeline and Budget

Template 9: Content Calendar

There’s no denying the plethora of software for managing projects in the market. A new project management software comes out daily, better than the previous versions.

But even with all the excellence. Not a single software has been able to take the place of Excel project management – and there’s no wonder why.

Microsoft Excel is by far one of the most efficient software for managing tasks. And a huge number of project managers all around the world only use Excel for their work.

Their familiarity with the Excel spreadsheet greatly contributes to the software’s favor. Excel offers so many wonderful project management templates, and a lot of them are for FREE! 🤩

However, know that you can always switch to Microsoft Project software. That is if you prefer more advanced project tracker template options.

Now, let’s see the templates Excel has to offer.

1. Gantt Chart Template

The Gantt Chart template is a very helpful visual tool. It gives you an overview of the project schedule of your team at all times.

A typical example of its use can be a small content creation agency. It needs a system to assign tasks and keep a record of the deliverables. This way, you are never behind schedule.

In the Gantt chart, all the data is represented in color-coded bars. And you can customize them for different teams and individuals by changing the colors, elements, and more.

You can divide the tasks into phases or milestones with a summary of their progress. The chart also offers different layouts, and you can choose any one that suits your needs and appeals to the eye.

Excel has different variations of the Gantt chart template, from simpler ones to advanced charts. One of the most used Gantt chart templates includes the  Vertex42 Simple Gantt Chart .

You can get it from Excel templates as well. And if you don’t understand  how to create a Gantt chart , try watching this YouTube tutorial.

In addition to the simple template, you can also use the  Ultimate Excel Gantt Chart . That is if you are a business that is constantly expanding. This graph can be a bit difficult to understand, but nothing a  YouTube video  can’t solve.

2. Project Budget Template

Finalizing the budget is the first step toward successful project management. And you wouldn’t want to make any mistake here as it sets the base of the project.

You must keep track of all the expenses from start to end, and the project budget template helps you do just that.

It color-codes Balance when you are exceeding your project’s budget. This is your cue to reconsider the expenses. The best part is that you can set expenses per team, phase, equipment, travel, and others using this.

You can get the all-in-one Project Budget template from  the Project Manager . It can even help you set an estimate for all the project resources and costs. The template comes with two sheets, including a how-to guide.

But it isn’t limited to that. You can explore other options. And even customize a project budget template using  SmartSheet .

3. Action Item Report Template

The Action Item Report is one of the most useful Excel templates. Every company has a to-do list of items assigned to its team.

The Action template lets you organize the tasks and keep the workflow going swiftly. It lets you set the task status as high, low, or medium and shows each task’s progress in one glance.

You can rank tasks, update deadlines and pay special attention to team members who need help.

It is the perfect template for effective project management. You can get the Action template from Excel or from  Vertex 42  – both work wonderfully. 😉

4. Project Dashboard Template

The project dashboard template gives you a bird’s eye view of all the tasks and their statuses.

It gives you a visual representation of where your team stands. And gives you the latest key performance metrics every time.

You can also choose the layout or style you want in your Excel project management template. This makes it easy to understand the project phases.

And the best part is that this  Project Dashboard template  is 100% free – the only fee is your Email.

Protip: Check out my top-6 dashboard templates here !

5. Multiple Project Tracking Template

Being a project manager is not an easy task. Managing multiple tasks and supervising the team spells difficult. And on top of that, sending daily reports to authorities is enough exertion.

A little help in the form of a reliable project planning timeline template is necessary. It can be a tad bit complex to understand, but once you get a hold of it, you should be able to do it with your eyes closed.

The  Multiple Project Tracking Template  lets you manage all the tasks in one go. You can add as many projects as you like, manage over 40 tasks at once, and you get all this for free! Isn’t that amazing?

Download yours today and manage your daily tasks with a few clicks only. 😃

6. Status Report Template

There is nothing more embarrassing than being the project manager and not having the correct project details. Luckily, we have the Status Report template to save the day.

It lets you keep an eye on your progress as a team and identify challenges. So you can prepare for the next project while keeping the data compact and concise.

You can also keep strict and clear intel on the workflow. And this is so important while managing different projects.

If you are not already using the  Status Report template , you are working blind-eyed. And the resources of the project are subject to threat.

Using the Project Status Report template, you will know where the team members lack and how you can help them. This helps construct more relevant and purposeful follow-ups than simply increasing the bottlenecks.

7. Critical Path Method Template

CPM has a special place when it comes to project management.

With the Critical Path Method, you can pay special attention to tasks that are long overdue. Provide extra resources, and determine which task requires more consideration with increased proficiency.

Usually, you’d need specialized software to keep track of such details. But now all you need is the CPM software.

The best part is that it’s so simple you don’t need to learn any new formulas or terms to perform a critical analysis. Moreover, you can simply copy and paste data acting upon a few guidelines.

The CPM uses a Gantt chart that works like a bar chart . But offers more benefits with increased ease of use and low cost.

Creating and designing a CPM is truly a challenging task. But with this new, free version of  Critical Path Method , provided by Vertex42, you can set it up in minutes. 😀

8. Project Timeline Template

Project timelines are great for having an overview of all important tasks. They give you an insight into the project plan that you and your team can follow timely.

This way, there are no communication gaps. And everyone is well aware of their tasks and the deadlines approaching. It really adds to a more peaceful and organized working environment.

You can also customize the template as you like. You change the color bars from 6 different colors. And quickly insert and delete milestones.

Although this template is very resourceful, creating it can be tedious. This is why we’ve brought you the  free Project Timeline template  that has everything prepared for you. Just erase the existing text and add your own – you’re good to go!

