Rock Your Strategy

Category: OGSM

  • OGSM Measures: The Complete Guide to Dashboards, KPIs, and Action Plans

    OGSM Measures: The Complete Guide to Dashboards, KPIs, and Action Plans

    Most OGSM plans fall apart in the same place.

    OGSM Measures is the column that answers “how will we know if this is working?” — and it contains two distinct sub-elements that most teams never separate: a Dashboard (KPIs and indicators that track whether each Strategy is on track) and an Action Plan (the specific initiatives, owners, and deadlines that execute each Strategy). Done right, Measures turns your OGSM from a strategy document into a live management system — one that tells you, in a single glance, what’s working, what’s stalling, and exactly what to do about it.

    Here you’ll get the complete picture of what the Measures column actually contains, why the Dashboard and Action Plan distinction matters, how to choose KPIs that connect to real strategy, and the exact mistakes that make Measures columns useless. You’ll also see a full worked example for a B2B SaaS company so you can build yours with confidence.

    If you’ve read our overview of the Measures column or worked through the OGSM template, this is the deep-dive companion that covers everything else.

    Table of Contents

    What Does the OGSM Measures Column Actually Contain?

    Not at the Objective. Not at the Goals. Not even at the Strategies. They fall apart in the Measures column — the one element that’s supposed to tell you whether any of it is actually working.

    The Measures column is the most misunderstood, most abused, and most underbuilt part of any OGSM. Practitioners stuff it with vanity metrics they can’t act on, KPIs borrowed from a competitor’s dashboard, or a wall of numbers that nobody reviews. Then they wonder why their OGSM dies in a drawer by February.

    Open up almost any OGSM template — including the ones sold as “complete” — and you’ll see the Measures column described as a single thing: metrics. KPIs. Numbers.

    That’s wrong. Or rather, it’s incomplete in a way that causes real operational damage.

    The Measures column is not a metrics column. It’s a management column. It contains two structurally different sub-elements that serve two completely different purposes:

    1. The Dashboard — indicators that tell you whether a Strategy is on track
    2. The Action Plan — the specific initiatives, projects, and tasks that execute the Strategy

    Most teams build one or the other. The few who build both often stack them on top of each other as if they’re the same thing. They’re not. Conflating them is the single most common reason OGSM Measures columns become useless decoration.

    Before we go further: if you’re new to OGSM altogether, start with our complete OGSM guide to get grounded in the full framework. Come back here for the deep dive on Measures.

    The Two Jobs of the Measures Column

    Think about what a Strategy actually needs to be managed:

    Job 1 — Tracking: You need signals that tell you, on an ongoing basis, whether your Strategy is working. These are leading and lagging indicators. They answer: Is this Strategy moving us in the right direction?

    Job 2 — Executing: You need a concrete set of actions that implement the Strategy. Plans, owners, deadlines. They answer: What are we actually doing to move the needle?

    The Dashboard handles Job 1. The Action Plan handles Job 2. You need both.

    Without the Dashboard, you’re flying blind — executing away without knowing if anything is working.

    Without the Action Plan, you have targets but no engine to hit them.

    This two-part structure is what separates OGSM from simpler frameworks like OKRs, where Measures and Actions are often collapsed into “Key Results” and left ambiguous. OGSM forces you to be explicit about both.

    What Is the Difference Between the Dashboard and the Action Plan?

    Let’s break these down precisely.

    The Dashboard

    The Dashboard is your monitoring system. For each Strategy in your OGSM, your Dashboard contains a small set of KPIs (typically 2–4) that reflect whether that Strategy is working.

    What it includes:

    • The indicator name and definition
    • Current baseline value
    • Target value (linked to the Goal it serves)
    • Measurement frequency (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
    • Data owner (who pulls the number and confirms accuracy)

    What it does NOT include:

    • Tasks or projects
    • Vague aspirations (“improve NPS”)
    • Metrics you can’t act on

    The Dashboard is passive in the sense that it reflects reality — it doesn’t create it. A good Dashboard tells your leadership team, in a 60-second glance, whether each Strategy is working or stalling. It enables intelligent conversation at your OGSM review cadence without requiring anyone to hunt through spreadsheets.

    Think of it like a car dashboard. The speedometer doesn’t make the car go faster — it tells you how fast you’re going so you can decide whether to press the accelerator or ease off.

    Characteristics of a good Dashboard indicator:

    • Measurable with current tools — You can actually pull this number today, not “once we set up the new reporting system.”
    • Owned — One person is responsible for the accuracy of this number.
    • Sensitive to the Strategy — If the Strategy is working, this number moves. If it’s not, it stays flat or deteriorates.
    • Actionable — When the number goes red, you know what lever to pull.
    • Leading or lagging with intent — Lagging indicators confirm what happened; leading indicators predict what’s coming. A great Dashboard includes both.

    Example Dashboard for a customer retention Strategy:

    Indicator Baseline Target Frequency Owner
    Monthly churn rate 3.2% < 1.5% Monthly VP Customer Success
    NPS (Promoters only) 28 50+ Quarterly Head of CX
    Product adoption score (feature X) 34% 65% Monthly Product Analytics

    The Action Plan

    The Action Plan is your execution system. It’s the list of specific initiatives, projects, and milestones that will cause the Strategy to work. If the Dashboard tells you how you’re doing, the Action Plan tells you what you’re doing.

    What it includes:

    • Initiative name (clear and specific)
    • Owner (person accountable for delivery)
    • Deadline or target quarter
    • Current status (not started / in progress / complete / at risk)
    • Dependency flags (what this blocks or is blocked by)

    What it does NOT include:

    • Vague activities (“increase customer focus”)
    • Aspirations with no owner
    • Everything you could possibly do — only the priority actions for this Strategy in this planning cycle

    The Action Plan is your commitment layer. It’s what you said you’d do. It’s what gets reviewed. It’s what people are accountable for delivering.

    Example Action Plan for the same customer retention Strategy:

    Initiative Owner Deadline Status
    Launch in-app onboarding flow for Feature X Product Lead Q2 In Progress
    Implement automated churn-risk alert system CS Ops Q1 Complete
    Build customer health score model Data Team Q3 Not Started
    Run quarterly Executive Business Reviews for top 50 accounts Head of CS Ongoing In Progress

    Why Conflating Them Breaks Everything

    When teams mix Dashboard and Action Plan into one undifferentiated list, several things go wrong:

    Reviews become chaotic. Nobody knows whether they’re discussing a metric or a task. Conversations jump between “our NPS is 28” and “we need to hire someone” without structure.

    Accountability disappears. KPIs don’t have owners; they have watchers. Initiatives do have owners. When they’re blended, the owner question gets muddy.

    Progress is invisible. You can’t tell if a Strategy is executing (Action Plan running well) but not working (Dashboard flat). That distinction matters enormously because the response is different.

    Leadership loses confidence. When the Measures column looks like a random list of numbers and activities, senior leaders disengage. They don’t trust the document because it doesn’t give them clarity.

    Keep them separate. Label them explicitly. It’s one of the highest-leverage improvements you can make to your OGSM.

    How Do You Choose the Right KPIs for Each Strategy?

    This is where most OGSM efforts go sideways. Teams either pick too many KPIs, pick the wrong KPIs, or copy KPIs from an industry list that has nothing to do with their specific Strategy.

    Here’s a structured approach.

    Step 1: Anchor to the Strategy Intent

    Every KPI in your Dashboard must connect to a specific Strategy. The question to ask is: If this Strategy is working, what would we expect to see change?

    Write the Strategy at the top of a blank page. Then brainstorm what observable, measurable change that Strategy should produce — in the short term (leading) and the medium-to-long term (lagging).

    For a Strategy like “Expand into the Enterprise segment via direct sales”:

    • Leading: Number of enterprise-qualified opportunities in pipeline, outbound meetings booked
    • Lagging: Enterprise ACV, Enterprise customer count, Enterprise win rate

    If you can’t identify what should change when the Strategy works, the Strategy itself is probably too vague. That’s a useful diagnostic.

    Step 2: Apply the “So What?” Filter

    For every candidate KPI, ask: If this number moves, so what?

    If the answer is “we’d know the Strategy is working/not working and we’d know what to do next” — keep it.

    If the answer is “we’d have an interesting data point” — cut it.

    This is how you eliminate vanity metrics. Vanity metrics are KPIs that feel meaningful because they’re easy to measure (website visits, social followers, email list size) but don’t connect to strategy execution. They don’t pass the So What filter.

    Step 3: Balance Leading and Lagging

    Every Dashboard should include at least one leading and one lagging indicator per Strategy.

    Lagging indicators (outcome metrics): Revenue, profit, customer count, NPS, market share. These confirm whether the Strategy worked — but they tell you after the fact.

    Leading indicators (activity or input metrics): Sales calls per week, content pieces published, feature releases shipped, proposal volume. These predict what the lagging metrics will do — but they require judgment to interpret.

    A Dashboard with only lagging indicators leaves you reacting. A Dashboard with only leading indicators leaves you guessing whether activity is translating to results. You need both.

    Step 4: Limit the Set Ruthlessly

    The maximum for any one Strategy’s Dashboard is 4 KPIs. Ideally 2–3.

    More than 4 is almost always a sign that the team is hedging: they don’t know which indicators actually matter, so they measure everything and hope something rises to the surface. That’s not strategy. That’s data collection.

    Force the conversation: If we could only track two things for this Strategy, which two would tell us the most? Those are your Dashboard KPIs.

    Step 5: Confirm Measurability Today

    Before any KPI makes it into the Dashboard, someone on the team must confirm: Can we actually pull this number right now, with our current tools and data?

    If the answer is “we’d have to build a new report” — put it in the Action Plan as an initiative, then revisit the Dashboard once the data infrastructure exists.

    A KPI you can’t measure is not a KPI. It’s a wish.

    Step 6: Assign an Owner

    Every Dashboard KPI needs one owner — the person who is responsible for pulling the number, validating its accuracy, and presenting it at each review. Not a team. One person.

    Without an owner, numbers get forgotten, miscalculated, or gamed. With an owner, you create accountability for the integrity of the data — separate from accountability for the results.

    What Are the Most Common Mistakes in the Measures Column?

    After working through dozens of OGSM builds, the same mistakes show up again and again. Here are the most damaging ones — and how to fix them.

    Mistake 1: Using Vanity Metrics

    What it looks like: Dashboard filled with website pageviews, social media followers, email subscribers, press mentions, or app downloads.

    Why it happens: These metrics are easy to track, they usually go up, and they feel like progress. Leadership likes seeing green.

    Why it fails: Vanity metrics don’t connect to strategic outcomes. You can have 100,000 Instagram followers and declining revenue. The metric creates a false sense of momentum that masks real strategic stagnation.

    The fix: Apply the So What filter (see above). If the metric rises 20% and you can’t articulate what strategic outcome that causes, it’s a vanity metric. Cut it.

    Mistake 2: Too Many Indicators

    What it looks like: A Measures column with 15–30 KPIs spread across all Strategies, often presented as a comprehensive “metrics framework.”

    Why it happens: Committees and cross-functional input. When multiple stakeholders contribute their preferred metrics, the Dashboard expands to include everyone’s favorites. Nobody wants to be the one who removed a metric.

