Cost-Benefit Analysis Template
Assess pros and cons and improve your informed decision-making.
About the Cost Benefit Analysis Template
What is a cost benefit analysis?
Every business decision comes with potential rewards, as well as potential risks. Your decision might expand the business, introduce a new product, or tap into a new supply chain, but it also might cost the organization precious time, money, or social capital. Without a systematic way of analyzing costs and benefits, you may find making decisions an arduous task.
Cost benefit analysis (CBA) is an analytical tool that helps your team assess the pros and cons of moving forward with a business proposal. This technique helps you decide the best course of action to take with a new project by analyzing each option.
When to use a cost benefit analysis
You can use a CBA to compare completed or potential processes, or to estimate the value against the risks of decisions, projects, or processes. Your team can use this powerful, efficient tool in commercial transactions, business decisions, and project investments.
Advantages of using a cost benefit analysis
Organizations make high-stakes choices all the time. Chances are high that your competition is weighing many of the same factors that you are. That’s why it’s crucial to approach decisions in a systematic, methodical way.
A cost benefit analysis allows you to weigh the potential costs of a decision without having to actually incur those costs. It helps your team decide whether the benefits outweigh the costs. If you have no choice but to incur costs, the analysis can provide an estimate for the time it will take to repay those costs.
Perform your own cost benefit analysis
Miro’s whiteboard tool is the perfect canvas to create and share your team’s cost benefit analysis. Get started by selecting this Cost Benefit Analysis Template. Then, follow these steps:
Step 1: Brainstorm costs and benefits. Make a list of each. Try to think of unexpected costs or benefits that your team might not have immediately anticipated. Once you have a list of costs and benefits, think about whether those costs and benefits are likely to change or grow over time.
Step 2: Figure out the monetary value of the costs. Will you need to hire employees? Train them? Will you experience a decrease in productivity while new hires get up to speed? If you introduce a new feature, will your system experience an outage that impacts your customers
Step 3: Now assign a monetary value to the benefits. Do your best to estimate potential revenue, but don’t confine yourself to cash. Think about “soft” benefits like positive word-of-mouth, employee satisfaction, or environmental preservation.
Step 4: Compare your costs and benefits. Which seems greater? How long would it take to repay any costs?
Get started with this template right now.
User Interview Template
Works best for:
Desk Research, Product Management
A user interview is a UX research technique in which researchers ask the user questions about a topic. They allow your team to quickly and easily collect user data and learn more about your users. In general, organizations conduct user interviews to gather background data, to understand how people use technology, to take a snapshot of how users interact with a product, to understand user objectives and motivations, and to find users’ pain points. Use this template to record notes during an interview to ensure you’re gathering the data you need to create personas.
Burndown Chart Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Agile Workflows, Mapping
Whoa whoa whoa, pace yourself! That means knowing how much work is left—and, based on the delivery date, how much time you’ll have for each task. Perfect for project managers, Burndown Charts create a clear visualization of a team’s remaining work to help get it done on time and on budget. These charts have other big benefits, too. They encourage transparency and help individual team members be aware of their work pace so they can adjust or maintain it.
Festival Retrospective
Works best for:
Retrospectives, Meetings, Agile Methodology
The Festival Retrospective template offers a unique and engaging approach to retrospectives by framing the session as a festive event. It provides elements for reflecting on past experiences, celebrating achievements, and setting goals for the future. This template enables teams to foster a positive and celebratory atmosphere, encouraging open communication and collaboration. By promoting a festive spirit, the Festival Retrospective empowers teams to strengthen bonds, boost morale, and drive continuous improvement effectively.
User Persona Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Desk Research, User Experience
A user persona is a tool for representing and summarizing a target audience for your product or service that you have researched or observed. Whether you’re in content marketing, product marketing, design, or sales, you operate with a target in mind. Maybe it’s your customer or prospect. Maybe it’s someone who will benefit from your product or service. Usually, it’s a whole collection of personalities and needs that intersect in interesting ways. By distilling your knowledge about a user, you create a model for the person you hope to target: this is a persona.
Disney Creative Strategy Template
Works best for:
Business Management, Ideation, Brainstorming
Know who knew a little something about coming up with ideas that set imaginations alight? Walt Disney. And he inspired the Disney Creative Strategy, an approach that establishes three types of thinkers—dreamers, realists, and critics—and gives each the space to do clear thinking. Your team will go through an engaging exercise of adopting the three mindsets, where they’ll focus on a specific aspect of the idea. The Disney Creative Strategy has a way of yielding brilliant ideas and great products. That’s why it’s used successfully by organizations of all kinds and sizes.
Empathy Map by Axelle Vanquaillie
Works best for:
Market Research, Research & Design
Empathy Mapping template is a valuable tool for gaining deep insights into user experiences. It helps you understand their motivations and challenges, ensuring your products address real needs. Ideal for UX researchers and designers.