9. Content Calendar Template

If you’re a blogger or a social media person, a content calendar is your go-to tool. And without a calendar, you’re knee-deep in trouble. 😬

But thank God we have Excel to our rescue.

The brilliant  Content Calendar template  of Vertex42 is tailor-made for your needs. It will take you through all the chaos – from planning content to publishing it.

It will not only help you plan your content but also track its progress and schedule content to post.

Once you get a hold of it, it will really be your best friend in times of urgency. A single glance at your calendar in the morning, and you’re well prepared for the tasks of the day.

And the best part is that it’s free to use, unlike the other expensive, good-for-nothing project management software. So get your free Content Calendar template today!

That’s it – Now what?

This article helped us learn a lot about project management Excel templates. And how they can help you better organize and manage your projects.

But it doesn’t end here. You can choose any project schedule template from the Microsoft Excel templates. And even customize one to fit your needs.

If you are new to Excel, try our Excel course designed specifically for you. Where you learn some core Excel functions like the VLOOKUP, IF, and SUMIF functions.

To become a pro at these functions (and others),  enroll in my 30-minute free email course  today. 😃

Other resources

Excel has been a major hub of project management templates for years now. And it is improving with each passing day.

All these advancements make it a more reliable software for managing project tasks.

You can use Excel not only for project management but also to create  Dashboard ,  Budget , and  Power BI templates .

To read more such interesting articles, head on to our website. See you there! 😉

The Top Project Plan Templates

By Kate Eby | June 8, 2018 (updated April 3, 2024)

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A project plan is an essential part of any project manager’s toolkit. While it can be tempting to get started on completing tasks as soon as possible, taking the time to map out your strategy can help you save money and resources. Your project will constantly be shifting, and you need a project plan template that can keep up. 

But, with so many available templates, how do you know which one to use? We’ve sorted through them all and found the best project plan templates in Excel and Microsoft Word. We’ll explain the different types of templates and when you should use each one. We’ll also provide a selection of free downloads of project plan templates in Microsoft Word and Excel. You’ll learn what a project plan is and how to make one from scratch in Excel. Or you can try a pre-built template in Smartsheet, a project management platform that empowers you to efficiently manage projects with real-time collaboration and process automation.

Project Plan Templates

A project plan template can be as simple or as complex as you need, depending on your style of project management and the requirements of your project planning . You can choose to include a static timeline or a dynamic Gantt chart, and focus on action items or business goals.

A project plan is most often used in a project management context, with Gantt charts to plan and report progress as the project changes. The main difference between a project plan and a work plan is the Gantt chart, making it a more integrated project plan complete with a way to track tasks against timelines. A Gantt chart is a dynamic, horizontal bar chart to visualize a project schedule and is an important asset to share with stakeholders to communicate project status. This type of template caters toward project managers who are managing larger projects with many people.

‌   Download Excel Template   Try Free Smartsheet Template   ‌

Project plan templates, complete with a Gantt chart, are used most often in instance like construction project management , or where there’s a need for a more agile project plan . Sometimes, people prefer to use  project management software to create more complex project plans, enabling them to easily update and manage their plans with greater flexibility.

Simple Project Plan Template

Track project details, manage timelines, and visualize how your project is progressing with this simple project plan template. Document all key details, like task start and end dates, resources needed, and budget details, with this comprehensive, easy-to-use template.

‌   Download Word Template   Try Free Smartsheet Template   ‌

Work Plan Templates

A work plan template is designed to break down your large project goals into smaller, actionable steps. This kind of template outlines what needs to be done, by whom, and when. It also includes a timeline to help set expectations and improve transparency, keeping everyone on the same page about deliverables and deadlines. A work plan template is best for larger teams working on big projects with many tasks and due dates.

Project Implementation Plan Template

Ensure you don’t miss or overlook any key steps and that all your bases are covered as you move through your project. Use this professionally designed template to keep key internal and external stakeholders, clients, and upper management in the loop on all phases of the project.

‌   Download Word Template

Action Plan Templates

An action plan lists all the steps that must be taken to achieve a specific goal. The template includes information about the actions that need to happen, the people that will complete them, due dates, priority, and status. While an action plan and work plan are similar, an action plan focuses on goals, whereas a work plan template focuses on phases of tasks that are usually listed in chronological order. An action plan template is best for individual use or by smaller teams.

Project Action Plan Template

Establish the main goals of your project, identify the actions needed to achieve those goals, and assign a person to be responsible for each task with this complete project action plan template. Assign priority to tasks, view status, and list start and end dates to keep your project moving forward.

Business Plan Templates

A business plan template highlights business goals and the plan for achieving them. It focuses on your business’ future and how you intend to reach your objectives. Business plans are much more strategic than a work plan or action plan and often include a vision statement, business profile, economic assessment, and more. A business plan is most appropriate for people who are starting their own business, growing their business, or seeking outside help.

Get started quickly with project plan templates in Smartsheet

Your projects may be complex, but your project management tool doesn’t have to be. Combine a rich set of features with flexibility, simplicity, and ease of use to deliver projects quickly. Try Smartsheet free for 30 days and get access to hundreds of pre-built, easily customizable templates to jumpstart your project. After your trial, you can choose the plan that best suits your needs or opt for the Free Plan as a no-cost alternative.

Try Smartsheet for Free

What is a project plan?

A project plan is designed to deliver the intended scope of a project, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and track planning assumptions and decisions. It is a living document that can include a stakeholder list, a scope statement, a project schedule, schedule and cost baselines, baseline management plans, communication plan, and it can change over the course of a project. It is worth noting that a project plan is not just a project timeline, although that is an important component of the plan.