    Why it fails: When everything is measured, nothing is prioritized. Leaders spend review meetings discussing every number instead of diagnosing what matters. Decision-making slows. Signal drowns in noise.

    The fix: Hard cap at 4 KPIs per Strategy. Present this as a design principle, not a preference. Fewer, sharper metrics create faster, better decisions.

    Mistake 3: Conflating Dashboard and Action Plan

    We’ve covered this above, but it deserves its own spot in the mistakes list because it’s the most common failure mode.

    What it looks like: A Measures column that mixes KPIs (“Churn rate < 2%") with tasks ("Hire CS Manager") and milestones ("Launch new onboarding flow by Q3") in one undifferentiated list.

    Why it happens: Teams try to keep the OGSM document simple by collapsing both elements. The intention is efficiency; the result is confusion.

    Why it fails: See the section above. Reviews become chaotic, accountability disappears, and leadership disengages.

    The fix: Create two explicit sub-sections in each Strategy’s Measures column — one labeled Dashboard, one labeled Action Plan. Even a visual separator (a line or a different background color) helps.

    Mistake 4: Action Plans Without Owners or Deadlines

    What it looks like: An Action Plan that lists initiatives like “Improve the onboarding experience” or “Build out the sales team” — with no owner named and no deadline specified.

    Why it happens: Teams list aspirations rather than commitments. They treat the Action Plan as a brainstorm rather than a contract.

    Why it fails: Without an owner, nobody is accountable. Without a deadline, there’s no urgency. The initiative stays “in progress” indefinitely while the Strategy stalls.

    The fix: Every action in the Action Plan must have a named owner and a specific deadline or target quarter. If you can’t name an owner, the initiative isn’t real yet — it’s an idea. Leave it off the OGSM until it is.

    Mistake 5: Setting Targets Without a Baseline

    What it looks like: Dashboard KPIs with targets like “Achieve NPS of 60” or “Reach $5M ARR” but no recorded baseline — what the number is today.

    Why it happens: Teams are excited about where they want to go and skip the uncomfortable step of documenting where they are.

    Why it fails: Without a baseline, you can’t measure progress. You also can’t calibrate whether the target is ambitious, realistic, or absurd. And in reviews, you end up in arguments about what “good” looks like because there’s no agreed starting point.

    The fix: Record the baseline for every Dashboard KPI before the OGSM goes live. If you don’t know the baseline, measure it immediately. The OGSM document shouldn’t be finalized until baselines are documented.

    Mistake 6: Never Reviewing the Action Plan

    What it looks like: Organizations that review financial metrics monthly but check Action Plan status only at the annual review — by which point half the initiatives are stale or abandoned.

    Why it happens: Leaders are more comfortable discussing numbers than discussing whether initiatives are on track. The Dashboard feels objective; the Action Plan requires accountability conversations.

    Why it fails: Strategies execute through the Action Plan. If nobody is checking whether initiatives are on track, the Strategy isn’t being managed — it’s being wished for.

    The fix: Your Action Plan review cadence should match your Dashboard review cadence. Both get reviewed at the same session. Both get the same level of leadership attention. See our guide to OGSM review cadences for how to structure these sessions.

    What Does a Complete OGSM Measures Column Look Like?

    Here’s a complete, realistic Measures column for a mid-market B2B SaaS company. The Objective is to become the category leader in workflow automation for professional services firms.

    The example covers two Strategies with full Dashboard and Action Plan for each.

    Objective: Become the undisputed workflow automation platform for professional services firms with 50–500 employees.

    Goal: Reach $15M ARR by end of fiscal year, with NPS > 55 and gross revenue retention > 92%.

    Strategy 1: Win the mid-market segment through verticalized outbound sales

    Dashboard:

    Indicator Baseline Target Frequency Owner
    Enterprise-qualified opportunities created (monthly) 12 35 Monthly VP Sales
    Mid-market win rate 18% 28% Monthly Sales Ops
    Average Sales Cycle (days) 67 45 Monthly Sales Ops
    Mid-market ACV $42K $55K Quarterly VP Sales

    Action Plan:

    Initiative Owner Deadline Status
    Hire 3 Mid-Market AEs with professional services vertical experience Head of Talent Q1 Complete
    Build vertical-specific sales playbooks (legal, consulting, accounting) Revenue Enablement Q2 In Progress
    Launch outbound sequence targeting firms 50–500 employees in top 5 verticals SDR Lead Q1 Complete
    Implement deal inspection process for all opportunities > $30K ACV VP Sales Q2 In Progress
    Develop ROI calculator for professional services segment Sales Ops Q2 Not Started

    Strategy 2: Reduce churn by deepening product adoption in year 1

    Dashboard:

    Indicator Baseline Target Frequency Owner
    90-day feature adoption rate (core workflows) 34% 65% Monthly Product Analytics
    12-month gross revenue retention 84% 92% Quarterly VP CS
    Time to first value (days) 28 14 Monthly CS Ops
    Customer health score (% at “healthy” or above) 51% 72% Monthly VP CS

    Action Plan:

    Initiative Owner Deadline Status
    Redesign onboarding flow with role-based paths for 3 personas Product Lead Q2 In Progress
    Build automated customer health scoring model Data Team Q2 In Progress
    Launch 60-day “First 90 Days” success program for all new customers CS Lead Q1 Complete
    Implement churn-risk early warning system with automated CS alerts CS Ops Q2 Not Started
    Create library of vertical-specific workflow templates (5 per vertical) Product + CS Q3 Not Started

    Notice what this example demonstrates:

    • Each Strategy has its own Dashboard and Action Plan — kept cleanly separate
    • Dashboard KPIs have baselines, targets, frequencies, and owners
    • Action Plan initiatives have owners, deadlines, and status — no vague activities
    • Leading indicators (opportunities created, time to first value, health score %) sit alongside lagging indicators (win rate, ACV, gross revenue retention)
    • No more than 4 KPIs per Dashboard
    • No vanity metrics anywhere

    This is the structure. Customize the content for your business, your Strategies, your Goals. The structure should stay consistent.

    For more on this — including the specific Measures column format we use in our OGSM Measures guide and our downloadable OGSM template — those resources give you the exact format to copy.

    How Do You Connect OGSM Measures to Your Review Cadence?

    A Measures column that nobody reviews is a filing exercise, not a management system.

    The entire point of the Dashboard is to enable fast, fact-based conversation at your review sessions. The entire point of the Action Plan is to create accountability between those sessions.

    Here’s the minimal review structure that makes the Measures column earn its keep:

    Monthly review (60–90 minutes):

    • Dashboard: Review all KPIs. Flag anything off-track. Identify root causes for underperforming Strategies.
    • Action Plan: Review status of all initiatives. Identify blockers. Update status.
    • Decision: For each Strategy, is it on track, needs adjustment, or needs escalation?

    Quarterly review (half-day):

    • Everything above, plus:
    • Are targets still appropriate given market conditions?
    • Are the right KPIs in the Dashboard? Are we measuring what actually matters?
    • Do Action Plans need to be refreshed for the next quarter?
    • Are any Strategies no longer viable? Should resources shift?

    Annual review:

    • Full OGSM reset. New Objectives, new Goals, new Strategies — and with those, new Measures.
    • Capture lessons: which Dashboard KPIs were genuinely predictive? Which Action Plan initiatives moved the needle? Which didn’t?

    For a complete breakdown of how to structure each type of review session, including who should attend and what decisions should come out of each, read our OGSM review cadence guide.

    What Do Teams Most Often Ask About OGSM Measures?

    What’s the difference between a KPI and a metric?

    A metric is any number you track. A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is a metric that is tied to strategic performance — it tells you whether a key part of your strategy is working. All KPIs are metrics. Not all metrics are KPIs. Your OGSM Dashboard should contain KPIs only.

    How many KPIs should be in the entire OGSM?

    Depends on how many Strategies you have — but the math is simple. With 2–4 KPIs per Strategy and typically 3–6 Strategies per OGSM, you should have somewhere between 6 and 20 Dashboard KPIs total across the entire plan. If you have more than 20, you’re over-measuring. Cut until you feel slightly uncomfortable with how few you have. That’s usually about right.

    Can the same KPI appear in the Dashboard for multiple Strategies?

    Yes, but do it deliberately and sparingly. If a single KPI is sensitive to multiple Strategies, it’s likely a top-level Goal metric rather than a Strategy-specific Dashboard indicator. Consider moving it up to the Goals section and choosing more specific, Strategy-level indicators for each Dashboard.

    What’s the right frequency for Dashboard reviews?

    Monthly is the minimum for most organizations. Weekly is appropriate for early-stage companies or Strategies in critical execution phases. Quarterly is too infrequent — it doesn’t give you enough signal to course-correct during the year. Your dashboard review cadence should match the pace at which you can meaningfully take corrective action.

    Do Action Plans need to be in the OGSM document itself, or can they live in a separate project management tool?

    They should be referenced in the OGSM, even if they’re managed in a separate tool (Asana, Jira, Monday, etc.). The OGSM document should at minimum show the top 3–5 initiatives per Strategy, their owners, and their deadlines. The detailed task management can live in your project tool. What matters is that the two are linked — someone looking at the OGSM should be able to see what’s being done, not just what’s being measured.

    How is the OGSM Measures column different from OKR Key Results?

    Both aim to define “how we know we’re succeeding.” The key difference is that OGSM explicitly separates monitoring (Dashboard) from execution (Action Plan), while OKRs often conflate them in Key Results. OKRs also tend to operate on shorter cycles (quarterly) and are more bottom-up; OGSM is typically annual and top-down. Neither is inherently better — the right choice depends on your organization’s planning culture. OGSM’s Measures structure is more prescriptive, which is both its strength (clarity) and its challenge (requires discipline to maintain).

    What if I can’t measure something that clearly matters to a Strategy?

    Put a measurement initiative in your Action Plan. “Build capability to measure [X]” is a legitimate action. In the Dashboard, note the KPI as “under development” and use the closest available proxy until the real measurement is in place. Don’t leave the Dashboard slot empty — a proxy is better than nothing, and the action to build better measurement keeps the team honest.

    How do I handle Strategies that are inherently hard to quantify — like culture or brand?

    Every Strategy has some observable outcome you can measure, even if imperfectly. Culture: employee engagement score, retention rate, internal promotion rate, management effectiveness rating. Brand: aided awareness (survey), share of voice, earned media mentions, branded search volume. The KPIs won’t be perfect. That’s fine. The discipline of choosing something measurable forces strategic clarity and prevents culture/brand from becoming a catch-all for initiatives that don’t need to justify their results.

    The Measures column is where your OGSM lives or dies. Get it right — with a clean separation between Dashboard and Action Plan, KPIs tied directly to each Strategy, and a review rhythm that keeps everyone accountable — and your OGSM becomes a genuine management system. Get it wrong, and it becomes a very well-formatted wishlist.

    If you’re building your Measures column for the first time, start with the OGSM template. If you want a deeper look at the column structure specifically, the OGSM Measures overview is the right next step.

    Rock on.

