Rock Your Strategy

Tag: execution

  • How to Run Your OGSM Quarterly Review

    How to Run Your OGSM Quarterly Review

    Most OGSM plans quietly fall apart between reviews — not because the strategy was wrong, but because no one built a reliable ritual for interrogating it.

    Running an OGSM quarterly review means gathering your leadership team for 60–90 minutes to assess four things: whether your Objective still reflects your ambition, whether your Goals are on track, whether your Strategies are working, and whether your Measures are telling the truth. You review Dashboard Measures to check the scoreboard and Action Plan Measures to understand why. Then you decide: stay the course, adjust tactics, or trigger a full re-plan.

    In this article you’ll get a step-by-step facilitation guide — what to prepare before the meeting, the exact four questions to ask the room, how to update your OGSM documents correctly, and a 60–90 minute agenda you can run this quarter.

    What should you prepare before the quarterly review?

    The quality of your quarterly review is determined before anyone walks into the room. If you arrive with stale data and no pre-read, you’ll spend the first 30 minutes catching up instead of deciding.

    Prepare at least 48 hours before the session:

    • Update your Dashboard Measures. Pull actual vs. target for every Goal. If a measure is amber or red, be ready to explain the gap — not defend it.
    • Update your Action Plan Measures. Each Strategy should have measurable milestones. Gather those actuals too.
    • Prepare a one-page summary. A single document showing the current state of every Objective, Goal, Strategy, and Measure gives the room a shared starting point. Our OGSM template is built for exactly this.
    • Flag the outliers in advance. Don’t walk through everything line by line. Pre-identify the two or three items that need a real conversation and make sure everyone knows what they are.
    • Send the pre-read 24 hours before. Your team should arrive oriented, not overwhelmed. If people are still reading the summary when the meeting starts, you’ve already lost 20 minutes.

    The facilitation job gets much easier when the facts aren’t in dispute before you begin.

    What are the four questions to ask the room?

    The quarterly review is a structured interrogation of your OGSM. These four questions give the session its spine. Ask them in order.

    1. Is our Objective still the right ambition? Quarterly reviews rarely change the Objective — but you should ask. Has the competitive environment shifted? Has something internally changed the scope of what’s possible or necessary? If the answer is yes, flag it for a full re-plan (more on that below). If not, confirm it and move on quickly.

    2. Are our Goals on track? Goals are your quantified targets — revenue, market share, retention, whatever you committed to. Go Dashboard Measure by Dashboard Measure. Green means proceed with a brief acknowledgement. Amber means diagnose. Red means decide. Don’t skip the green ones — a quick confirmation that something is working builds team confidence and keeps the energy right before you hit the difficult conversations.

    3. Are our Strategies producing results? This is where most reviews get shallow. Strategy is how you intend to win — not a list of activities. The question is not “did we do the work?” but “is this approach generating the outcomes we expected?” Look at your Action Plan Measures here. If the activities are happening but the results aren’t following, your Strategy may be wrong — and that’s a different problem than your team underperforming.

    4. What decisions do we need to make today? Every quarterly review must close with explicit decisions, not vague intentions. Resources reallocated? Strategy retired? New initiative approved? Write them down and assign owners before you leave the room. If you leave without decisions, you held a status update, not a strategy review.

    How do you update Dashboard Measures versus Action Plan Measures?

    This is one of the most common points of confusion in OGSM practice, so let’s be precise.

    Dashboard Measures live at the Goal level. They tell you whether you’re on track to achieve your Objective via your Goals. These are typically lagging or leading indicators — monthly revenue, customer NPS, pipeline coverage, retention rate. You update them with actuals and compare against target. A Dashboard Measure tells you that there’s a problem.

    Action Plan Measures live at the Strategy level. They track whether your Strategies are being executed effectively — things like number of new partnerships activated, conversion rate changes from a specific initiative, or features shipped against a roadmap commitment. These tell you why you may be on or off track at the Goal level.

    The rule is simple: when a Dashboard Measure turns red, go immediately to the corresponding Action Plan Measures. The cause of the gap is almost always there. For a deeper look at how these two measure types work together and how to set them up correctly, read our guide to the OGSM Measures Column.