You should always create a project plan before starting a new project. Start with what you want to achieve from the project and break it down into the things you need to do in order to accomplish the goal. Then, once you have a high-level plan of all the things that need to be done, you can think about timing, budget, resources, and more.

At the very least, a project plan should answer the following questions about a project:

• Why? - Why are we starting this project? What is the problem that this project will address or solve?
• What? - What are we working on? What are the major deliverables and goals?
• Who? - Who will be involved in the project and what will be their responsibilities?
• When? - When should the project start and end? What are the milestones?

What to include in a project plan

Project plans differ, but they all contain similar information. In your project plan, include an executive summary, project goals, milestones, deliverables, an estimated timeline, potential risks, and budget details. We’ve outlined some common topics covered by a project plan below:

To learn how to create your own project plan, check out our comprehensive guide to project planning.

• Executive Summary: The executive summary should summarize the information contained within your project plan onto a single page for easy reading.
• Project Goals: Outline the end goals of your project and how you will measure its success.
• Target Audience: Identify the target audience of your project, or who it will affect and who will use the results.
• Key Responsibilities: Outline the roles and responsibilities of each team member.
• Key Tasks and Deliverables: Highlight the most important tasks and deliverables throughout the project, with estimated deadlines.
• Available or Needed Resources: List the resources you will need to secure to complete the project.
• Risk Analysis and Mitigation Plan: Identify possible risks and put a plan in place to manage them before they become problems.
• Key Milestones: Identify the key milestones you will use to measure progress.
• Proposed Project Timeline: Create an estimated timeline for tasks, milestones, and deliverables.
• Costs and Budget Details: Create an estimated timeline for tasks, milestones, and deliverables.
• Contingency Plans: Include any contingency plans for project elements that don’t pan out as planned.
• Communication Strategies: Create a communication plan for reference throughout the project’s lifecycle.
• Evaluation Strategy: Determine how you will evaluate the successes and failures of your project.

To learn more, check out our comprehensive  Project Management Guide .

What is the purpose of a project plan?

A project plan is one of the most important ingredients for a successful project. It is used to document and communicate expectations, to control schedule and delivery, and to calculate and manage risks. In general, it acts as a roadmap for everyone involved in the project.

Here are the four biggest benefits of a project plan:

• Improves communication : By outlining your whole plan for everyone to see, stakeholders can provide feedback early in the process if things are going in the right direction. A project plan also helps facilitate expectation management by letting you update milestones and timelines as the project progresses.
• Increases transparency : With a project plan, stakeholders and team members know exactly where to look to get information every step of the way. Expectations and the project timeline are clearly defined, so everyone is on the same page about priorities and objectives.
• Increases organization : Many projects have dozens of tasks, dependencies, and milestones, and it can be hard to track how everything is progressing. A project plan makes you think through the timing of each activity and how it affects the rest of the project. You always know how much time to spend on each task and how many things you can accomplish at the same time.

The project planning process

The project planning process involves thoroughly mapping out your project from start to finish. At this time, determine your goals, estimate a timeline for key deliverables, create a budget projection, and assess your risks before launching your project.

• Concept and Initiation: Start by determining the overall concept of your project and how you plan to complete it.
• Roadmap Creation: In this phase, determine a rough timeline of the tasks necessary to complete your project.
• Deliverable Listing: Each project must have specific deliverables, which you should identify during the beginning portion of your planning phase, so each team member is aware of what is expected of them.
• Project Milestone Identification: Figure out specific points in the project that you consider to be key milestones. These milestones can consist of certain tasks that you complete, a budget target that you reach, or a team that you assemble.
• Budget Creation: Creating a predetermined budget is one of the most important parts of a project plan. You should adhere to that budget as your project moves forward. This way, you can allocate specific resources and budgets to certain tasks, without exceeding spending projections.
• Team Member Identification: As with any project, you’ll need to assemble a team of people to implement the project. Work with others to target the specific people who will be most helpful in carrying out the project.
• Risk Assessment: You must identify all potential risks or threats to your project, including those that could cause budget issues, project delays, and more. List all those potential risks, and detail how you plan to mitigate the issues if they do occur.
• Project Communication: Once you’ve outlined the key components of your project, you need to communicate these plans and goals to the greater team — including key stakeholders and any external parties. Develop a way to appropriately and efficiently communicate the project plans to everyone involved.
• Project Launch: At this point, your project should be ready to launch. Ensure that you’ve covered all your bases and outlined all the details before starting. Then, you’re set to begin.

How to create a project plan in Excel

Here are some step-by-step instructions for making a project plan in Excel. You’ll first create the table with your project information, then we’ll show you how to make your project timeline.

1. Add Headers to the Table 

First, you’ll need to add some headers to your table.

• Leave the first row in your spreadsheet blank. On the second row, type in the headers. In this example, we’re using Tasks, Responsible, Start, End, Days , and Status . You could also add more headers for extra granularity, like Budget, Cost , and more. 
• Highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the center icon to center the text in the headers.
• To format the headers for proper spacing, highlight all the text you just typed and on the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format . Select Column Width and set the width for around 15-20 so you have enough space to enter in your project information.

2. Add Your Project Information

• Start with the Task column and enter the tasks for your project plan. You can enter as many or as few tasks as you want. To visually organize your project plan, we recommend adding a title for each group of tasks or each phase. In this example, we use Prerequisites, Initiation, Development, Operations and Launch .
• Then, enter the person responsible for each task and the start and end dates.
• To automatically calculate the number in the Days column, click on a cell in the Days column and type =, then click the End date cell, type the minus (-) symbol, then click the Start date cell. Click enter. Drag the bottom right-hand corner of this cell down the entire column and the rest of the values will be automatically calculated for you with this formula.
• Enter the status of each task. We use Complete, In progress, Overdue , or Not started .
• All the information should now be in your table, but you’ll notice the spacing is off depending on the length of your text. To fix this, highlight all your information and in the Cells group, click Format . Select Autofit Column Width to automatically adjust the column width to your content.
• To center your content, highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the center icon.