  • How to Cascade Your OGSM Across Your Organisation

    How to Cascade Your OGSM Across Your Organisation

    A strategy that only lives at the top of the organisation isn’t really a strategy — it’s a set of senior leadership intentions that nobody else acts on.

    Cascading your OGSM means translating the company-level Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures into department-level OGSMs that support the parent plan. Each department keeps the same Objective, then builds its own Goals, Strategies, and Measures that contribute directly to the company’s. Done well, every team member can trace their work back to the organisation’s direction.

    Here’s how to cascade without losing alignment — or your team’s sanity.

    Why Cascading Matters

    Most strategy failures aren’t failures of planning. They’re failures of translation. The executive team agrees on an excellent strategy, it gets presented, and then people go back to their desks and continue doing more or less what they were already doing.

    The OGSM cascade solves this by creating a direct line of sight between the company’s Objective and every team’s day-to-day work. When someone in operations can look at their team’s OGSM and see exactly how it connects to the company-level Goals, strategy stops being something that happens in boardrooms and starts being something that shapes how people prioritise their week.

    The Structure of a Cascade

    Think of it as a tree:

    Level 1 — Company OGSM: The overall Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures for the organisation.

    Level 2 — Division or Function OGSMs: HR, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Operations each build their own OGSM. Same Objective. Different Goals and Strategies that reflect what their function contributes.

    Level 3 — Team or Project OGSMs (optional): In larger organisations, individual teams or major projects may have their own sub-OGSMs cascaded from the division level.

    The cascade doesn’t require all three levels. Many organisations work well with just two. What matters is that every level’s Goals visibly contribute to the level above it.

    How to Build the Cascade

    Step 1: Lock the Company OGSM First

    Don’t start building department OGSMs until the company-level plan is finalised. This sounds obvious, but cascading before the top-level plan is locked leads to department Goals that point in slightly different directions.

    The company OGSM is the fixed point. Everything below it aligns to it — not the other way around.

    Step 2: Identify Each Department’s Contribution

    For each department, ask: which company Goals does this function directly influence?

    Marketing influences awareness, traffic, and pipeline Goals. Sales influences revenue and customer acquisition Goals. Operations may influence quality, retention, and cost Goals. HR influences capability and culture Goals that underpin almost everything else.

    A department doesn’t need to contribute to every company Goal — just the ones where it genuinely has influence. A cascaded OGSM with three relevant Goals is better than one with six watered-down contributions.

    Step 3: Write the Department Goals

    Department Goals should be outcomes that directly feed the company-level Goals above them.

    If the company Goal is “Grow annual recurring revenue from €5M to €8M by December 2026,” the Sales department Goal might be “Close €2.4M in new ARR from inbound leads by December 2026.” The Marketing department Goal might be “Generate 1,200 qualified leads for the sales team by year-end.”

    Both contribute to the same company Goal. Neither duplicates the other.

    Step 4: Define Department Strategies

    Department Strategies are the specific choices that department will make to hit their Goals. These are usually more operational and specific than the company-level Strategies.

    Company Strategy: “Invest in content marketing to drive inbound demand.”

    Marketing’s Strategy (cascaded): “Publish two SEO-targeted articles per week; run monthly LinkedIn campaigns to drive article traffic; build a lead magnet to convert organic visitors.”

    Step 5: Set Department Measures

    Department Measures track progress on the department’s Strategies — and should be reviewed at the same cadence as company Measures (usually monthly).

    The head of the department owns the department OGSM review. The company-level review draws from these department inputs.

    Making the Cascade Visible

    One of the most powerful things you can do with a cascade is make the connections visible — literally. In your OGSM template, cross-reference department Goals back to the company Goal they support.

    For example, in the Marketing OGSM, next to each Goal, note the company Goal it feeds: “Feeds: Company Goal 2 — Revenue €8M.” This keeps the alignment explicit rather than assumed, and it gives every review a natural “so what” test: if we hit this department Goal, which company Goal moves?

    Common Cascade Mistakes

    Building department OGSMs in silos. If departments build their own OGSMs without referencing the company-level plan, you get local optimisation rather than aligned execution. Heads of department should build their plans in a facilitated session, ideally with the company OGSM on the wall.

    Allowing too much divergence. Some flexibility in department-level Goals is fine. But if a department’s Goals don’t clearly contribute to any company Goal, they’re not cascading — they’re operating a separate strategy.

    Treating the cascade as a one-time exercise. The cascade is a living system. When the company OGSM changes mid-year because of market conditions, the department OGSMs need to update too. Build in a review trigger: whenever the company-level plan changes significantly, review department plans within the following month.

    Cascading too deep too soon. For most organisations, two levels is enough. A third level of team-level OGSMs makes sense only when teams are large and distinct enough to genuinely need their own planning. Don’t create complexity for its own sake.

    Cascade in a Small Business

    Cascading isn’t only for large organisations. Even a three-person business benefits from making the connection explicit between the business-level strategy and each person’s role.

    If your business OGSM has a Goal of growing revenue 40% this year, a simple cascade might mean:

    • Person A’s individual plan focuses on sales and client relationships.
    • Person B’s plan focuses on delivery quality and retention.
    • Person C’s plan focuses on operations and cost efficiency.

    Each person knows exactly how their work contributes to the shared Goal, and the monthly review becomes a two-level check: are we hitting our individual Measures, and is that moving the business Goal?

    The Right Format for a Cascade

    Cascading works best when all levels use the same template format. If the company OGSM is in PowerPoint, department OGSMs should be in the same template. If it’s in Excel, same. Consistency of format makes it easy to review across levels and keeps the visual alignment clear.

    The OGSM Template for PowerPoint and OGSM Template for Excel are built for exactly this — you can use the same template at company and department level, adjust the Goals and Measures for each, and keep the whole cascade on the same page layout. That consistency makes cascade reviews much faster and alignment much more visible.

  • Is OGSM Right for Your Scale-Up? A Practical Guide (With Worked Example)

    Is OGSM Right for Your Scale-Up? A Practical Guide (With Worked Example)

    Yes — if you’re between 30 and 200 people and your strategy is starting to slip through the cracks, OGSM is almost certainly the right framework for where you are right now.

    OGSM is a one-page strategic planning tool that forces alignment across a leadership team that can no longer hold the entire company direction in their heads. The OGSM framework perfectly suits small businesses for its simplicity, clarity, and ease of use.

    Here’s how to know for sure, and what building one looks like in practice.

    When does OGSM actually fit a scale-up?

    OGSM — Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures — is a one-page strategic planning framework originally developed at Procter & Gamble. It’s since become widely used across SMEs and multinationals that want every team member reading from the same page of strategy, literally.

    For scale-ups specifically, OGSM fits well when three conditions are true:

    You’re in the £5M–£50M revenue range (or roughly 30–200 people). Below this, the founder’s instincts and weekly all-hands meetings do the job. Above it, you typically need something more sophisticated. In the middle, OGSM’s single-page constraint forces clarity without adding bureaucratic weight.

    You’re transitioning from founder-led intuition to structured strategy. The classic scale-up inflection point is when the leadership team can no longer hold the entire strategy in their heads. Decisions start getting made in silos. Sales pursues a segment the product team isn’t building for. Marketing campaigns features that engineering has de-prioritised. OGSM gives you a shared document that every department head can point to when making trade-offs.

    You’re hiring fast enough that alignment is becoming a friction cost. Onboarding a new Head of Finance or VP of Sales is dramatically faster when you can hand them a single page that captures the company’s direction, the three or four strategies you’re betting on, and the specific numbers you’re tracking to know if it’s working.

    If you recognise your company in those three conditions, OGSM is worth a serious look.

    When do OKRs make more sense?

    I’m not anti-OKR. They’re the right tool for the right context, and it’s worth being clear about when that context applies.

    OKRs work best when:

    • You need fast iteration cycles. OKRs run quarterly, which suits product organisations that ship continuously and need to recalibrate every 90 days based on user feedback.
    • Teams are largely self-organising. OKRs push goal-setting downward. Individual contributors write their own Key Results and align them to company-level Objectives. That’s energising in a high-autonomy culture.
    • You want bottom-up accountability. The OKR model is built on transparency — everyone can see everyone else’s goals. That fosters peer accountability in flat organisations.

    Where OKRs can struggle at scale-up stage: the quarterly cadence can create a wall of sticky notes that no one looks at after week three. Without a longer-horizon strategy document anchoring the OKRs, teams can hit their quarterly numbers and still drift from the company’s three-year direction. OGSM doesn’t replace the quarterly rhythm — but it provides the strategic spine that OKRs hang from.

    Many scale-ups that thrive with OGSM use it to set the 12–18 month strategic frame, then run OKRs within each strategy pillar for quarterly execution. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

    What does a scale-up OGSM look like in practice?

    Company: Findr — a 35-person B2B SaaS business helping professional services firms track project profitability. Revenue: £8M ARR. Growing at 40% YoY. Headcount doubled in 18 months.

    The problem: Three VPs were making independent resourcing decisions. The Head of Engineering was building an enterprise SSO integration. The Head of Marketing was doubling down on SME content. Sales was pitching mid-market. Nobody was wrong — but the company was pulling in three directions.

    Two half-day sessions with the seven-person leadership team produced this:

    Objective: Become the go-to profitability tool for professional services firms in the UK, trusted by 500 firms within three years.

    Goals:

    1. Reach £15M ARR by end of FY26
    2. Achieve NPS of 45+ across the customer base by Q4
    3. Reduce average time-to-value for new customers from 45 days to 20 days by end of FY26

    Strategies (the specific choices about where and how to compete):

    1. Double down on accountancy and legal verticals — not generic SME, not enterprise
    2. Build a referral-first growth model via existing customer champions
    3. Invest in onboarding, not acquisition, until time-to-value hits target

    Measures (leading indicators for each strategy):

    • % of new ARR from accountancy + legal (target: 70% by Q4)
    • % of new pipeline sourced from referrals (target: 35% by Q3)
    • Average onboarding completion rate (target: 85%)

    It fit on one page. Every leadership decision since has been tested against it: Does this serve Strategy 1, 2, or 3? If not, why are we doing it?

    The SSO integration was deprioritised. The SME content was refocused on accountancy and legal pain points. Sales aligned its ICP to match.

    What are the most common scale-up OGSM mistakes?

    1. Too many Strategies. A five-strategy OGSM is not a strategy — it’s a list of things you plan to do. OGSM forces hard choices. If you can’t cut it to three or four strategies, you haven’t made the choices yet. Go back to the Objective and ask which two or three bets would most directly deliver it.

    2. Objectives that are still Goals. “Grow revenue by 40%” is a Goal, not an Objective. An Objective is directional and qualitative: what kind of company are you becoming? Goals are the measurable milestones that prove you’re getting there. Mixing the two is the most common first-draft error. See the 7 OGSM Mistakes guide for a full breakdown.

    3. Measures no one owns. A Measure without an owner is a wish, not a metric. Every Measure in your OGSM needs a named person who updates it at your monthly leadership review. Without ownership, Measures become decorative — and the OGSM stops being a live management tool and starts being a document that lives in a Notion page no one opens.

    How do you get started with OGSM this quarter?

