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?
- What Is the Difference Between the Dashboard and the Action Plan?
- How Do You Choose the Right KPIs for Each Strategy?
- What Are the Most Common Mistakes in the Measures Column?
- What Does a Complete OGSM Measures Column Look Like?
- How Do You Connect OGSM Measures to Your Review Cadence?
- What Do Teams Most Often Ask About OGSM Measures?
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.