3. Add Colors to Convey Project Status at a Glance

It’s easy to customize your project plan with colors and visual hierarchy. By changing the styling and font sizes, you can highlight key information and convey project status at a glance.

• To change font color, click on the cell with the text you want to change. In the Home tab, select the color you want from the color drop-down list.
• To change the background color of one or more cells, select the cell(s) you want to change. Click the paint bucket icon and select the fill color.
• To format fonts, select one or more cells. In the Home tab, you can change the font type, font size, and make the title bold, italicized, or underlined. 

We recommend adding a background color to the main header and to each group or phase of tasks, as well as your target completion date or launch date. You can also change the font color of in the Status column to reflect current progress (in this example, red represents Overdue , green represents Complete , etc).

4. Create the Project Plan Timeline

You’ve already added all your project information to the table, now it’s time to make the corresponding project timeline. Including a timeline in your project plan will help set expectations and increase transparency, keeping everyone aligned around priorities and due dates.

Add and Format Dates

• On the same row as your table headers, in the next available column, enter the two dates of your project timeline. Then, hold down Shift, select the two dates, and drag the bottom right-hand corner across the row until you’ve reached your end date.
• If you’d like to change the format of dates, select all the dates and right-click. Select Format Cells .
• In the pop-up box, select Date under the Category section and select the date type you’d like.
• You’ll notice that the cells are very wide. To make the timeline more compact, select all the dates, and select a smaller font size. In this example, we’ve selected font size 9.
• Then, select all the dates again and in the Cells group, click Format . Select Autofit Column Width to automatically adjust the column width to the dates.

Add Colors to Make the Project Timeline

• First, extend the same background colors and font formatting from your table to your timeline.

• Now, you’ve created a type of matrix. You have a row that corresponds to each task, and on the right-hand side, on your timeline, you can simply fill in the cells that represent each task’s start and end date. To do this, select a cell (or more than one cell) and click the paint bucket icon. Select the color you’d like to use.

5. Final Touches

• To add grid lines to the project plan, select the entire project plan, both the table and the timeline, and in the Font group, click the borders icon. Select All Borders .   
• If you want to add more project information, select the first column, right-click and select Insert > Entire Row . Repeat until you have 8 empty rows.
• Then, in the first column, enter the following: Project Name, Project Manager, Project Deliverable, Start Date, End Date , and Overall Progress . Then, fill in the corresponding information.

How to create a project plan in Smartsheet

Smartsheet’s pre-built project template with a Gantt chart makes it even easier to organize tasks, foster communication, and improve transparency. In this template, duration is automatically calculated for you and the interactive Gantt chart lets you drag-and-drop task bars to adjust dates. Smartsheet’s powerful collaboration features let you have discussions directly in the project plan, attach files, and set alerts and reminders.

Here’s how to use a project plan template in Smartsheet:

1. Select a Project Template

• Go to Smartsheet.com and login to your account ( or start a free 30-day trial )
• From the Home tab, click Create and choose Browse All Solutions .
• Type “ Project with Gantt Timeline ” in the Search box or select Projects from the category list.
• Click on the  Project with Gantt Timeline  tile, then click the blue Use  button.
• Name your template, choose where to save it, and click the Ok button.

2. List Your Project Information

A pre-made template will open, with sample content filled in for reference and the sections, sub-tasks, and sub-sub-tasks already formatted. With Smartsheet, it’s easy to add or delete columns depending on the scope of your project.

Simply right-click on a column and select Insert Column Left/Insert Column Right to add a column or Delete Column to remove a column.

• Add your tasks under the Task Name column. You’ll notice that the hierarchy is already formatted for you. So, be sure to enter the project phase name or group name to the Section 1, Section 2, and Section 3 fields (this is called the parent row. For more information about hierarchy, click here )
• Enter your tasks and sub-tasks under the parent rows.
• On the left side of each row, you can attach files directly to a task (perfect for attaching stakeholder lists, budgets, and more) or start a discussion about a certain item.

3. Add Start and End Dates

• Add start and end dates for each task. If you click and drag either end of the task bars in the Gantt chart, Smartsheet will automatically adjust the dates in your table.
• Click a cell in the either date column.
• Click the calendar icon and choose a date. You can also manually enter a date in the cell.

4. Enter % Complete and Assigned To Information

The % Complete and Assigned To columns provide more information about your project and improve transparency by allowing team members to see who is doing what and the status of each task.

On the Gantt chart, the thin bars inside the task bars represent the percentage of work complete for each task.

• In the % Complete column, enter the percentage of work complete for each task. Enter a whole number and Smartsheet will automatically add the percentage sign. 
• In the Assigned To column, choose a name from your contact list (in the drop-down menu) or manually enter a name.

Customize your project plan in Smartsheet

With just a couple clicks, you can customize the appearance of your project timeline.

1. Customize Fonts and Colors in Your Project Plan

• To change the font type and size, or bold, italicize or underline text, click the cell with the text you want to change. On the left-hand toolbar, you will find all the text formatting options.
• To change the background color of a row, click the far left gray cell to highlight the entire row. Then, click the paint bucket icon and select the color you’d like to use.