    Step 1: Download a template and run a draft solo. Before you book a team session, write a rough draft of your OGSM yourself. It doesn’t need to be right — it needs to surface the assumptions and gaps that will fuel the real conversation. The free OGSM template gives you the structure to do this in under two hours.

    Step 2: Book two half-day sessions with your leadership team. Don’t try to do this in one four-hour block. End the first session at the Goals. Sleep on it. Return for Strategies and Measures with fresh eyes — the overnight gap changes the conversation quality significantly.

    Step 3: Pick your first monthly review date before you leave the room. The OGSM is not a set-and-forget document. It works because leadership teams use it to run monthly strategy reviews. Book the first one before the session ends, assign each Measure an owner, and commit to a 60-minute review cadence.

    For more context on whether OGSM suits your specific company stage, compare it with the OGSM for Small Business guide. If you’re already running OKRs and wondering whether to switch, the OGSM vs OKR comparison lays out the trade-offs side by side.

    The framework is simple. The discipline is in the choices.

    Rock on.

  • OGSM for Marketing Teams: How to Build a One-Page Marketing Strategy That Actually Connects to the Business

    OGSM for Marketing Teams: How to Build a One-Page Marketing Strategy That Actually Connects to the Business

    If your marketing team runs on OKRs, you’ve probably noticed the problem: the objectives are inspiring, the key results are measurable, but six months in nobody can explain how the marketing plan connects to what the CEO is trying to achieve. OGSM fixes this.

    OGSM for marketing teams is a one-page strategic framework that cascades your marketing plan directly from the company strategy, giving every campaign and KPI a clear line of sight to business-level goals.

    It’s the one planning framework designed to cascade directly from the company strategy — which means your marketing plan stops floating free and starts pulling its weight where it matters. This article explores what a Marketing OGSM looks like, how to translate company goals into marketing goals, and how to get started on yours.

    Why Marketing OKRs Often Float Free of Company Strategy

    OKRs are a great personal productivity tool. They’re less great as a strategy alignment tool — because they don’t have a built-in mechanism for connecting upward.

    When a marketing team sets OKRs, they typically start with what marketing wants to achieve: brand awareness, MQL volume, content reach, social followers. These are legitimate goals. But they’re built from the inside out — from what marketing can control — rather than from the outside in, starting with what the company needs.

    The result is a marketing plan that’s busy, measurable, and largely disconnected from the business priorities that actually matter to the CFO and CEO. OGSM solves this by starting with the company-level plan and working down. If you haven’t already, read what OGSM actually means — it’s the foundation everything else sits on.

    What a Marketing OGSM Looks Like vs. a Company OGSM

    A marketing OGSM has the same four elements as a company OGSM — Objective, Goals, Strategies, Measures — but scoped to the marketing function.

    The key difference: a company OGSM sets the direction for the whole business. A marketing OGSM is built in response to the company OGSM. It identifies which company-level Strategies marketing owns, and builds a plan that directly supports those priorities.

    Think of it as a nested structure. The marketing Objective should be traceable to at least one company Strategy. The marketing Goals should feed into the company Goals. The marketing Strategies are the specific choices marketing is making to hit those Goals — not a restatement of the company plan, but a genuine marketing response to it.

    This is the design principle that makes OGSM different from OKRs for marketing teams. Alignment is baked in, not bolted on.

    How to Translate Company Goals into Marketing Goals

    Before you write a single word of your marketing OGSM, you need the company OGSM in front of you. Specifically, you need the Strategies — because those are the choices the company has made about how it will grow. Marketing’s job is to execute the Strategies that fall in its domain.

    Here’s the translation process:

    Step 1: Identify which company Strategies marketing owns (fully or in part). Common examples: “Grow market share in the SME segment,” “Build brand recognition in new geographies,” “Reduce customer acquisition cost by 20%.” Marketing might own one of these outright or share ownership with Sales.

    Step 2: Identify which company Goals marketing directly influences. Revenue, customer acquisition, market share, NPS — whichever Goals have a marketing lever. Be honest about this. Marketing influences some Goals heavily and others barely at all.

    Step 3: Set marketing Goals that are upstream contributors to company Goals. If the company Goal is £40m ARR, and marketing is responsible for inbound pipeline, your marketing Goal might be “Generate £15m in marketing-sourced pipeline.” If the company Goal is 85% retention, and marketing runs the customer communications programme, your Goal might be “Deliver a quarterly customer newsletter with 30%+ open rate.”

    The test: if marketing hits all its Goals, does the company get meaningfully closer to its Goals? If yes, you’re aligned. If not, rebuild.

    What Are the 4 OGSM Elements for a Marketing Team?

    Objective The marketing Objective is an inspirational, qualitative statement of what marketing is here to achieve in the planning period. It should connect naturally to the company Objective — same ambition, marketing-specific scope.

    Example: If the company Objective is “Become the most recognised name in sustainable workplace furniture,” the Marketing Objective might be: “Make our brand the obvious choice for design-conscious office buyers who care where their furniture comes from.”

    Goals Goals are quantified milestones that measure whether you’re hitting the Objective. They should be ambitious but achievable, with a clear time horizon.

    Example:

    • Generate 3,500 MQLs per quarter by Q4
    • Grow organic website traffic to 80,000 sessions/month
    • Achieve brand recall of 35% in target segment (measured annually)
    • Deliver £18m in marketing-sourced pipeline

    Strategies Strategies are the choices marketing is making — what you will focus on and, implicitly, what you won’t. Three to five is the right number. If you have ten Strategies, you have none.

    Example:

    • Build a content hub targeting mid-funnel buyers in the design and facilities management community
    • Launch a referral programme for existing customers
    • Invest in ABM for the top 50 target accounts
    • Run a co-marketing programme with three complementary brands

    Measures Measures are the metrics you track to know whether your Strategies are working. Each Measure should have an owner, a baseline, and a target.

    Example:

    • Content hub: unique visitors, time-on-page, content-sourced leads
    • Referral programme: referrals generated, referral conversion rate
    • ABM: account engagement score, pipeline from target accounts
    • Co-marketing: partner-sourced leads, event attendance

    What Does a Marketing OGSM Look Like in Practice?

    Example 1: Brand Marketing OGSM (fictional — Greenleaf Office Interiors)

    Objective: Make Greenleaf the most trusted name in sustainable workplace design for UK businesses.

    Goals:

    • 40% aided brand awareness in target segment by year-end
    • 25,000 newsletter subscribers
    • Earned media coverage in 5 tier-1 publications per quarter

    Strategies:

    • Launch “The Sustainable Office” editorial series (long-form content + social)
    • Partner with leading architects and interior designers as brand advocates
    • Sponsor the UK Sustainability in Business Awards category

    Measures: Brand awareness survey (quarterly) | Newsletter subscriber growth | Press mentions | Share of voice in target publications

    Example 2: Demand Generation OGSM (fictional — Clova SaaS)

    Objective: Fill the sales pipeline with high-intent buyers who already understand the problem Clova solves.

    Goals:

    • 800 MQLs per month by Q3
    • SQL conversion rate above 25%
    • Cost per MQL below £45

    Strategies:

    • Build an SEO programme targeting high-intent product comparison and “best [category] software” queries
    • Launch a free ROI calculator to capture mid-funnel buyers
    • Run monthly live demos for warm leads with product team presenters

    Measures: MQL volume | SQL conversion rate | Cost per MQL | Demo attendance | Organic traffic from target keywords

    Example 3: Content Marketing OGSM (fictional — Porthaven Financial)

    Objective: Become the go-to educational resource for first-time business owners navigating financial decisions.

    Goals:

    • 50,000 monthly organic visitors by Q4
    • 10 articles ranking on page 1 for priority keywords
    • 20% of new client enquiries cite content as a discovery source

    Strategies:

    • Publish two in-depth guides per month on core business finance topics
    • Build a “First-Year Finance” email course for new business owners
    • Optimise the top 20 existing articles for featured snippets and people-also-ask

    Measures: Organic sessions | Keyword rankings | Email course subscribers | Content-attributed enquiries | Average position for target terms

    These examples are deliberately varied in scope and industry — but the structure is identical. That’s the point of using the OGSM template: the framework travels across any marketing function without losing coherence.

    How to Run Your Monthly Marketing Strategy Review Using Your OGSM

    Writing the marketing OGSM is the easy part. Using it to actually run marketing is where most teams fall short.

    Set a monthly review rhythm. In each review, work through your OGSM top to bottom:

    Objective check: Is the team’s work this month clearly oriented toward the Objective? If the answer is “sort of,” something is drifting.

    Goals check: Track each Goal against target. For any Goal that’s behind, name the cause — not the symptom. “MQL volume is down 15% because our paid channel underperformed, which is because we haven’t refreshed our ad creative since March” is a useful diagnosis. “MQL volume is down” is not.

    Strategies check: Are your Strategies still the right choices? Markets move. If a Strategy is no longer generating results after a fair trial, make the decision to change it — explicitly, in the OGSM — rather than quietly deprioritising it while it clutters the plan.

    Measures check: Is each Measure moving in the right direction? Which Measures are leading indicators of success, and are they pointing the right way? If your content strategy is working, organic traffic should be climbing before MQL volumes follow. The lag matters.

    For teams just getting started, the OGSM review also connects to how you cascade the marketing plan into team-level work. Read how to cascade OGSM through your organisation to see how the content team, demand gen team, and brand team each build their own OGSM from yours.

    OGSM for Marketing Teams: What to Do Next

    Building a marketing OGSM is a half-day exercise if you have the company OGSM in front of you. Here’s the sequence:

    1. Pull out the company Strategies that marketing owns
    2. Write the marketing Objective — one sentence, qualitative, ambitious
    3. Set 3–5 Goals with numbers and timelines
    4. Choose 3–5 Strategies — the real choices, not a laundry list of tactics
    5. Define Measures with owners, baselines, and targets
    6. Review monthly and update quarterly

    The one-page constraint is the discipline. If your marketing plan doesn’t fit on a single page, it’s not strategic — it’s operational. OGSM forces you to make choices, and choice is what strategy actually is.

    Rock on.

  • 20 OGSM Objectives Examples (And How to Write One That Actually Works)

    20 OGSM Objectives Examples (And How to Write One That Actually Works)

    The most important part of the OGSM to get right is the Objective statement. And that’s more difficult than you’d think.

    The Objective in an OGSM is the single qualitative statement at the top of your strategy — the directional, aspirational sentence that describes where your organization is going, without a number attached.

    Good OGSM objectives examples sound like: “Become the most trusted fitness brand in the US” or “Lead the shift from product supplier to solutions partner.” They’re inspiring, durable, and number-free. If yours has a percentage or a deadline in it, you’ve written a Goal, not an Objective.

    In this article we explore what makes a good Objective statement for OGSM, what mistakes to avoid, and provide you with 20 examples for inspiration.

    What Makes an OGSM Objective (And What Doesn’t)

    The Objective is the hardest line to write in an OGSM. Not because the thinking is complex — but because most leaders have been trained to make everything measurable, and an Objective is deliberately not measurable. That friction is where mistakes happen.

