Template

Trend Watch & Research Project Template

A guided, fillable template for tracking an emerging opportunity: define scope, capture evidence and signals, list practical experiments, assign owners, and save structured entries for later review and analysis.

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Trend Watch & Research Project

Use this form to capture a reproducible research artifact for an emerging topic. Describe the scope, surface the most important research questions, list measurable signals to watch, propose small experiments or pilots, and record owners and next steps. Save entries so your team can compare signals over time and avoid scattered notes or ad-hoc trend chasing.

Name the trend and define the scope (industry, geography, customer segment, and timeframe). Be specific enough to make comparisons meaningful.
A concise summary (1 sentence) that explains why this topic matters to your organization or customers.
List the most important questions this research should answer (3–5). Focus on decision-oriented questions, e.g., 'Is this likely to reduce cost by X?' or 'Will customers adopt this in our segment?'.
Concrete signals, metrics, or events that would indicate the trend is accelerating, slowing, or changing (e.g., number of pilots, open-source commits, price drops, regulatory moves, job postings).
Practical, low-cost experiments you could run to test the most important uncertainties (include what you'll measure and success criteria).
Teams, partners, vendors, or customers who should be involved in research or pilots, and why they matter.
How confident are you that this trend will matter to your organization? 0 = not confident, 10 = very confident.
Links, notes, citations, or short excerpts that form the basis of this entry. Include dates and short context when possible.
Who will run the next experiment or monitoring task, and by when? Include clear acceptance criteria for next milestones.
Rough estimate of budget, people-hours, and any special equipment or data needed for initial experiments.
Potential downsides or failure modes and how you might reduce or monitor them.
Comma-separated tags to help search and group entries (e.g., AI, automation, workforce, supply-chain).
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