2. Change the Colors in Your Gantt Chart

• Right-click on a task bar and click Color Settings .
• Select the color you’d like to use from the color palette.
• If you want to apply the same color to more than one task bar, click the bars while holding down the Shift key. Then, release the Shift button, right-click on any of the selected bars, and click Color Settings .

Discover a better way to manage your project plans with Smartsheet

From simple task management and project planning to complex resource and portfolio management, Smartsheet helps you improve collaboration and increase work velocity -- empowering you to get more done. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time. Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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Action Items Template

Get your Action Items Template for Excel or open it in ProjectManager, the best way to manage your projects online.

Whether it’s for a meeting or for team task management, you need documentation to know what work needs to be done, who is tasked with executing it, when it’s due and so much more. Download our free action items template for Excel to make it fast and easy to identify and execute tasks after meetings or whenever work needs to be done.

But, if you open the action items template in ProjectManager instead, you’ll be able to manage your tasks on not just a spreadsheet, but with five different project views: kanban board, task list, calendar, spreadsheet and Gantt. Plus, you’ll be able to collaborate on those action items in real time, and track progress in the software with live dashboards and instant status reports. Get started for free with ProjectManager and start managing your action items better.

What Is an Action Item?

An action item is a task that needs to be completed. Like any task, an action item is limited in scope and takes, at most, a couple of weeks to complete. Action items often arise from a meeting where small jobs come up over the course of discussion.

An action item at its most basic is broken down into three components: who, what and when.

• Who: the person responsible for executing the action item
• What: a short description of what’s to be done
• When: the deadline

The action items template is similar to the to-do list or a calendar of tasks: the difference is that the action item list can go into greater detail and also track the work as it moves through its life cycle.

Why You Need an Action Items Template

Our action items template captures all the information you need to answer the who, what, when of the task. The template can also go into further detail about how important the task is, potential issues and how to resolve them if they arise.

Again, if you’re in a meeting and the task comes up, our action item template is there, so you can define the end goal and the steps required to accomplish it. The action items template also allows you to prioritize the tasks if there are a large number of items. Once you have the basics down, you can use the action item template to identify the needed resources. There are columns to monitor, evaluate and update to make sure the work is being done in a timely fashion.

When to Use an Action Items Template

This action items template is an ideal tool to have with you when in a meeting as new tasks come about through discussion. Use it to collect these new tasks like a checklist to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks and are completed.

But this action items template can be used for anything that involves the execution of a task. It can be used as a personal list of the work you have to do, or it can be applied like a task list in a project. While in the latter case project management software is more dynamic, if you don’t have such a tool, then an action item template can organize your project work.

If you want to collaborate on your action items and track progress, costs and resources, upgrade to project management software. ProjectManager is a cloud-based tool that connects your task list to live dashboards, Gantt charts and more. Want to stick with a task list? Our list view also allows you to collaborate with everyone on the team in real-time to get things done faster. Plus, monitor the percentage completed for each task, see its priority, due dates and add attachments without leaving the list.

Who Should Use an Action Items Template?

This action items template can be used by anyone, from the minute-taker to the project manager. The use of the action items template changes, however, as the tasks on it are executed. At this time, the owner of each individual task is responsible for using the action items template and updating their progress.

But there is not a hard rule here. The action items template could also be held by the project manager or someone working under them. As tasks are updated, they can report to that person, who then updates the template. This should keep everyone on schedule .

How to Use ProjectManager’s Action Item Template

Our free action items template for Excel is easy to use and has all the fields you need to fill in to make sure you capture and complete your tasks. It’s also completely customizable, so you can add or delete what you need or don’t need.

The top of the template identifies the project, describes the project and notes who the project manager is. The information is important to help track the work, especially if your organization is working on a program or portfolio of projects.

Action Item Details

The meat of this action items template is underneath the project information. It is divided into a row for each of the action items and then columns to identify specific aspects of the action items. There’s an action item ID, which makes it easier to refer to it later on, as well as the date the action item was opened and a description of the work to be done.

Next, there’s space to identify to who the action item is assigned. This is the person tasked with completing the work. You can add what department they work for, which is especially helpful if you’re in a large organization.

Next is a pulldown menu for priority, so you know which items need to get done right away. This column is color-coded to stand out.

What follows is the directions for executing the task. This should be a brief explanation. It can be step by step, but you don’t want to get bogged down in unnecessary details. Remember, action items are not full-blown projects. If need be, you can roll out an action plan .

The next few columns deal with any issues that might come up during the execution of the task. There’s always a risk and here’s where to capture it. One column lists the issue and the next capture how to resolve it. When the issue is resolved, the final column is where to put that date.

There’s also a place to note the date the action item is closed. You can add the percentage complete and there’s a dropdown menu where you can note the status. You can change the status from one of more than a dozen options or make your own. Finally, there’s a place to add notes that are not appropriate for any of the other columns.

How to Use the Action Items Template with ProjectManager

Action items are tasks and tasks are executed as part of a plan that assigns, tracks and reports on the progress of getting that work done. Once you have your action items template started, you can take it to the next level with ProjectManager , an award-winning tool that organizes your work for greater productivity.

List Action Items on Different Project Views

The free action items template is a great but static tool. With our software, you can create and work on your tasks on a Gantt chart, task list or kanban board. From all of these project views, you can onboard your team and assign them the action item. Plus, it’s easy to import your existing action item list into the tool to get started right away.

Track Action Item Status on Dashboard

Once assigned, you can track the progress and performance of the owner of the action item. Because our tool is cloud-based, once someone updates their status that data is instantly available across the entire software. Use the real-time dashboard to track progress from a high level, with metrics such as time, variance and more.