    A strong OGSM Objective has three characteristics:

    • Qualitative. No numbers, percentages, or time-bound targets. Those belong in your Goals row.
    • Directional. It points your organisation toward a specific destination — not a distance.
    • Durable. The best Objectives remain meaningful for three to five years, even as the Goals beneath them are refreshed annually.

    Think of the Objective as the answer to: “What kind of company are we becoming?” It’s not about what you’ll achieve by a date. It’s about what you’re building toward.

    The Number One OGSM Objective Mistake

    I’ve reviewed hundreds of OGSMs, from start-ups to global businesses. The error I see most often: writing a Goal in the Objective row.

    Here’s what that looks like:

    “Grow our customer base by 30% and achieve £50m revenue by 2027.”

    That’s two Goals masquerading as an Objective. The moment you attach a number, a percentage, or a deadline, you’ve left Objective territory.

    Here’s how that same strategic intent looks written correctly:

    “Become the first-choice brand for small business owners in our region.”

    The direction is identical. The inspiration is higher. And it gives your leadership team room to set stretching Goals beneath it — which is exactly how OGSM is supposed to work.

    If you find yourself reaching for a spreadsheet while writing your Objective, stop. Go qualitative. Save the measurement for the Goals row where it belongs.

    20 OGSM Objectives Examples by Industry

    These examples span seven sectors. Use them as inspiration — adapt the language to your market, your team, and your ambition. What matters is that each is directional, qualitative, and motivating. Not a single number in sight.

    Retail

    Retail Objectives tend to focus on brand position, customer loyalty, or market leadership. The challenge is avoiding vague mission-statement language and keeping genuine strategic direction.

    1. Become the destination of choice for sustainable everyday essentials in the UK.
    2. Transform from a transactional retailer into a trusted lifestyle brand that customers return to weekly.
    3. Establish ourselves as the most convenient and personalised shopping experience on the high street.

    SaaS / Technology

    In SaaS, Objectives often reflect a shift in how the product is perceived — from tool to platform, from feature to workflow anchor.

    1. Be the platform that growing teams trust to run their operations from day one.
    2. Shift from a point solution to the central nervous system of our customers’ workflows.
    3. Become the most recommended project management tool in the professional services sector.

    Professional Services

    Consultancies and agencies anchor Objectives in reputation and trust — because that’s ultimately what drives their pipeline.

    1. Be recognised as the go-to partner for mid-market companies navigating transformation.
    2. Build a reputation as the most trusted advisory firm in our niche — where clients come for the hard conversations.
    3. Become the consultancy that ambitious founders call first.

    Manufacturing

    Manufacturing Objectives frequently signal a strategic shift — from commodity supplier to valued partner, or from local player to category leader.

    1. Lead our category through a shift from product supplier to full-service solutions partner.
    2. Build a manufacturing operation that competitors benchmark themselves against.
    3. Establish our brand as synonymous with precision and reliability in European industrial markets.

    Non-Profit / Social Enterprise

    Non-profit Objectives should be grounded in mission — but ambitious. Avoid the trap of writing something that sounds like your existing service description.

    1. Become the most trusted voice for marginalised young people in our city.
    2. Transform from a service provider into a movement that changes how our community thinks about mental health.
    3. Build the most accessible and impactful financial literacy programme in our region.

    Healthcare

    Healthcare Objectives often focus on patient experience, workforce quality, or the shift from reactive to proactive care models.

    1. Create a patient experience that people in our community actively recommend to each other.
    2. Lead the shift from reactive care to proactive health management in our practice network.
    3. Become the employer of choice for clinical talent in our county.

    Education

    Education Objectives focus on outcomes, access, and institutional reputation — the things that define an organisation’s identity over a generation.

    1. Build an institution where every student — regardless of background — believes they can succeed.
    2. Become the regional benchmark for innovative, employer-linked curriculum design.

    How to Stress-Test Your OGSM Objective

    Once you’ve written a draft, run it through these three questions before it gets locked into the framework:

    1. Is it qualitative?

    Remove every number and deadline. Does it still make sense? Does it still have direction? If yes, you’re in the right territory. If stripping the numbers leaves you with nothing, you’ve written a Goal, not an Objective.

    2. Does it have a three-to-five-year feel?

    Your Objective should be stable while your Goals evolve annually. If it would feel outdated in 12 months, it’s too tactical. If it could mean anything indefinitely, it’s too generic. Aim for the sweet spot: specific enough to have a point of view, broad enough to outlast your next planning cycle.

    3. Does it move your team?

    Read it aloud. Does it land? Would a new joiner immediately understand what kind of organisation this is trying to become? A great Objective creates a feeling, not just a direction. If you get blank stares, rewrite it.

    Most first drafts don’t pass all three. That’s normal — the Objective usually takes the longest to settle in any OGSM I’ve worked on.

    Objectives vs Goals: The One-Line Distinction

    An Objective tells you where you’re going. A Goal tells you whether you’ve arrived.

    “Become the most trusted brand in our market” is an Objective. “Achieve a Net Promoter Score of 72 by Q4 2027” is the Goal that proves it. They are two different instruments doing two different jobs, and conflating them is how strategies lose their structure.

    If your OGSM has numbers in the Objective row and aspirational language in the Goals row, you’ve flipped them. Swap them back and the whole framework will feel more coherent immediately.

    For a deeper look at how Goals and Measures work together — and the confusion that arises when they’re treated as the same thing — see OGSM Goals vs Measures: What’s the Difference?.

    Writing Your Own OGSM Objective

    Start with this prompt: “In three to five years, we want to be known as the company that ________.”

    Fill in the blank without using a number. Strip the jargon. Run it through the three stress-test questions above. Then check it against your complete OGSM guide to make sure your Goals, Strategies, and Measures build coherently beneath it.

    If you want to see complete OGSM examples across all four components in action, 30 OGSM Strategy Examples is a good next stop. And for the Measures row — the other notoriously tricky component — OGSM Measures Examples walks you through it in the same format.

    Rock on.

  • OGSM for Non-Profits: How to Build a One-Page Strategy When Your Mission Is the Bottom Line

    OGSM for Non-Profits: How to Build a One-Page Strategy When Your Mission Is the Bottom Line

    Most strategy frameworks are designed to help companies succeed. But what if your organisation is non-profit?

    OGSM works exceptionally well for non-profits, because it gives you a single page that translates your mission into concrete goals, clarifies your programme and fundraising priorities, and gives your board something they can actually use to hold leadership accountable.

    If your current strategic plan is a 40-page document that nobody reads, OGSM is the antidote. This article explores what makes non-profit organisation strategies unique and how to adapt the OGSM approach to suit your organisation.

    Why Non-Profit Strategic Plans So Often Fail

    I’ve sat in rooms with non-profit leaders who are brilliant at their mission and completely exhausted by their strategy process. They’ve spent months producing a beautiful bound document — and by the time it’s printed, it’s already out of date.

    The problem isn’t commitment. It’s format. Traditional strategic plans for non-profits are designed to satisfy funders and boards, not to guide daily decisions. They’re too long, too vague, and too rarely reviewed. Nobody can tell you on a Tuesday afternoon what the top three priorities are this quarter.

    The result? Strategy happens at the senior leadership level and stops there. Programme staff, fundraising teams, and volunteers operate on instinct rather than shared direction.

    Why OGSM Works for Mission-Driven Organisations

    OGSM — Objectives, Goals, Strategies, Measures — was designed to fit on one page. That constraint is a feature, not a limitation. It forces you to make choices.

    For non-profits, that discipline is especially valuable. You are almost always resource-constrained. You have more good ideas than capacity, more causes worth funding than money to fund them. OGSM forces the question: what are we actually prioritising this year?

    The one-page format also makes it boardroom-friendly. A trustee with a full-time job elsewhere can read it in five minutes and come to a meeting prepared. That changes the quality of your governance conversations entirely. For a deeper look at how OGSM works as a framework, start with our complete OGSM guide.

    How to Adapt Each OGSM Element for a Non-Profit Context

    OGSM adapts to the non-profit world well, but you need to think through each element carefully. Here’s how to frame them.

    Objective: Anchor It to Mission

    Your Objective is your one-sentence statement of strategic ambition for the next one to three years. For a non-profit, this should sit right at the intersection of your mission and your current phase of growth.

    Avoid vague aspirations like “make a difference in our community.” Write something that tells you when you’ve succeeded: “Become the leading provider of food security support in the Greater Manchester region, sustainably funded and recognised by local authorities as an essential service.”

    That’s a real objective. You can test every strategic decision against it.

    Goals: Mix Impact and Sustainability

    Goals are the four to six quantified outcomes that define success. This is where non-profits often make a critical mistake — they write only mission impact goals and ignore financial sustainability.

    You need both. A food bank that reaches 10,000 families but runs out of unrestricted reserves in eighteen months has not succeeded. Your goals should reflect that tension honestly:

    • Reach 10,000 unique households with food support by December 2026
    • Maintain at least 6 months’ unrestricted reserves at all times
    • Grow individual donor base by 40% over two years
    • Achieve 85% volunteer retention year-on-year
    • Secure 3 multi-year statutory funding relationships

    Notice the mix: programme reach, financial health, fundraising pipeline, operational resilience. That’s a complete picture.

    Strategies: Programme Priorities AND Income

    Strategies are the choices you’re making about how to achieve those goals — typically three to six statements. For non-profits, your strategies should cover two areas: programme delivery and income generation.

    Programme strategies might include expanding your referral network with GP surgeries, launching a weekend distribution model, or building a volunteer training programme.

    Income strategies are equally critical: developing a corporate partnership programme, launching a major donor campaign, or applying for a specific statutory funding stream. If your OGSM only covers the work you do and ignores how you fund it, it’s incomplete.

    Measures: The Metrics That Tell You If It’s Working

    Measures are your leading and lagging indicators — the dashboard that tells you if your strategies are on track before you reach year-end.

    For non-profits, strong Measures typically include:

    • Donor retention rate (month-on-month, not just annual)
    • Programme reach (beneficiaries served per month)
    • Volunteer engagement (active volunteers vs. registered)
    • Unrestricted income as a % of total income (financial resilience indicator)
    • Grant pipeline value (forward visibility on income)
    • Referral conversion rate (if partnerships are a strategy)

    For more inspiration on building a strong measures dashboard, see our OGSM measures examples guide.

    What Does an OGSM Look Like for a Non-Profit?

    Here’s what a completed OGSM might look like for a mid-sized community food bank.

    Objective: Be the trusted food security safety net across the city, sustainably funded and embedded in every major referral network by the end of 2027.

    Goals:

    • Serve 8,000 unique households annually by end 2026, 12,000 by end 2027
    • Unrestricted reserves: minimum 6 months at all times
    • Individual donors: grow from 1,200 to 2,000 by December 2026
    • Volunteer retention: 80%+ annually
    • 4 active multi-year grant relationships

    Strategies:

    • Build a GP and social worker referral network covering 90% of local practices
    • Launch a weekend and evening distribution shift to serve working families
    • Develop a Friends of [Foodbank] individual giving programme with tiered benefits
    • Build a corporate volunteering programme targeting 10 local employers
    • Apply to National Lottery Community Fund for a 3-year core cost grant

    Measures:

    • Households served per month (target: 650+)
    • New referral partners added per quarter (target: 8+)
    • Donor retention rate (target: 65%+)
    • Monthly individual giving income (target: £8,000+ by Q4)
    • Unrestricted reserve level (reviewed monthly)
    • Active corporate volunteering relationships (target: 5 by year-end)

    That OGSM fits on one page. Every member of staff and every trustee can read it and understand exactly what success looks like.

