A 9 box grid template is a three by three table: performance across the bottom, potential up the side, nine boxes to put people in. Every version of the blank you can download says the same thing, because the blank is the easy half. The work a small HR team actually needs help with starts after the names are on it, when somebody has to say how many people are in each box, what share of the workforce that is, who the stars are, how thin the high potential pool looks and how many names sit in the boxes nobody wants to talk about. That arithmetic is what the free 9-box grid worksheet on this site does, from your own placements, and this page is about what the template has to carry for it to be worth filling in.
What the blank has to hold
A usable 9 box template needs four things and nothing else. It needs the two axes named the way your company names them, because a grid labelled with somebody else's words gets argued about instead of filled in. It needs one row per person with a placement, not a score, since the placement is the decision. It needs the cycle it belongs to, because a grid without a date cannot be compared to the last one. And it needs somewhere to record who placed each person, which is the only thing that makes a calibration meeting possible later. Anything beyond that, competency scores, ratings history, development notes, belongs in the record the paid product keeps rather than on the blank you are trying to get a room to agree on.
Performance and potential are not the same axis
The most common way a 9 box grid template fails is that both axes end up measuring performance. Potential is a judgement about a bigger or different role, and it is only useful when the room agrees what bigger means: one level up, two, or a sideways move into something the company cannot buy easily. Write the definition on the template itself. If it is not on the blank, each manager brings their own, and the grid you get back is nine boxes of noise. The CIPD factsheet cited below makes the same point from the other direction, that the review is a conversation the grid structures rather than a score the grid produces.
From the template to the count
Once the placements exist, the questions are arithmetic. How many people are in each of the nine boxes. What share of the headcount is in the stars box, and what share is in the box that is neither performing nor likely to. How big the high potential pool is in absolute numbers, since a pool of four in a company of two hundred is a different problem from a pool of four in a company of twenty. The worksheet on this site takes the nine counts and returns exactly those figures, plus the core and at risk shares, so the room can see the shape of its own talent rather than describing it from memory.
The 9 box talent review template is the same grid with a meeting attached
A 9 box talent review template is usually a 9 box template with two extra columns: the action agreed and the person who owns it. That is a real difference, because a grid with no actions is a photograph and a grid with actions is a plan. Keep the action list short and per person, and keep it on the same sheet as the placement, so that next cycle you can see whether the person moved and whether the action was ever done. Most small teams discover at the second review that the first review's actions were never assigned to anyone, and that is the failure the two extra columns exist to prevent.
Questions people ask about 9 box grid template
What goes on the two axes of a 9 box grid?
Performance on one axis and potential on the other, each in three bands. Performance is what the person has delivered in the cycle you are reviewing; potential is your judgement about a bigger or different role. Write your definition of both on the template, because an undefined axis is the main reason a grid gets argued about rather than filled in.
How many bands should each axis have?
Three, which is what makes it nine boxes. Small teams sometimes try five by five to get more resolution and end up with twenty five boxes holding one person each, which cannot be counted or compared. Three bands force a decision and still give the worksheet enough to return a meaningful set of shares.
Does the 9-box grid worksheet on this site store my people?
The free worksheet does not. You enter the nine counts and it returns the shares, the star and high potential figures and the at risk share. Keeping every person, their rating each cycle and the history between cycles is what the paid Ninebix record does.
Is a 9 box template the same as a performance review form?
No. A performance review form records one person's delivery against their objectives. The 9 box template places everyone relative to each other so the company can see its own distribution. The review feeds the grid; the grid is not a substitute for it.