Collaborate With Your Team with Cloud-Based Software

Action items aren’t done in a vacuum. With our collaborative platform , everyone can communicate and get the job done better together. Users can attach files and images, comment on the action item and even tag people who aren’t assigned to the action item and bring them into the conversation.

Other Templates to Help With Action Items

If you’re not ready to upgrade to project management software, we offer dozens of free project management templates that can help you manage your action items. Try the following templates to get your action items done by their due dates.

Project Plan Template

Executing an action plan requires a plan. With the free project plan template, you can list your action items and manage the resources necessary to complete them. Schedule your work so you get it done by the deadline. List assumptions and constraints, scope, milestones and more.

Action Plan Template

Similar to the action items template, the free action plan template provides a framework to figure out how to get those action items completed. The template allows you to order your action items and avoid missing any critical steps necessary to get them done.

To-Do List Template

If your action items aren’t as involved you can use our free to-do list template to get them done. This template helps you organize your work and keeps it all in one place. It allows you to prioritize that work, add the due dates and nothing is more satisfying than crossing out a task once it’s done.

Related Action Item Content

Get help with planning and executing your action items by visiting our substantial library or project management resources. We have hundreds of blog posts, videos and guides to walk you through all your project management questions. Here are a few selections.

• How to Make an Action Plan (Example Included)
• 9 Essential Excel Spreadsheets for Tracking Tasks, Costs and Time
• 6 Plan Templates to Get Your Project Started Right
• 8 Steps for Better Issue Management

ProjectManager is a cloud-based tool that keeps you on top of your action items, letting you plan, monitor and report on their progress. With features to manage costs, teams and all project resources, it’s the only tool you’ll ever need to get your work done on time. See why tens of thousands of teams are already using our software by taking this free 30-day trial today.

Start your free 30-day trial

Deliver faster, collaborate better, innovate more effectively — without the high prices and months-long implementation and extensive training required by other products.

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19 Best Free Marketing & Sales Templates for Microsoft Excel

Published: January 15, 2024

In my experience, sales and marketing Excel templates can help you expedite your data analysis and reporting.

To help those of you looking for a way to sharpen your Microsoft Excel skills , I've put together a detailed list of templates you can start using to simplify your sales and marketing tasks.

10 Excel Marketing Templates

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Marketing Excel Templates

Sales excel templates, project management excel templates, free excel spreadsheet templates.

• Marketing Planner Excel Template
• Excel Marketing Budget Templates
• Marketing Dashboard for Excel
• Excel Monthly Marketing Reporting Template
• SMART Goal Excel Marketing Template
• Excel On-Page SEO Template
• Google Ads Campaign Excel Tracker
• Excel Lead Tracker Template
• Excel Sales Conversion and Close Rate Calculator
• Excel KPI Dashboard Template
• Excel Ecommerce Planning Template
• Excel Contact List Template
• Excel Sales Forecasting Template
• Excel Sales Metrics Calculator Template
• Excel Social Media Planning Template
• Excel Blog Editorial Calendar Template
• Excel Work Log Template
• Excel Social Media Content Calendar Template
• Excel Product Launch Plan Template

Why use sales and marketing Excel templates?

Many of us can recall a time in high school when we were sitting in math class and thinking, “When am I ever going to use this stuff in the real world?”

And then we suddenly find ourselves in the real world, only to realize that numbers do play a pivotal role in what we do. At least that’s true for me when it comes to digital marketing and sales.

The trouble is, many Excel templates and spreadsheets are riddled with numbers and formulas that aren’t all that inviting. And making them from scratch can be especially intimidating.

While I won't argue with that, I will say that the advantages of using Excel to organize information and streamline tasks are unparalleled.

Free Excel Marketing Templates

10 free templates to help you master marketing with Excel.

• Marketing Reporting Template
• Email Planning Template
• SEO Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Benefits of Microsoft Excel Templates

Microsoft Excel has many capabilities, formulas, and shortcuts :

• It stores data and has tools for data analysis.
• It performs calculations and allows you to use code for automation.
• It allows you to create social media schedules, editorial calendars, campaign trackers, and more.

Before I start talking about all things Excel templates, now’s your chance to refresh your knowledge with this helpful crash course on Microsoft Excel fundamentals .

Whether you need a source-of-truth for stakeholders to look at or a way to track the progress on a specific marketing plan or campaign, here’s a list of my favorite Excel templates to help get the job done.

1. Marketing Planner Excel Template

Download Your Free Excel Marketing Planner Template

This marketing planner template for Excel contains everything you need to plan a wide variety of email marketing campaigns . It contains specific columns for the emails’ topic, owner, status, and subject line.

You can supplement this template with a full-on marketing plan , written in Word or Google Docs format.

What I like: You can easily use this template to plan any other progressive marketing effort, such as blogging, content writing, or social media marketing. Simply change the titles of the columns to fit your specific marketing plan, and use the column to the left to track the dates of implementation.

Featured Resource: Microsoft Word Marketing Plan Template

Download Now

2. Excel Marketing Budget Templates

Download Free Marketing Budget Templates for Excel

If you want to avoid a budgeting mess at the end of the month or quarter, take a look at this collection of marketing budget templates designed to help you better organize your marketing spend.

Check out the master marketing budget template which allows you to generate a high-level visualization of your monthly and quarterly marketing budget.

What I like: From product marketing and website redesign to content marketing and events, these templates serve as a guide for marketers to visualize and track their expenses to avoid overspending.

3. Marketing Dashboard for Excel

Download Your Free Excel Marketing Dashboard

This particular tool allows you to enter metrics by campaign to auto-populate visual and easy-to-read charts. As a result, you can visualize the effectiveness of spending and activity across multiple initiatives.