    Update both sets of measures before the meeting. Update the document formally after — with the decisions and any adjusted targets recorded against the relevant measures.

    When should a quarterly review trigger a full re-plan?

    Most quarterly reviews should end with small adjustments: tweak a Strategy, reallocate budget, retire an initiative that isn’t generating results. That’s healthy OGSM practice.

    A full re-plan is warranted when:

    • The Objective is no longer valid. A market shift, acquisition, or significant internal change has made the original ambition wrong or irrelevant.
    • Multiple Goals are structurally off track. Not a bad quarter, but a pattern that suggests the targets were wrong or the underlying business model has changed.
    • Core Strategies are clearly failing. Not just slow — genuinely not working, with no credible line-of-sight to recovery in the remaining period.
    • A critical assumption has been invalidated. Every Strategy is built on assumptions. If a core assumption has been proven wrong, the Strategy resting on it is suspect.

    Be honest here. Continuing to execute a plan everyone in the room knows is broken is more expensive than re-planning. Trigger the re-plan early and you’ll have better options. Waiting until the annual review because “we committed to this” just compounds the cost.

    What does a 60–90 minute quarterly review agenda look like?

    Keep the agenda tight. Quarterly reviews fail when they sprawl into all-day workshops. Here’s a structure that works for most leadership teams:

    0:00–0:10 — Open and orient (10 min) Confirm everyone has reviewed the pre-read. Note the key items flagged for discussion. Set the decision-making expectation: you’re leaving with explicit calls, not actions to investigate.

    0:10–0:30 — Dashboard review (20 min) Walk through each Goal and its Dashboard Measure: actual vs. target, trend, owner commentary. Mark green, amber, or red as you go. Keep green items brief.

    0:30–0:50 — Strategy deep dive (20 min) Focus only on amber and red Dashboard items. For each one, interrogate the Action Plan Measures. What’s driving the gap? Is the Strategy still valid, or does it need to change?

    0:50–1:10 — Decisions and adjustments (20 min) What changes? Who owns it? Are any Strategies being retired or replaced? Is a full re-plan needed? Every decision gets an owner and a due date before you move to the next one.

    1:10–1:20 — Close and next steps (10 min) Assign follow-up actions. Confirm the date and format of the next review. If you’re unsure how often you should be running these sessions, our article on OGSM review cadence covers the full annual rhythm and when to deviate from it.

    That’s a quarterly review that sharpens your strategy rather than just reporting on it. The difference between teams that execute well and teams that drift is usually this: the ones who execute have a meeting they can’t avoid where the facts are on the table and decisions have to be made. Build that meeting, run it well, and your OGSM becomes a live tool rather than a document that ages in a shared drive.

    Rock on.

  • The AI Strategy Audit: How to Use AI Tools to Keep Your OGSM on Track

    The AI Strategy Audit: How to Use AI Tools to Keep Your OGSM on Track

    You built a solid OGSM. You ran the launch meeting, shared the document, set a review cadence. And then life took over, and six weeks later you’re not sure which Goals are on track, which Measures haven’t been updated, and whether the strategy you committed to is still the right one.

    An AI strategy audit uses AI tools — Claude, ChatGPT, or similar — to systematically review your OGSM: flagging stale Measures, testing whether your Goals are still realistic, stress-testing your Strategies against current conditions, and generating specific questions for your next review meeting. A thorough AI audit takes 30 minutes and surfaces issues a standard review often misses.

    Here’s how to run one — and the exact prompts to use.

    Why AI Makes a Good Strategy Auditor

    AI tools don’t have the same blind spots you do. When you review your own OGSM, you see it through the lens of what you know, what you’re hoping for, and what feels uncomfortable to confront. An AI tool has none of those filters. Ask it the right questions, and it will push back on your assumptions with the consistency of a very patient, very well-read advisor who has no stake in the outcome.

    The key is knowing what to ask. Used poorly, AI just produces generic strategy advice. Used with the right prompts and your actual OGSM data, it becomes a genuinely useful thinking partner for the review process.

