30-60-90 Day Plan Template for Word (Free Download)

Setting goals is easy, achieving them is a different story. It requires a plan. This is especially true when onboarding a new employee. They have to be brought up to speed quickly. Using a 30-60-90 day plan template provides them with a clear roadmap to transition into a new role. Download this free 30-60-90 day plan template for Word and set the stage for success.

What Is a 30-60-90 Day Plan?

A 30-60-90 day plan is a structured outline used by new employees, managers or leaders to set goals and strategies for their first three months in a role. It breaks that time down into three monthly components.

The first 30 days are about learning and observing. The objective is to understand the organization, team dynamics and current processes. This is achieved through the following activities: meeting team members and key stakeholders; familiarizing oneself with company policy, culture and tools; assessing ongoing projects and workflows; gathering data and insights about the performance metrics.

The 60 day plan is when planning and strategic development are addressed. The objective here is to start implementing changes based on the observations from the first 30 days. Activities include: identifying areas for improvement and potential quick wins; collaborating with the team to develop action plans; setting measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) and continuing to build relationships and seek feedback.

This brings the employee to the final stage of the plan. At this point the objective is to implement the plan made earlier and evaluate its effectiveness. This is carried out by the following steps: rolling out changes and initiatives; monitoring progress against goals and KPIs; gathering feedback from the team and stakeholders and adjusting strategies based on what’s working and what’s not.

Why You Need a 30-60-90 Day Plan Template

Downloading this free 30-60-90 day plan template for Word is recommended for new hires or leaders stepping into a new role. It’s important as it provides a structured onboarding process with a clear roadmap that helps individuals navigate their first three months effectively by outlining specific goals for each phase. It helps to set goals with measurable objectives, making it easier to track progress and success. The 30-60-90 day plan template also ensures alignment with the organization’s objectives, helping new employees understand what’s expected of them.

Builds Relationships

The initial phase fosters collaboration and trust by meeting team members and stakeholders. This builds relationships and helps with networking by establishing connections early on that can facilitate smoother communication and support throughout the transition. The plan encourages individuals to evaluate existing processes and identify areas of improvement, which can lead to innovative solutions, helping new hires build credibility and demonstrate value early in their tenure.

Reduces Uncertainty

This structured approach can also boost confidence, reduce new employee anxiety and uncertainty. It puts them in a proactive rather than reactive approach so they can own their roles.The enhanced communication creates transparency and feedback allows for adjustments as needed. Performance evaluation offers clear metrics to provide a basis for evaluating success and impact, which leads to continuous improvement.

While templates are handy as they outline everything in advance, they’re not ideal for creating collaborative plans that can be tracked in real time. Project management software is a more effective tool to onboard new hires.

ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software with robust task lists that can create a plan, share it with new employees and be tracked in real time. Action items can be assigned, collaborated on with teams to boost productivity and time tracked to drive progress. There’s even workflow automation to manage recurring tasks quickly and task approval settings to ensure the work was done properly. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Track a 30 60 90 day plan with a kanban board — Kanban boards make action plans interactive and easily tracked. Learn more

Who Uses a 30-60-90 Day Plan Template?

Any professional in a variety of contexts will find downloading this free 30-60-90 day plan template beneficial. Here is a short list of some groups that commonly use this framework.

New employees being onboarded
Managers or team leaders transition roles or requiring performance improvement
Executives outlining strategic initiatives or aligning with organizational culture with making impactful changes
Project managers during a project kickoff
Sales professionals with onboarding new sales people
Consultants and freelancers for client engagements
Professionals shifting into a new industry or role

When to Use a 30-60-90 Day Play Template

Just as there are many individuals who can use the free template, there are many opportunities to use it. Here are some.

Starting a new job
Transitioning to a new role
Taking over a team or project
Launching new initiatives
Entering a new industry
Responding to performance issues
After major organizational change
During client engagements

How to Use a 30-60-90 Day Template

Now that the value of a 30-60-90 day plan is clear, download the free template and open up a fully customized document. We’ve outlined the basics, but users can make any changes they want to reflect their own organizational processes.

The template is divided into three sections to correspond with the various timeframes of the plan. Each column, whether for 30, 60 or 90 days, is broken down into the same four rows, which we’ll now define.

SMART Goals & Action Plans

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. This will inform the goal, which is then followed by the action steps that should be followed to achieve that goal. We have three sets of goals and the corresponding action steps, but users can make as many or as few as they feel are necessary.

Deliverables

Each goal and their action steps will lead to a deliverable. This refers to a specific, tangible outcome or product that is expected to be completed within each phase of the plan. Examples of deliverables in this context include assessment reports, team feedback summary, future roadmap, etc.

KPIs

KPIs are the specific metrics used to measure progress and success against the objectives set for each phase of the plan. They help to evaluate whether the goals are being met and provide insight into areas that may need adjustments.

Resource Requirements

This is where the specific inputs needed to achieve the objectives and deliverables are outlined for each phase of the plan. The resources can be varied, such as human, financial, technological, training and development, time allocation, information and data.

Other Free Planning Templates

The 30-60-90 day plan is only one of over 100 free project management templates for Excel and Word that can be downloaded from our site. They cover every aspect of managing a project across numerous industries. The following are a few that can be used to help with using the 30 60 90 day template.

Performance Improvement Plan Template

Similar to the 30-60-90 day plan template, this free performance improvement plan template for Word is used to help employees meet expectations. However, the difference here is that this template is used for a current employee who is underachieving and needs to be brought back to their job expectations or terminated.

Project Dashboard Template

This free project dashboard template for Excel is highly useful in tracking KPIs from the 30-60-90 day plan. It is made up of easy-to-read graphs and charts that take hard data and turn it into easily understandable visuals on task, workload, cost and more.

To-Do List Template

While project management software is a better way to organize and execute the action plan in the 30-60-90 day plan, this free to-do list template for Excel is a fine alternative. It lists all the tasks, their start and end dates as well as the percentage complete to help track one’s progress.

How ProjectManager Makes a Better 30-60-90 Day Plan

We’ve already noted that templates are not the best way to onboard a new employee. That’s because they’re static documents that require manual updating, which isn’t efficient. They’re also not collaborative. Those hurdles and more are all cleared by using project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that has the features managers and new employees need to create plans, execute tasks and track progress and performance in real time.

Use Multiple Project Views

Not all employees are the same, nor are all plans, which is why we have multiple project views. Managers can create detailed plans, with costs and resources on our robust Gantt charts. They link all four types of dependencies, filter for the critical path and set a baseline to compare planned against actual effort in real time. There are also kanban boards that visualize workflow and calendar views to get a monthly overview of progress for stakeholders.

Dashboards and Reports

Part of a 30-60-90 day plan is tracking KPIs to ensure work is being done on time. Once a baseline is set, real-time tracking of the plan is being done throughout the software. For a high-level overview of the project toggle over to the project or the portfolio dashboards, depending on whether one is monitoring one or multiple plans. These are automatically collecting live data and displaying it on easy-to-read graphs and charts showing time, cost, workload and more. For more detail, use customizable reports, which can be filtered for a close look at the data or a more general view of progress for stakeholders.

30-60-90 Day Plan Template