You can also track the progress of different campaigns and marketing efforts, such as website content and email marketing, as well as ad spend and sales by platform.

What I like: There is no shortage of data to monitor when it comes to marketing. This template makes it easy to understand your marketing ROI and prove the effectiveness of your campaigns to stakeholders and leaders at your company.

4. Excel Monthly Marketing Reporting Template

Download Free Excel Marketing Reporting Templates

To simplify your reporting, check out these monthly marketing metrics templates and the corresponding PowerPoint template. Each month, you can update them quickly and easily to reflect your monthly visits, leads, customers, and conversion rates.

From there, you'll have everything you need to track and report on which channels are performing best.

What I like: I mean, come on — is there a feeling sweeter than hitting all of your goals for the month? Leadership loves to see ROI, and these spreadsheets can prepare comprehensive reports of your marketing metrics to send to your boss.

5. SMART Goal Excel Marketing Template

Download Your Free Excel SMART Goal Template

Whether you're planning for a new year, quarter, or month, defining a clear set of goals is critical for driving the direction of your marketing efforts..

Start with these SMART goal planning templates . Rooted in specificity, measurability, attainability, relevancy, and timeliness, these templates will help you set your team up for success.

What I like: Its user-friendly and readable format makes it one of the most shareable options on this list. You can easily send it over to your stakeholders without worrying about formatting.

6. Excel On-Page SEO Template

Download Your Free Excel SEO Marketing Template

When it comes to SEO , there‘s a lot for marketers to remember to see results.If you’re looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, pull up this handy SEO template created in Excel .

Designed to make the process of managing your SEO efforts a whole lot easier, marketers can use this template to guide their strategy step-by-step or pass it off to their webmaster to serve as a helpful guide.

What I like: This template focuses on keywords and SEO best practices, while also providing tips and tricks to identify nuances and increase productivity.

7. Google Ads Campaign Excel Tracker

Download Your Free Excel PPC Campaign Tracker

If you’re doing your Google Ads campaigns right, they probably aren't “walks in the park.” This Google Ads tracking template is a marketing campaign template that can keep you on top of your Google Ads game.

It‘ll help you catch mistakes and implement best practices across all the different campaigns and ad groups you’re running — for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.

What I like: It’s a perfect complement to that SEO template you've started using. Plus, this tracker will help you get the most bang for your buck from all of those ad campaigns you’re running.

8. Excel Lead Tracker Template

Download Your Free Excel Marketing Template for Lead Tracking

It's no secret that sales and marketing have a pretty rocky relationship history.

With this customizable lead tracking template in your toolbox, you'll have the information you need to reduce tension and define a concrete monthly lead generation goal. You’ll also be able to track and measure the success of specific lead generation channels and keep close tabs on your current sales close rates.

What I like: You can easily supplement this lead tracker with a marketing-sales SLA template to better align your sales and marketing teams — and get one step closer to crushing your goals.

Featured Resource: Microsoft Word SLA Template for Marketing & Sales

9. excel sales conversion and close rate calculator.

Download Your Free Excel Conversion Calculator

You have to set a conversion goal, but you don't know where to start. It sounds like you could use a hand in calculating your leads and traffic goals. Luckily, there's an Excel template for that .

What I like: You won’t have to sort through these numbers on your own. This template will take care of the math and give you a clear picture of what you need to accomplish to achieve your conversion goals.

10. Excel KPI Dashboard Template

Download Your Free Excel KPI Dashboard

If you’re a fan of the monthly metrics template, you might want to grab a copy of this template as well. The essential KPI tracker, shown above, takes the metrics your marketing team has agreed to track and describes them in more detail.

What I like: Using this template, you can assign specific employees to each KPI, define the frequency at which you'll monitor each KPI’s performance, and assign each KPI a color that reflects the quality of that KPI’s performance.

For example: Let’s say one of my company’s KPIs is organic traffic. I could set up my template such that 100 page views per month are red (poor performance), 500 page views per month are yellow (stable performance), and 1000 page views per month are green (great performance).

Sales is a number-heavy field. Whether we’re talking about sales goals or closed-won ratios, here are a few of my top templates to help expedite the process.

11. Excel Ecommerce Planning Template

Download Your Free Excel Ecommerce Planner Template

Ecommerce stores come with many moving parts. This template, which also includes an ecommerce sales plan and go-to-market template, includes dedicated space for each of your ecommerce vendors.

The kit also includes a marketing plan that guides you through market research, target market analysis, channels and vendors, and more.

What I like: Once your ecommerce store is live and running, you can use the conversion template to track performance across vendors and platforms where products are listed to give you a holistic view of your efforts.

12. Excel Contact List Template

Download Your Free Excel Contact List Template

In a business, the most important people are your customer or client base. Although your current customers constantly need to be nurtured, focusing on your contact or prospect list is also essential.

The information needed to build a prospect list is elementary. You can use this template to start building this list with the person's name, title and company, location, and contact information. Additional information could include their industry, employee size, company description, and pain points.

What I like: Once you’ve used a template like this one, you’re ready to upgrade to a CRM , which stores the same information in a more user-friendly format.

13. Excel Sales Forecasting Template

Download Your Free Excel Template for Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting is similar to weather forecasting. Without the proper tools, it’s impossible to get an accurate idea of what’s ahead.

Excel sales forecasting helps with business planning, budgeting, and risk management. Using this template will help you track business sales, accurately predict your sales revenue, and plan for future growth.

What I like: Sales forecasting is challenging, but this spreadsheet formula makes the process easier. Ultimately, it helps strengthen the sales strategy that you build for your company.