    How to Present Your OGSM to the Board

    One of the biggest wins of OGSM for non-profits is what it does to your board meetings. Here’s a 20-minute agenda slot that works:

    Distribute the OGSM (in advance) — it’s one page, so there’s no excuse for trustees not to have read it.

    5 minutes: Measures update — RAG status each measure. No narrative, just numbers.

    10 minutes: Strategic discussion — pick the measures in amber or red and ask: “What are we missing? What’s the right response?”

    5 minutes: Decisions and actions — capture any changes to strategy or resources required.

    That’s it. Governance done.

    How Do You Get Started with OGSM in a Non-Profit?

    Here’s how to move from zero to OGSM in your organisation.

    Step 1: Get the leadership team in a room. You need your executive director, head of programmes, and head of fundraising (or equivalent). Half a day is enough. Come with your mission statement, last year’s accounts, and your current programme plans.

    Step 2: Draft the Objective and Goals first. Don’t start with Strategies — that’s where teams get stuck defending territory. Start with shared ambition. Agree on what success looks like in 2–3 years before you debate how to get there.

    Step 3: Use a template and iterate. Your first OGSM won’t be perfect. Write it anyway. Get it in front of your board and review it quarterly. The discipline of the review is where the real value lives. Download a free OGSM template to get started.

    OGSM for non-profits isn’t a compromise or a simplified version of “real” strategy. It’s a planning tool that respects your mission, your constraints, and your board’s time. One page. Clear trade-offs. A dashboard you actually review.

    Rock on.

  • How to Cascade OGSM Through Your Organisation (Step by Step)

    How to Cascade OGSM Through Your Organisation (Step by Step)

    You created a strategy for your business but have the feeling that each team is pulling in a different direction? That’s where cascading comes in.

    Cascading OGSM means translating your company-level Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures into aligned plans at division, team, and sometimes individual level — so every part of the business is pulling in the same direction. You start at the top, lock in the corporate OGSM, then work downward: each team builds its own OGSM that directly supports the level above it.

    Done right, it’s the cleanest alignment tool in strategic planning. Done badly — or not done at all — it’s how ambitious strategies die quietly in middle management. This article provides you with the step-by-step approach to ensure you do it right.

    Why Most OGSM Implementations Stop at the Top (and Fail)

    Most organisations treat OGSM as a senior leadership exercise. The CEO and their direct reports gather, build a corporate OGSM, declare victory, and expect the strategy to somehow permeate through dozens of teams who’ve never seen the thing. It doesn’t work.

    I’ve seen this happen in companies of every size. The corporate plan looks brilliant. It gets presented at the all-hands with a nice deck. Then it lands on a department head’s desk with a one-line email: “Here’s the company strategy — please align your team.” Three months later, every team is still doing exactly what it always did.

    The problem isn’t the OGSM. The problem is that nobody built the next level down.

    A strategy that lives only at the top is a wish list. Cascade is what turns it into execution.

    What Does a Full OGSM Cascade Actually Look Like?

    A proper cascade doesn’t stop at the executive suite. It travels through the organisation in layers, each one more specific and operational than the last.

    Level 1 — Company OGSM: Set by the CEO and senior leadership team. This is the master plan — the 1–3 year Objective for the whole business, with ambitious but measurable Goals, three to five Strategies, and the Measures that prove it’s working. If you’re new to the framework, start with what OGSM actually means before cascading it.

    Level 2 — Division OGSM: Each division (Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance, Product) builds its own OGSM. Every element must connect directly to the company-level OGSM. The division’s Objective usually picks up one of the company Strategies and makes it its own mandate.

    Level 3 — Team OGSM: Within each division, individual teams (demand gen, customer success, fulfilment, content) build their own OGSMs — connecting upward to the division plan. This is where strategy becomes day-to-day decision-making.

    Level 4 — Individual goals (optional): For smaller teams or high-accountability cultures, individual contributors can align their quarterly objectives to the team OGSM. This level works best in companies with mature performance review rhythms.

    Level Who owns it Connects to
    1 — Company CEO / Senior leadership team Board / shareholders
    2 — Division Divisional VP or Director Company OGSM
    3 — Team Team lead / Manager Division OGSM
    4 — Individual Contributor Team OGSM

    The rule is simple: every OGSM must be traceable upward. If you can’t draw a line from a team-level Strategy to a company-level priority, that Strategy doesn’t belong in the plan.

    Step-by-Step: How to Build a Department-Level OGSM from the Company Plan

    Once your company-level OGSM is set and signed off, here’s how to cascade it at each level below.

    Step 1: Share the company OGSM — all of it. Every team lead needs to read the full company OGSM before they build their own. Not a summary. Not a slide. The actual plan. The Strategies are the most important section: department-level OGSMs almost always find their focus there.

    Step 2: Identify which company Strategies your division owns. A Marketing division might own “Grow brand awareness in new markets” and “Increase lead volume by 40%.” Operations might own “Reduce cost-to-serve by 15%.” Each division takes ownership of the company Strategies that fall squarely within their sphere of influence. If a Strategy is shared across divisions, agree on who leads and who supports — before anyone starts writing.

    Step 3: Write the division Objective. The Objective is an inspirational, qualitative statement. It should feel like a natural child of the company Objective — same energy, narrower scope. If the company Objective is “Become the most trusted supplier in the UK market,” the Marketing Objective might be “Build a brand that makes us the obvious first call for procurement directors.”

    Step 4: Set Goals that feed the company scoreboard. Division Goals must connect to company Goals. If the company has a revenue Growth Goal of £50m, the Sales division’s Goal might be “Generate £60m in qualified pipeline.” The logic: if every division hits its Goals, the company hits its Goals. That line of sight has to be visible and tested, not assumed.

    Step 5: Define Strategies that are division-specific. Here’s where real thinking happens. Division Strategies are not paraphrases of company Strategies — they’re the specific choices that division is making to hit its Goals. “Expand into the NHS procurement channel” is a real Marketing Strategy. “Improve our deck” is not a Strategy; it’s a task.

    Step 6: Set Measures with clear ownership. Every Measure needs an owner, a baseline, and a target. If no one is responsible for tracking a Measure, it won’t get tracked. At division level, Measures often feed directly into the company-level scorecard.

    Step 7: Repeat for team level. Once the division OGSM is solid, each team lead runs the same process — connecting their OGSM to the division plan rather than the company plan. The cascade deepens without losing the thread.

    If you want a framework to work from as you go, the OGSM template at each level saves you from starting with a blank page.

    What Has to Line Up — and What Can Your Team Own?

    Cascade doesn’t mean copy-paste. Teams need room to build plans that reflect their operational reality. Here’s what’s non-negotiable and what isn’t.

    Must align (non-negotiable):

    • The Objective must support the level above — it should feel like a natural continuation of the parent plan’s ambition
    • At least one Strategy must directly address a company-level priority
    • Measures must include at least one metric that feeds the parent OGSM’s scoreboard

    Can flex:

    • The tone and framing of the Objective
    • Additional Strategies that address local issues (talent gaps, tooling, process debt) even if they’re not in the parent OGSM — as long as they don’t contradict it
    • Team-specific Measures that are supplementary, not replacements

    The alignment test: if a member of the senior leadership team read your team’s OGSM, could they trace a clear line from your plan up to the company plan within two minutes? If yes, you’re aligned. If they’d have to guess, rebuild.

    Worked Example: A Three-Level Cascade at Brindley & Co

    Let’s make this concrete. Meet Brindley & Co, a mid-sized B2B services business in the compliance sector.

    Company OGSM (Level 1)

    • Objective: Become the dominant provider of compliance services in the UK financial sector
    • Goals: £40m ARR by year 3 | 85% client retention | NPS above 65
    • Strategies: Deepen relationships with Tier 1 banks | Launch a digital self-service platform | Build thought leadership in FCA-regulated markets
    • Measures: Annual recurring revenue | Gross churn rate | Net Promoter Score | Content-sourced pipeline

    Marketing Division OGSM (Level 2)

    • Objective: Make Brindley & Co the go-to name in compliance content and community
    • Goals: Generate 250 MQLs per month | Drive 40% of pipeline from inbound | Grow email list to 25,000
    • Strategies: Publish weekly long-form compliance guides | Host quarterly roundtables for compliance directors | Build an SEO programme targeting FCA search terms
    • Measures: MQL volume | Content-attributed pipeline value | Email subscriber count | Organic traffic growth

    Notice: the Marketing Objective picks up the company Strategy “Build thought leadership in FCA-regulated markets” and makes it a division mandate. The Marketing Goals connect to the company pipeline and retention goals. Alignment visible, no guesswork required.

    Content Team OGSM (Level 3)

    • Objective: Own the digital conversation around FCA compliance for financial services professionals
    • Goals: Publish 4 long-form articles per month | Rank top 3 for 10 priority search terms | Achieve 25% email open rate
    • Strategies: Build a content calendar anchored to the FCA regulatory release schedule | Develop a “compliance explainer” series for senior decision-makers | Optimise existing content for featured snippets
    • Measures: Articles published per month | Keyword rankings | Email open rate | Time-on-page

    The Content Team’s SEO strategy exists because Marketing chose SEO as a division strategy, because the company chose thought leadership as a corporate strategy. That line of sight is cascade working. You can see it in real-world OGSM examples across different sectors — the logic is the same even when the context changes.

    What Are the Most Common Cascade Mistakes?

    I’ve watched smart leaders break cascade in the same ways, repeatedly. Here’s the full list.

    Building in isolation. Division heads disappear into a workshop and write their OGSMs without properly referencing the corporate plan. You end up with five impressive-looking documents that don’t connect. Always share the company OGSM before anyone starts writing at the next level down.

    Cascading Goals but not Strategies. Teams adopt the company’s revenue targets without making the strategic choices about how to hit them. Numbers without direction aren’t strategy — they’re pressure. Cascade the Strategies first; the Goals follow.

    Making lower-level OGSMs too granular. A team OGSM should look like a scaled-down version of the corporate plan, not a project plan. If you’re listing 40 tasks under Strategies, you’ve gone too far. Strategies in a team OGSM should still be big choices, not activities.

    Skipping the alignment conversation. Cascade is not just document creation — it’s dialogue. Division heads need to present their OGSMs to the CEO. Team leads need to present to their division heads. That conversation catches misalignment before it hardens into nine months of wasted effort.

    Treating cascade as a one-time event. OGSMs should be reviewed quarterly. If the company shifts a Strategy mid-year, the cascade needs to be refreshed. A stale cascade actively misleads teams — they’ll be executing against priorities that no longer exist.

    Measuring the wrong things at the wrong level. Each level of cascade should track leading indicators of the level above’s lagging indicators. If the company tracks ARR, Marketing should track pipeline. If Marketing tracks pipeline, the Content Team should track MQL quality. Align the metrics hierarchy as carefully as you align the strategy hierarchy.

