10 Free Gap Analysis Templates in ClickUp, Excel, and Word

Erica Golightly

Senior Writer

December 27, 2022

Max 10min read

A gap analysis goes by many names—efficiency tracker, needs assessment, or variance analysis.

By understanding where gaps exist in a system, organizations can take steps to bridge the gap and move closer to reaching their goals. Gap analysis templates provide an easy way for businesses to gain insight into what needs improvement and develop strategies for success. 

They can also serve as a starting point for mapping out process changes or developing new products and services. With gap analysis templates, businesses have an effective tool for tracking progress and ensuring accountability throughout the process. 

It might seem like a Herculean task designed for change agents like business analysts to tackle. But with gap analysis templates, anyone is prepared to make fundamental moves in strategic, product, people, and process improvements!

We’ve put together a list of gap analysis templates in ClickUp, an all-in-one productivity tool that makes it easy for teams and businesses across industries to provide feedback, communicate, and work alongside each other. But we’ve also included the best Excel and Word gap analysis templates to consider!

What is a Gap Analysis Template?

For context, a gap analysis is a process of identifying and evaluating the differences between the actual performance of an organization’s asset and its desired state. 

A gap analysis template breaks down complex problems to make informed decisions, build actionable plans, and increase productivity. 

As your organization grows—employees are promoted, department key performance indicators (KPIs) are towering, and internal resources are depleting—the key is getting down to the details to take swift action.

Discover SWOT analysis templates!

What Makes a Good Gap Analysis Template?

A good gap analysis template supports different types of content, such as text, images, videos, and links, to tell the whole story. It should be flexible for any analysis contributor to easily add or remove elements so that your analysis has the data to support your research.

It’s entirely possible to do without a gap analysis template, but you should reserve the time you’re spending on prepping the analysis for the actual analysis work:

• Current State: Identifying your business’s actual pain points and areas that need to be improved
• Desired State: Establishing your business’ potential and envision your future state toward your goals
• Gap: Understanding the areas for improvement and opportunities for learning
• Action Plan: Realigning your goals to your current state, desired state, and gap to create a better action plan for your business

Gap analysis templates come in various formats—documents, lists, tables—all of which we’ve included in our template roundup. They speed up the creation process and help organize information into structured categories so audiences can understand the data without confusion.

10 Gap Analysis Templates

1. ClickUp Gap Analysis Template

Strategic planning tools in the ClickUp Gap Analysis Template will help represent the group’s thinking and drive better conversations! Everyone can build on each other’s contributions in a low-pressure environment. 

This beginner-friendly ClickUp Whiteboard template covers any strategic focus areas—policies, profit, product, or processes—to turn ideas into actionable tasks. The flexibility of this template (an infinite canvas) gives the team space to develop a thorough understanding of the gaps getting in the way of a focus area reaching its full potential. 

Use these simple ClickUp template tips to fast-track your gap analysis process:  

• Customize the Whiteboard with the four key areas of the gap analysis framework: Current State, Desired State, Gaps, and Action Plans
• Invite team members for free to collaborate (Guests are available on any ClickUp plan)
• Include relevant files, website links, or media to provide context
• Add colored text blocks or sticky notes for your content

2. ClickUp Priorities Skills Gap Analysis Template

Prioritizing skills begins with assessing the skills gap that currently exists in each employee. You can do it through a skills audit, and once this is complete, you can prioritize which skills require immediate help. 

Along with your assessment, sort your tasks by priority to see the most important tasks in your workflow and add time estimates to plan accordingly. 

This is easy to do with the ClickUp Priorities Skills Gap Analysis Template! It shows you a list of all team members grouped by priorities with their department, skill name, rating, total score, target score, action steps, gap, and priority level.

There are four levels of Priority in ClickUp: Urgent, High, Normal, and Low. How you define and use each Priority in a skills gap analysis is your choice! Here are standard priority benchmarks for inspiration:

• Urgent: These are your most important skill gaps that demand your attention right now
• High: Skill gaps with a suggested due date to complete by
• Normal: Skill gaps to address at your convenience
• Low: Skill gaps that may not take as long to complete or are not needed right away

3. ClickUp Department Skills Gap Analysis Template

If you need to look at the skill gaps as a whole team, switch to the Department List view in ClickUp’s Skills Gap Analysis Template! This tool will help you assess your current staff’s expertise and experience to determine the necessary skills for a high-functioning team.

Use this template to research industry hiring trends and gather feedback from your team and executive leadership. Once these specific skills are identified, you can compare them with the existing skills and identify recruitment or training initiatives to fill those gaps.

By taking the time to prioritize skills, organizations can ensure they are well-positioned for success today and in the future!

Learn how staff training and development can help the bottom line!

4. ClickUp Skills Gap Analysis Template

A skills gap analysis analyzes the skills of an organization’s existing workforce compared to the skills required to meet its current and future goals. This type of assessment identifies skills gaps that need to be addressed for an organization to move forward with its business objectives.

Once skills gaps are identified, organizations may offer employees training programs and other learning opportunities to help them develop the skills they need. Organizations may also hire additional employees with the required skills or outsource work when expertise isn’t available internally—or if teams are at their workload capacity. 

Use the ClickUp Skills Gap Analysis Template to help centralize all your team members grouped by skill type with their department, skill name, rating, total score, target score, action steps, gap, and priority level. The target score defaults to 0 being the lowest and 25 the highest, but you can customize this score to your preference! 

Learn how to manage the capacity planning process!

