How to use When to use For whom Planning pitfalls Reaching deadlines

FREE Security Awareness Training Plan Template

Master security awareness project plan timelines with our intuitive security awareness training plan template project plan Gantt chart template.

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Gantt chart template

Why use our Security Awareness Training Plan Template instead of Excel or Google Sheets?

Get started with our Security Awareness Training Plan Template in seconds while skipping the hassle involved with Excel or Google Sheets.

Build Gantt charts in minutes, not hours.

Build Gantt charts in minutes, not hours.

No project management experience? No problem. Tom's Planner offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that's intuitive and easy to learn. Creating Gantt charts is a breeze, saving you time and effort. Compare that to the time-consuming, frustrating, manual formatting-intensive process of building a Gantt chart in Excel or Google Sheets.

Create a Gantt chart in minutes, not hours

Move at the pace of modern business with no learning curve or Googling formulas.

Good luck figuring out how to make a Gantt chart work in Excel or Google Sheets. Excel’s user manual weighs in at a hefty 500+ pages. It takes just five minutes with Tom’s Planner to start planning your first real project plan.

Create a Gantt chart in minutes, not hours

Headache-free collaboration and sharing.

Tom's Planner offers powerful options for sharing and collaborating on Gantt charts, including public links, PDF exports, and team access with customizable permission levels. It’s never been easier to communicate or ensure everyone’s on the same page. Compare that to Excel, where sharing and collaboration mean jumping through hoop after hoop and dealing with confusion and chaos.

How to use Tom’s Planner’s security awareness training plan template to build and share your security project.

Getting your project off the ground is as easy as 1-2-3.

Step #1

Click the 'start with template’ button to open the Security Awareness Training Plan Template.

Step #2

Register for a free account and watch a short video on using Tom’s Planner. The account is free forever, with no strings attached.

Step #3

You’re all set to use the Gantt chart template. Need additional help? Our AI assistant can create a custom Gantt chart Security Awareness Training Plan Template based on your project description.

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What is a security awareness training plan template?

Security awareness is an incredibly important topic for businesses large and small. The rapid increase in cybercrime and the fact that attackers target small businesses as often or even more often than larger firms means that no organization can afford to put security awareness training on the back burner.

Of course, security awareness training is not simple. Even for smaller teams, it can be complicated to identify necessary topics, deliver training, and ensure that employees absorb and retain that information. A security awareness training plan template may be the key to achieving those goals.

A cyber security awareness training program template is precisely what it sounds like –– a scaffolding on which you can build a plan to get your teams up to date with security-related best practices. You can easily create tasks, set task durations, track the percentage completed on tasks, and more.

However, there are risks with using a genetic security awareness plan template. You need a tool that allows you to dive deep into planning while also providing customization and flexibility. A security awareness training plan Gantt chart is the answer.

Why choose a security awareness training plan Gantt chart?

With a security awareness training plan Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner, you can go far beyond what’s possible with a generic security awareness training program template. It’s all about customization, planning accuracy, and ensuring success. You can:

  • Assign tasks
  • Track task completion
  • Allocate and manage resources
  • Create visual timelines
  • Set key project milestones and achievements

While a generic cybersecurity awareness program template can be beneficial, it’s always a better option to plan security awareness training programs that fit your unique needs and risk factors.

When to use a security awareness training plan template

Your security awareness training plan Gantt chart will be vital during several stages of the project, including:

Planning Phase:

What’s the key to a successful security awareness training program? Accurate planning. A security awareness training plan template helps outline the entire project, clarify tasks and dependencies, create accurate timelines, and highlight the resources required.

Resource Allocation:

You’ll need to identify, allocate, and manage hardware, training professionals, information about best practices, and more throughout the project. A security awareness training plan Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner simplifies that process.

Training Delivery:

Regularly updating your training plan as training commences will help keep trainers and employees on track and the project moving forward. It also ensures that you can adjust the project in real time.

A security awareness training plan Gantt chart is more than just a reference point. It’s a living roadmap capable of guiding the entire project forward.

Who should use a security awareness training plan template?

Many different professionals will require access to a security awareness training plan Gantt chart, including:

Project Manager:

Project managers will use the security awareness training plan to design all stages of the project, set objectives, identify resources, and track progress.