    How Do You Stop the Cascade from Going Stale?

    Building the cascade is the hard work. Maintaining it is a discipline.

    Set a quarterly OGSM review rhythm at every level. Division heads review their OGSM with the CEO; team leads review with their division heads. Treat it like a board meeting — prepared data, honest assessment of what’s working, and clear decisions about what changes.

    When company Strategies shift (and they will — markets change, competitors move), communicate upward and downward. Team leads need to know when priorities have moved. Executive leadership needs to hear when team-level data is suggesting a Strategy isn’t working. Cascade isn’t a top-down broadcast; it’s a two-way alignment system.

    For the operational side, a structured OGSM template with built-in hierarchy links makes it easier to see alignment across levels without chasing documents across folders. At scale, that infrastructure matters.

    How to Cascade OGSM: The Summary

    Cascade OGSM through your organisation by:

    Locking in the company OGSM first — cascade can’t start with a draft

    Using the 4-level model: Company → Division → Team → Individual

    Following the step-by-step process at each level, starting with Strategies

    Applying the alignment rules: some elements must connect up, others can flex

    Running the alignment conversation before finalising each level’s plan

    Reviewing the full cascade quarterly — and refreshing it when the company plan changes

    The difference between a company that executes strategy and one that talks about it is almost always found at this level. The corporate OGSM is the easy part. Getting it into every team’s hands — and into their priorities — is where execution is actually won.

    Rock on.

  • How to Cascade an OGSM Across Departments (With Examples)

    How to Cascade an OGSM Across Departments (With Examples)

    Most organisations that struggle with strategy execution don’t have a problem with their top-level OGSM. They have a cascade problem.

    To cascade an OGSM across departments, each team builds their own sub-OGSM by taking one of the company’s Strategies as their Objective. Their Goals, Strategies, and Measures then flow down from that. Done right, every department’s OGSM is a direct expression of the corporate OGSM — not a separate plan bolted on the side.

    This article explores how to do it — and what to avoid.

    What Does It Mean to Cascade an OGSM?

    Cascading means taking a strategy from a higher level and making it the starting point for planning at the next level down. In OGSM terms, the company’s Strategies become department Objectives.

    Think about it this way. Your corporate OGSM has an Objective (where you’re going), Goals (the quantified targets that define success), and three to five Strategies (the choices about where to focus). Each Strategy is a statement of intent: “We will grow through new channel partnerships” or “We will reduce operating costs by automating manual fulfilment.”

    Each of those Strategies needs an owner. That owner — typically a department or business unit — then builds their own OGSM using the Strategy as their Objective. Their Goals quantify what success looks like for that department. Their Strategies describe how they’ll get there. Their Measures track progress.

    The result is a connected hierarchy of plans, each one directly traceable back to the corporate direction. No department is off doing their own thing. Every team can see exactly how their work connects to the overall strategy.

    What Are the Three Types of OGSM Cascade?

    Not every cascade is the same. I’ve seen three patterns used in practice, and the right one depends on your organisation’s structure and planning horizon.

    Vertical cascade (by department or business unit)

    This is the most common approach. You take the corporate OGSM and decompose it by function. Sales, Marketing, Operations, Product — each department takes ownership of the Strategy that most closely matches their remit and builds a sub-OGSM from there.

    Vertical cascade works well in functional organisations where departments have clear ownership of outcomes. If your corporate Strategy is “expand into enterprise accounts,” that becomes the Sales team’s Objective. Sales then sets its own Goals (number of enterprise accounts won, average contract value), its own Strategies (target industry verticals, invest in account-based marketing), and its own Measures.

    Horizontal cascade (across process chains)

    Sometimes a Strategy cuts across functions rather than sitting neatly within one. “Reduce customer onboarding time from 30 days to 7 days” is an Objective that involves Sales, Product, IT, and Customer Success simultaneously. No single department owns it outright.

    In this case, a horizontal cascade creates a cross-functional OGSM shared by all the teams involved. Each team’s contribution is captured in the Measures column, so accountability is visible and distributed. This is harder to manage — you need a clear process owner — but it’s essential for strategic priorities that don’t respect org chart lines.

    Time-based cascade (annual into quarterly)

    The third type isn’t structural, it’s temporal. You take your annual OGSM and break it into quarterly sub-OGSMs. The annual Goals become the targets; the quarterly OGSMs describe the specific actions and milestones that will get you there each quarter.

    I use this approach with leadership teams that find the annual OGSM too abstract for day-to-day decision-making. Quarterly OGSMs keep the team focused on near-term work while remaining anchored to the year’s Goals and Measures.

    What Does a Cascaded OGSM Look Like in Practice?

    Let me show you a worked example. I’ll keep it simple but realistic.

    Corporate OGSM (abbreviated)

    • Objective: Become the market-leading provider of sustainable packaging in Europe by 2028.
    • Goals: Revenue €150M by FY28; Net Promoter Score ≥ 65; >40% market share in key segments.
    • Strategies: S1: Grow through direct enterprise accounts in DACH and Benelux. S2: Launch a certified compostable product line by Q3. S3: Reduce production waste by 25% to fund investment.

    Three departments each take ownership of one Strategy.

    Sales OGSM (from S1)

    • Objective: Grow through direct enterprise accounts in DACH and Benelux.
    • Goals: 40 new enterprise contracts by FY27; €60M revenue from enterprise by FY27; 90% renewal rate.
    • Strategies: Focus outbound on manufacturing and food & beverage; build a partnership channel with two regional distributors; deploy account-based marketing for top 20 targets.
    • Measures: Pipeline value, contracts signed per quarter, renewal rate, partner revenue.

    Product OGSM (from S2)

    • Objective: Launch a certified compostable product line by Q3.
    • Goals: Four SKUs to market by Q3; 95% certification pass rate; COGS within 15% of existing line.
    • Strategies: Partner with two material suppliers already in certification pipelines; run a 90-day pilot with three beta customers; align packaging design to existing brand guidelines.
    • Measures: Certification milestone tracker, beta feedback scores, COGS per unit, Q3 launch date.

    Operations OGSM (from S3)

    • Objective: Reduce production waste by 25% to fund investment.
    • Goals: Waste down from 18% to 13.5% by end of FY27; €2M in savings reinvested into R&D.
    • Strategies: Implement lean production review at two main facilities; renegotiate supplier contracts to reduce off-spec deliveries; automate quality control on Line 4.
    • Measures: Waste % by facility, monthly cost savings, supplier defect rate, Line 4 throughput.

    You can see what’s happening here. Every department Objective is a direct lift from a corporate Strategy. Every department’s success contributes directly to the corporate Goals. The strategy is connected — not fragmented.

    For a structured template to build this out, our OGSM template walks you through each level step by step. And if you want a deeper grounding in how the framework works from first principles, the complete OGSM guide is the right place to start.

    What Are the Most Common Cascade Mistakes?

    I’ve helped organisations cascade OGSMs across dozens of departments. The same mistakes come up every time.

    Copying company Strategies verbatim

    When you ask a department to “just cascade their part,” the path of least resistance is to copy the corporate Strategies into their own OGSM and call it done. It feels compliant. It isn’t. Each department’s OGSM should reflect how they will deliver the higher-level Strategy — their own choices, their own approach. If the Sales OGSM’s Strategies look identical to the corporate Strategies, nobody has actually thought about execution.

    Turning cascade into a rubber-stamp exercise

    This happens when cascade is imposed top-down without real dialogue. Leadership hands down the corporate OGSM, departments fill in the template, and nobody questions whether the split makes sense. The cascade produces paper alignment, not real alignment. The better approach is a working session where departments discuss which corporate Strategy they’re best placed to own, where the overlaps are, and what they’ll need from other teams to succeed.

    No common review cadence

    A cascaded OGSM only works if the connected OGSMs are reviewed together. If the corporate OGSM is reviewed quarterly but department OGSMs are reviewed monthly — or never — the cascade breaks down. Misalignment creeps back in. Build a single review rhythm that runs from department to corporate level, so the connections stay live.

    Forgetting that some strategies are cross-functional

    Not every corporate Strategy belongs to one department. Treating a cross-functional priority as if it belongs to one team creates silos and finger-pointing when delivery falls short. Identify these upfront and build horizontal accountability into the Measures rather than hoping one team carries the load.

    Ready to Start Your OGSM Rollout Across Teams?

    How to cascade an OGSM is genuinely one of those things that sounds straightforward and trips people up in execution. The framework is simple: each department takes a corporate Strategy as their Objective and builds down from there. The hard part is the conversation — who owns what, how you handle cross-functional priorities, and how you build a review cadence that keeps the whole structure honest.

    Start at the top. Make sure your corporate OGSM is solid and your Strategies are clear and distinct. Then bring your department heads together and work through the OGSM cascade departments exercise as a team — not as a form-filling exercise. The difference shows.

    Working at a smaller scale? OGSM for small business covers how to apply the same cascade logic without the enterprise overhead.

    Rock on.

  • OGSM vs Hoshin Kanri: Same DNA, Different Operating System

    OGSM vs Hoshin Kanri: Same DNA, Different Operating System

    OGSM and Hoshin Kanri are both strategy-execution frameworks with Japanese roots, and both are built to align an entire organisation behind a shared strategic direction. The core difference is operating model.

    OGSM is a single-page, top-down document that prioritises speed and clarity; Hoshin Kanri is a more complex, bidirectional planning system built for large organisations with mature continuous improvement cultures. For most teams, OGSM gets you further, faster. For enterprise manufacturing environments already running Lean or Six Sigma, Hoshin Kanri may be the natural fit.

    In this article we introduce each strategy framework, describe their differences, and explore when to use either one.

    What Is Hoshin Kanri?

    Hoshin Kanri — sometimes called Policy Deployment — emerged in Japan in the 1960s, drawing on the quality management work of pioneers like Kaoru Ishikawa and Yoji Akao. The name roughly translates as “direction management” or “compass needle management.” Its purpose is to cascade strategic intent from the C-suite all the way to the shop floor, ensuring every level of the organisation is pulling in the same direction.

    The hallmark of Hoshin Kanri is the catchball process. Unlike top-down cascades, catchball is a dialogue: leadership throws a strategic objective down to the next level, that level responds with their capacity and constraints, and the objective is refined before being thrown again. It is iterative, consensus-building, and time-intensive — by design. Done well, catchball surfaces operational constraints that leadership teams simply cannot see from the boardroom.

    The X-matrix is Hoshin Kanri’s primary tool. It maps the relationships between long-term breakthrough objectives, annual priorities, improvement activities, and metrics on a single page. It is a powerful instrument in the right hands. In the wrong hands, it produces a complex document that nobody reads after January.

    What Is OGSM?

    For readers arriving from a Hoshin Kanri background: OGSM stands for Objective, Goals, Strategies, Measures. It originated in Procter & Gamble’s Japan operations in the 1980s — ironically, influenced by the same TQM tradition that shaped Hoshin Kanri — and was designed for speed and portability. The entire plan fits on one page. One Objective (the qualitative ambition), several Goals (the quantitative targets), Strategies (the choices you are making), and Measures (how you will track whether those choices are working). That is it.