5. ClickUp Skills Mapping Template

Skill mapping is a process used to identify skills and knowledge gaps within an organization or workforce. By assessing the skills of individuals, organizations can gain insight into their employees’ abilities to fill skills and knowledge gaps. Skill mapping involves analyzing skills, abilities, and qualifications against job requirements and identifying discrepancies. 

Skill mapping also helps organizations increase productivity by ensuring that employees are well-suited for their roles and have the opportunities to perform their best work. When employees have the right skills for their roles, it encourages collaboration between teams, streamlining processes, optimizing resources, and improving overall organizational performance!

The ClickUp Skills Mapping Template has pre-formatted Custom Fields to begin rating your team’s skills: Leadership, Communication, Time Management, Problem Solving, Computer Skills, Data Analysis, Technical Writing, and Project Management.

6. ClickUp Technical Skills Mapping Template

With technology advancing exponentially, it can be difficult for businesses and individuals to keep up with the latest skills needed to remain competitive. Technical skills are essential for staying up-to-date in a digital world, and understanding the skills required for success today is key to navigating the skills gap effectively.

Switch to the Technical List view in ClickUp’s Skills Mapping Template List View and add your ratings of each employee grouped by position level: Entry Level, Mid Level, Senior Level, and Executive.

7. ClickUp IT Skills Matrix Template

Companies are constantly striving to stay ahead of the curve and need personnel with the skills required to keep up with industry developments—and train other departments in an organization on technology best practices and security. 

The ClickUp IT Skills Matrix Template is perfect for IT teams of any industry and size to manage, plan, and keep track of current and missing IT skills. The template comes with four pre-formatted views you can customize:

• Language Matrix List view: Skills grouped by Skill type, filtered by Language skills
• Web Development Matrix List view: Skills grouped by Skill type, filtered by Web Development skills
• Overall Summary Table view: Data available in this template, sorted by Skill type
• Skills Board view: Tasks grouped by Skill Type

8. ClickUp General Skills Matrix Template

A skills matrix, also known as a skills inventory, is a tool used to assess and track the skills of an individual or a team. It visually represents employees’ qualifications, skills, and abilities concerning the skills required for performing specific job roles. It’s a reference point tool for managers to assess employees’ skills gaps and plan training sessions accordingly.

Moreover, it helps employers align their staff with various business objectives more effectively by ensuring that individuals complete all relevant tasks efficiently.

The General Skills Matrix in ClickUp includes a Legend scale you can use as a starting point in your skills gap analysis:

• 4: Expert
• 3: Intermediate
• 2: Average
• 1: Basic

9. Excel Gap Analysis Template

At first glance, this gap analysis template might look overwhelming, but its done-for-you structure and design will help you outline your goals and objectives for any gap analysis process!

The main features in this template are:

• Table for detailing tasks, objectives, current state, desired state, and corrective actions
• A Priority Status Breakdown and Priority vs. Gap graphs to determine high, medium, and low priority levels

10. Microsoft Word Gap Analysis Template

This gap analysis template in Word is specifically designed for software assessments. Although it’s not a template built to be a working document (like capturing tasks or notes), you can quickly swap out the placeholder text with your content, make a few color tweaks, and share with executive leadership.  

The template has three primary columns: Current Status, Target, and Gap Analysis. At the bottom, there’s a space for a highlights statement. 

Before using a one-page template, we recommend you use a ClickUp template to perform the work in a gap analysis. So let’s walk through how to perform a gap analysis!

How to Conduct a Gap Analysis

Your task is made clear. 

Perform a gap analysis to answer the question: Why aren’t we meeting specific goals, and what’s the plan of action? 

Okay, that’s two questions, but this step-by-step guide will help you answer both!

Step 1: Define clear objectives

Establishing clear goals and objectives is essential before beginning a gap analysis. This stage aims to list exactly what the organization hopes to achieve in the end, and this will provide a benchmark for comparison later in the process. 

Step 2: Assess current performance

In this step, it’s essential to assess how well the organization performs compared with its desired goals. This includes collecting data from multiple sources, such as customer feedback surveys, internal audits, and financial reports. Then, you should evaluate this data against established standards or benchmarks for comparison purposes. 

Step 3: Identify root cause problems 

Once all relevant data is collected and analyzed, it’s time to evaluate any existing problems preventing the organization from achieving its goals. Analyzing both strengths and weaknesses at this stage helps identify areas that need improvement or further development within the organization, like its processes, systems, or resources, which you can address later in the process.  

Step 4: Set SMART goals

After identifying potential areas of improvement, set Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Time-Based (SMART) goals that will assist in attaining higher levels of performance through strategic planning initiatives that are achievable within given deadlines or timelines. 

Step 5: Develop an action plan

With defined objectives and measurable targets established, develop an action plan detailing solutions. This plan involves a communication strategy and reaching out to any key team members necessary to make changes run smoothly.

Step 6: Monitor progress and evaluate results

Once the implementation is complete, monitor progress periodically against pre-determined benchmarks and targets. The key to long-term success is actively assessing changes’ effectiveness while regularly evaluating results achieved on an ongoing basis. 

After going through this process, you can confidently conclude a successful gap analysis exercise!

Save Time With a Free Gap Analysis Template from ClickUp

A gap analysis template in ClickUp lowers the barrier to entry for you to get past the blinking cursor and get on a fast track to actionable solutions. You’ll save time breaking down complex problems to make informed decisions, build actionable plans, and increase productivity. 

ClickUp offers a feature-packed Free Forever Plan to focus on the needle-moving work and save one day a week. Create an account today!