Trainers:

Trainers will need to synchronize their tasks with others, track the project’s progress, understand project timing, and plan their labor.

Content/Material Developers:

Content/material developers will also need to sync their efforts with tasks on which they depend, plan their labor, and understand the project’s timeline.

When accurately created, a security awareness training plan Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner can help ensure timely completion and better budget and resource management.

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The top three pitfalls to avoid when planning a security awareness training plan

Keep your security awareness training plan on track and avoid major problems by skipping these missteps:

  1. Failing to Account for Why Current Training Is Insufficient

    Chances are good that your organization has some element of security awareness training already. Why is it insufficient? Failing to identify these causes makes it likely that your new program will suffer from similar issues.

    Solution:

    Identify the reason(s) why your current training is insufficient and then plan new training initiatives that deliver better results.

  2. Failing to Plan for Communications

    Communication is essential throughout safety awareness training plan development. Failing to plan for it could mean that stakeholders are left out or that key team members are out of the loop.

    Solution:

    Identify those who must be in the loop at all times and make communication a priority during your planning sessions.

  3. Failure to Plan for Behavior

    Security breaches don’t occur strictly because of a lack of awareness. Employee behaviors also put business assets at risk.

    Solution:

    Plan to address both awareness and employee behavior within your training content.

What does a security awareness training plan template include?

Regardless of scope, security awareness training programs are crucial for asset protection and safety. Some of the things you can plan with the right tool include:

  1. Project Initiation:

    Accurate planning is the key to a successful security training program. This phase will include an initial meeting to discuss the project’s scope and determine objectives within your security training plan. You’ll also need to allocate resources, plan your budget, and begin assigning tasks.

  2. Current Security Protocol Review:

    After kicking everything off, you’ll need to review and record your current security protocols within the security awareness training policy template. This includes compliance verification, analyzing security measures, investigating the threat landscape, reviewing internal controls, and conducting a security audit analysis.

  3. Employee Skill Assessment:

    Security awareness training is designed to get your employees up to speed when it comes to recognizing security threats and following best practices. To do that, you’ll need to identify key skills, analyze employee roles, evaluate their capabilities, determine where skills gaps exist, review individual employee performance, test soft skills, determine their technical ability, and verify their competency.

  4. Needs Assessment:

    A needs assessment sheds light on critical safety training-related requirements. It should begin with an employee survey and data gathering, followed by a gap analysis, risk identification, requirement prioritization, benchmarking, and the creation of a needs report.

  5. Content Development:

    Training content should be developed based on the findings in your previous steps, as well as additional ones. You’ll need to identify training topics, outline the content creation strategy, draft and review content, and source material, and then package that content.

  6. Training Material Creation:

    Training material consists of the content created in the previous stage, plus additional material. Your steps here will include integrating the content created previously, creating graphics, designing interactive elements, reviewing the materials created, and then preparing everything for delivery.

  7. Training Implementation and Evaluation:

    Finally, you need to deliver the training to your employees. Each employee needs a training notification and must go through an enrollment process. They should then complete the training material and complete an assessment. After all employees have completed training, you must evaluate the effectiveness of the training overall.

Security awareness training is never simple. A tool like Tom’s Planner helps you plan accurately and deliver critical training that addresses real needs.

Four tips on how to make sure you reach your deadlines

1. Don’t Rush the Planning

Planning with a Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner will help ensure you reach your deadlines, but only if you invest a sufficient amount of time in the planning process. Don’t rush it.

2. Be Aware of the Roadblocks

You’ll encounter several roadblocks here. Be aware and prepared for them. These can include a lack of skilled trainers, inadequate funding, and large volumes of data that require analysis.

3. Don’t Skip the Success Analysis

The real measure of success with security awareness training is an increase in employee knowledge and changed behaviors. Analyze information retention after everyone has completed training or you risk having to go through the process again.

4. Bake in Compliance Considerations

Failing to include compliance considerations in your training material will mean having to retool the entire program. Bake those considerations into your material from the beginning to stay on track.

Gantt charts in Tom's Planner vs in Excel

Excel Tom's Planner
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