    OGSM’s simplicity is not naivety — it is a deliberate constraint. You cannot hide strategic confusion in a one-page document.

    How Do OGSM and Hoshin Kanri Differ?

    Both frameworks are trying to answer the same question: how do we turn strategy into coordinated action at every level? They answer it very differently.

    Dimension OGSM Hoshin Kanri
    Structure One-page linear document (O -> G -> S -> M) X-matrix with cross-linked relationships
    Cascade method Top-down Bidirectional (catchball)
    Time to implement Days to weeks Months (first full cycle)
    Required expertise Low — any team can learn it High — Lean/Six Sigma facilitation typically needed
    Documentation Minimal Extensive
    Review cadence Flexible (quarterly is common) Structured monthly reviews built into the system

    The biggest practical difference is implementation friction. An SME leadership team can learn and run OGSM in a day. A full Hoshin Kanri deployment typically takes a full planning cycle to bed in, and it demands trained facilitators to keep the catchball process honest and productive. That is not a flaw in Hoshin Kanri — it is a design trade-off. The depth of engagement produces better cascade alignment. But it requires an organisation that is ready and resourced for it.

    When Should You Choose OGSM?

    OGSM is the right call when speed and simplicity matter more than elaborate cascade mechanics. Consider it if you are:

    • A small or mid-sized business building strategic discipline for the first time
    • A team or business unit that needs a fast alignment tool without organisational bureaucracy
    • An organisation that has tried and failed with overly complex planning frameworks
    • A leadership team that wants one document everyone can hold in their head

    The one-page constraint is OGSM’s greatest strength. It forces the clarity that most strategy processes never achieve. I have seen organisations spend six months on a Hoshin Kanri rollout and still not be able to articulate their strategy in a sentence. That does not happen with a well-built OGSM — the format will not let you hide behind vagueness.

    For a full walkthrough of the format, read our complete OGSM guide. If you are also evaluating OKRs, our OGSM vs OKRs breakdown covers that head-to-head in detail.

    When Should You Choose Hoshin Kanri?

    Hoshin Kanri earns its complexity premium in specific conditions. It is the right choice when:

    • You are running a large manufacturing or industrial organisation with established Lean or Six Sigma programmes already embedded in the culture
    • Frontline input into strategy is genuinely essential — the catchball process is superior at surfacing operational constraints that senior leaders cannot see from above
    • You have multi-year transformation programmes where annual cycles must stay explicitly locked to long-range breakthrough objectives
    • Your teams already speak the language of continuous improvement, A3 thinking, and structured review cadences

    In these contexts, the X-matrix’s ability to map the explicit relationships between long-term breakthroughs, annual priorities, process-level improvement activities, and metrics is genuinely valuable. Hoshin Kanri is not over-engineered for these environments — it is precisely engineered for them. The infrastructure it requires is justified by the cascade complexity it manages.

    If you are not in that environment, that infrastructure will cost more than it delivers.

    Can You Use OGSM and Hoshin Kanri Together?

    Yes — and some mature organisations do exactly this. The pattern that works is: use OGSM at the leadership level for the annual strategy document, then apply Hoshin Kanri principles for the cascade below it.

    Concretely: the leadership team aligns on the OGSM, then uses a catchball-style dialogue to translate the Strategies and Measures into departmental OGSMs. The X-matrix can serve as a cascade validation tool — mapping which departmental activities connect to which enterprise-level measures — without requiring a full Hoshin Kanri deployment from scratch.

    This hybrid approach gives you OGSM’s clarity at the top and Hoshin Kanri’s cascade rigour below. It is not officially sanctioned by either framework’s purists, but it works in practice. Several organisations I have encountered have landed here after initially trying each framework independently and finding that the extremes of each did not fully serve them.

    OGSM vs Hoshin Kanri: Which Framework Should You Choose?

    Both frameworks exist to solve the same fundamental problem: organisations that set strategy and then fail to execute it. They solve it differently, and neither is universally superior.

    If you want a lean, fast, flexible framework that any team can learn and run without specialist support, choose OGSM. If you are operating in a mature Lean environment and need a system specifically built for complex, multi-level cascade with deep frontline engagement, Hoshin Kanri has capabilities that OGSM does not replicate.

    When in doubt — and for most organisations reading this, doubt is appropriate — start with OGSM. You can always layer in Hoshin Kanri cascade mechanics later as your strategic operating maturity grows. The reverse — simplifying a full Hoshin Kanri deployment that has stalled — is considerably harder and more politically fraught.

    Rock on.

  • How to Write OGSM Measures (With 20+ Real KPI Examples)

    How to Write OGSM Measures (With 20+ Real KPI Examples)

    You are creating your one-page strategic plan using the OGSM methodology but get stuck at Measures? Look no further.

    OGSM Measures are the quantitative indicators that tell you whether your Strategies are working. Each measure needs a baseline, a target, and a named owner — without those three elements, you don’t have a Measure, you have a wish.

    Here are 20+ real KPI examples across four categories to help you build a Measures row that actually holds teams accountable.

    What Are Measures in an OGSM?

    In the OGSM framework, the Measures row sits at the bottom of your one-page plan. It answers one question: how will we know if our Strategies are working?

    Measures are not the same as Goals. Goals are outcome-level — revenue, market share, customer numbers. Measures are process-level: they track the leading indicators that predict whether you’ll hit those goals. If your Goal is £10M revenue by year-end, your Measures might include pipeline value, monthly win rate, and average deal size. The Measures row is where strategy becomes science — or falls apart. Most OGSM plans I review have weak Goals and weaker Measures. Fix the Measures row and the whole plan sharpens up.

    What Are the 3 Rules for a Good OGSM Measure?

    I’ve reviewed hundreds of OGSM plans, and most weak Measures fail on one of three criteria. Get these right and everything else falls into place.

    1. Specific. “Customer satisfaction” is not a Measure. “NPS score” is. “NPS score ≥ 45 by Q4” is a great Measure. The more precisely you define what you’re tracking and how you’re measuring it, the less room there is for debate at quarterly review time. Ambiguity is the enemy of accountability.

    2. Owned. Every Measure needs a single name against it. Not a team, not a department — one person. That person is responsible for tracking the number, surfacing early warnings, and driving corrective action when you drift off course. Shared ownership is no ownership.

    3. Time-bound. Your Measure must produce a result within your planning horizon. A metric you can only evaluate in three years doesn’t help you this year. Build in quarterly checkpoints so the number informs decisions in real time — not as a post-mortem after the planning cycle is over.

    What Are Some Strong OGSM Measures Examples?

    Financial Measures

    Measure Baseline Target
    Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) £420K £600K
    Gross margin % 58% 65%
    Operating cost per unit £12.40 £10.00
    Revenue from new customers 22% of total 35% of total
    Debtor days 48 days 30 days

    Financial measures are the easiest to define but often the least useful as leading indicators. By the time a revenue number moves, your window for intervention has closed. Use financial measures alongside operational measures — not instead of them.

    Customer and Market Measures

    Measure Baseline Target
    Net Promoter Score (NPS) 31 48
    Customer churn rate (monthly) 3.2% 1.8%
    Customer lifetime value (CLV) £1,800 £2,400
    Brand awareness (unaided, target segment) 14% 22%
    Time to first value (onboarding) 18 days 7 days

    “Time to first value” is one I recommend to almost every SaaS or service business going through an OGSM exercise. It’s a genuine leading indicator for retention — customers who don’t get an early win leave early. If one of your Strategies involves customer experience or onboarding, this metric belongs in your Measures row.

    Operational and Process Measures

    Measure Baseline Target
    On-time delivery rate 84% 96%
    Lead time (order to ship) 11 days 5 days
    First-call resolution rate 62% 80%
    System uptime 99.1% 99.9%
    Production defect rate 2.4% 0.8%

    Operational measures are the engine room of your OGSM. If any of your Strategies are about improving how work gets done — faster, cheaper, more reliably — these are the metrics that prove it. They also tend to be the most actionable: when an operational measure goes off track, it’s usually clear why and who needs to act.

    People and Capability Measures

    Measure Baseline Target
    Employee engagement score 62% 74%
    Voluntary attrition rate 18% 10%
    Training hours per employee (annual) 12 hrs 24 hrs
    Internal promotion rate 23% 40%
    Time to hire (open to offer) 47 days 25 days

    People measures are the most neglected category in every OGSM plan I review. If one of your Strategies involves building capability, retaining talent, or shifting culture, you need at least one people measure in the row — otherwise accountability evaporates entirely and the strategy becomes an aspiration you revisit once a year and apologise for.

    What Does a Weak OGSM Measure Look Like vs a Strong One?

    Most teams write vague intentions into the Measures row and call it done. Here’s what that looks like — and what to do instead.

    Example 1

    • Weak: Improve customer satisfaction
    • Strong: NPS score ≥ 48 by Q4, measured quarterly — Owner: Head of CX

    Example 2

    • Weak: Grow the team
    • Strong: Hire 6 engineers by 30 September, with time-to-hire ≤ 30 days — Owner: Head of People

    Example 3

    • Weak: Reduce costs
    • Strong: Operating cost per unit reduced from £12.40 to £10.00 by year-end — Owner: Operations Director

    The pattern is the same every time: add a number, add a deadline, add a name. Those three elements transform a vague aspiration into something you can actually track — and something a person will actually feel accountable for.

    What Are the Most Common OGSM Measures Mistakes?

    • Too many measures. If you have 20 measures for a single strategy, you have no priorities. Aim for 3–5 per Strategy, maximum. More than that and you’re building a dashboard, not a plan.
    • Measures that lag too far. Annual revenue is a lagging measure — by the time it moves, the year is over. You need monthly or quarterly indicators that tell you now whether you’re on track. Aim for a Measures row that’s at least 60% leading indicators.
    • No owner assigned. I’ve said this twice because it’s the most common failure mode. Every Measure gets one name. Full stop.

    How to Set Your Baseline and Target

    Before you write a target, you need a baseline. You cannot set a meaningful improvement target if you don’t know where you’re starting. If you genuinely don’t have a baseline yet, your first Measure for that metric should be: “Establish baseline by [date]” — then set the improvement target in your next planning cycle.

    Once you have a baseline, use one of three approaches:

    Benchmark against industry or sector standards — useful for measures like NPS, delivery time, or attrition where comparable data exists.

    Apply a percentage improvement — a 20% reduction in lead time, a 15% uplift in conversion rate. Straightforward, widely understood, easy to communicate.

    Back-calculate from your Goal — if your Goal requires £600K MRR, what conversion rate, pipeline volume, and average contract value do you need to get there? Work backwards from the outcome to the inputs. This is the most rigorous approach and the one I use in every workshop.

    Whichever method you use, sense-check the target: is it genuinely achievable within the planning horizon? Is there a named owner who has accepted responsibility for it? If you can’t answer yes to both, you’re not done yet.

    For a full walkthrough of how Measures fit into the broader one-page plan, see our complete OGSM guide. And if you want to check whether your plan is ready to execute, the OGSM common mistakes article covers the errors that derail most teams before their first quarterly review.

    Rock on.