14. Excel Sales Metrics Calculator Template

Download Your Free Excel Sales Metrics Calculator

Sales are complex. Once you add sales metrics into the picture, the complications increase.

Not only does this template help you keep track of sales, but it keeps track of your salespeople too. With the sales metrics calculator template, you can calculate customer retention rate, win rates, product revenue, and employee turnover rate.

What I like: I know there are many numbers and figures to calculate, track, record, and document when it comes to sales. This interactive Excel spreadsheet will help you get the job done.

Specific projects require a specific setup, but sometimes, the setup itself can be the most exhausting part. I’ve compiled the following templates to help you manage general projects and track your progress for specific tasks.

15. Excel Social Media Planning Template

Download Your Free Excel Social Media Planner

You might already use a social media scheduler to manage and publish your posts every week, but you still need a place to draft your social copy and decide which posts will go to which social networks.

This social media posting schedule allows you to draft each social post — the time it will post, the message you want to publish, and any link you want to accompany your message (blog post, registration page, an ebook landing page, etc).

What I like: Most social media schedulers allow you to upload social post copy in bulk from a spreadsheet. Once you've drafted all of your social posts for the week, month, or quarter, you can easily sort them by social network and import them into your social media platform of choice.

16. Excel Blog Editorial Calendar Template

Download Your Free Excel Editorial Calendar Template

Blogging plays a significant role in your ability to attract visitors and leads to your website. But managing a blog is one of those responsibilities that's easier said than done.

Use this editorial calendar template as the starting point for keeping track of all of your business‘ content. It’ll help you be more mindful of topic selection, buyer personas, keyword inclusions, and CTA alignment.

What I like: When I’m struggling with ideation, consistency, or simply just lacking organization, an editorial calendar helps me refocus my blogging efforts to generate even more traffic and leads.

17. Excel Work Log Template

Download Your Free Excel Work Log Template

How do you keep track of the day-to-day progress of your company, especially when there are people, tasks, and timelines to monitor? A work log template is essential to keeping track.

This template provides you with a project overview that makes tracking easier than ever. The work log template tracks tasks, time, status, and comments.

What I like: If you’re not ready to commit to a project management software , you can still monitor the life cycle and progress of your projects with this spreadsheet.

18. Excel Social Media Content Calendar Template

Download Your Free Excel Social Media Calendar

Since you’re probably generating tons of clicks from your Google Ads campaigns and writing amazing content, I’d imagine you'll need some help figuring out how to spread the love on social media.

The social media calendar template is the perfect resource for helping you scale and streamline your social media marketing.

What I like: When you use Excel to break out separate worksheets for each social network you‘re using, you’ll be able to keep a repository of content ideas, so you‘re never struck by writer’s block and always have something to post.

19. Excel Product Launch Plan Template

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Action Plan Template (MS Word+ 7 Excels)

Use this Action Plan template to identify what you plan to accomplish in your business, what you need to prioritize, and how you will share these objectives.

This Action Plan template pack includes a 14 page Word template and 7 Excel spreadsheets to organize your planning activities.

Download Now!

MS Word Template: Blue Theme

Use this Action Plan template to:

• Scope the big picture – Outline what you want to accomplish with objectives, budget, time and tie each deliverable to an action step.
• Break out smaller tasks – Assign tasks to team members. Consider the deadlines in terms of allocating resources.
• Create a list of action steps – For each task, prepare a list of to-dos ranked in sequential order.
• Prioritize – Some steps are more important that others. Prioritize steps based on deadline, task, and the number of steps remaining.
• Communicate – Circulate the plan to team members that have been assigned tasks.
• Complete deadlines on time – Estimate when tasks will be finish based on the rate of action step completion.
• Track results – Evaluate performance and implement continuous monitoring procedures to ensure the project stays on track.

MS Word Template: Red Theme

The red theme of the MS Word template has the exact same content as the blue theme. You can change the color scheme by updating the styles.

Chapter 1, Introduction

Chapter 1, Assumptions, Constraints, Dependencies

Chapter 2, Management Structure

Chapter 3, Action Plan steps

Chapter 4, Continuous Monitoring

Chapter 5, Outcomes

Chapter 6, Project Budget

Action Plan: 7 Free Excel Templates

5 Year Action Plan

Action item Log

Performance Indicators

Responsibility Matrix

Action Plan: Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1.1 Our Vision 1.2 Our Mission 1.3 Our Objectives 1.4 Our Strategies 1.5 Areas of Impact 1.6 Points of Contact 1.7 Assumptions 1.8 Constraints 1.9 Dependencies

2 Management Structure 2.1 Organization Chart 2.2 Roles & Responsibilities 2.3 Anticipated Change

3 Action Plan 3.1 Implications for staff involvement 3.2 Enhance practices 3.3 Evidence of success

4 Continuous Monitoring 5 Outcomes 5.1 Participant Outcomes 5.2 Organizational Outcomes 5.3 Community Outcomes

6 Project Budget

Action Plan Template Pack

The templates are in Microsoft Word and Excel .

The template pack includes the following documents:

Product Specifications

File Format : The templates are in  Microsoft Word   (.docx) and  Excel  format (.xlsx).

File Size:  The Download file is 2 MBs.

Opening the Files:  You don’t need any special software to unzip the files. To unzip the files, right click on it, then select  Extract , and save it to your computer.

Getting Started:  Depending on your MS Office settings, the files may say Read Only when you open them. If this occurs, click  File ,  Save As  and save the files. There are no security settings on any of the files.

Images:  All of the images in the templates are copyright free.

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Personal planning templates for achieving your goals

Stay organized and get things done with these personal planning templates..

Free personal planning templates

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