    What You Need Before You Start

    Before running an AI strategy audit, gather:

    • Your current OGSM document (or a typed summary of Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures with current RAG status)
    • Any recent performance data relevant to your Goals (revenue figures, traffic numbers, customer counts — whatever your Goals track)
    • The date your OGSM was last formally reviewed

    You don’t need to share the full document at once. The prompts below are designed to work section by section.

    The Five-Part AI Strategy Audit

    Part 1: Objective Clarity Test

    Paste your Objective into the AI tool and use this prompt:

    “Here is our strategic Objective: [paste Objective]. Please assess this against three criteria: (1) Is it specific enough to guide real decisions, or is it too vague? (2) Does it suggest a clear timeframe? (3) Would someone outside our organisation understand what we’re trying to achieve? Please flag any weaknesses and suggest a sharper version if needed.”

    A well-written Objective should pass all three. If the AI struggles to understand what you’re aiming for, your team probably does too.

    Part 2: Goal Integrity Check

    Paste each Goal (with baseline and target) and use this prompt:

    “Here are our strategic Goals: [paste Goals with baselines and targets]. Please assess each one against the SMART criteria — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Flag any Goals that are missing elements, and identify any that appear too safe (unlikely to stretch the team) or too ambitious (unrealistic without a step-change in approach).”

    Ask a follow-up: “Given these Goals, what would need to be true about our business for us to achieve all of them simultaneously? Are there any that might conflict with each other?”

    This second question often surfaces tensions the planning process missed — for example, a Goal to grow volume while simultaneously improving margin, without a Strategy that explicitly addresses the trade-off.

    Part 3: Strategy Stress Test

    Paste your Strategies and use this prompt:

    “Here are the Strategies we have committed to this year: [paste Strategies]. For each one, please: (1) Identify the key assumption it relies on. (2) Describe what would have to be true in the market for this Strategy to succeed. (3) Flag any Strategy where the assumption seems weak or where an alternative approach might be more effective.”

    You can also ask: “Are there any obvious strategic options we appear not to have considered, given our Objective and Goals?”

    This prompt works especially well when you share some context about your market or competitive situation. The more specific you are, the more useful the output.

    Part 4: Measures Audit

    Paste your Measures and use this prompt:

    “Here are the Measures we are tracking: [paste Measures with targets and current status]. Please assess each one and tell me: (1) Is this a leading indicator (predicts future Goal performance) or a lagging indicator (reports past results)? (2) Does this Measure have a plausible causal connection to the Goal it’s meant to support? (3) Are there any Measures that appear to be output metrics rather than outcome metrics?”

    Then ask: “If all of these Measures were consistently green, which of our Goals would you be most confident will be achieved — and which Goals do you think would still be at risk? Why?”

    This last question tests whether your Measures actually cover your Goals — a common gap in OGSM design.

    Part 5: Review Meeting Preparation

    Once you’ve completed the first four parts, use this prompt to prepare your next strategy review:

    “Based on everything we’ve discussed about our OGSM — our Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures — please generate: (1) The five most important questions our leadership team should discuss at our next strategy review. (2) The two or three areas where you think we are most at risk of being off track. (3) One provocation — a question designed to challenge a core assumption we might not be examining.”

    The provocation question is often the most valuable output. Strategy teams have a tendency to examine tactics while leaving core assumptions unquestioned. A good provocation makes the meeting more honest.

    How to Use the Output

    An AI strategy audit produces observations, not decisions. The output gives you better questions to take into the review meeting, not answers to replace the meeting.

    Treat it as pre-work. Share the AI audit output with your leadership team 24 hours before the review. Ask them to come prepared to discuss the two or three risks the audit flagged. This shifts the meeting from information-sharing to genuine strategic dialogue.

    Running the Audit Quarterly

    The AI strategy audit works best as a quarterly habit — done two or three days before each major strategy review. It takes about 30 minutes to run, and the discipline of preparing your OGSM data to share with the AI tool is itself valuable: it forces you to update the document before the review rather than improvising status in the meeting.

    You can also run a lighter version monthly — just Part 4 (the Measures audit) — to catch any Measures that are drifting without being addressed.

    What AI Can’t Do

    AI tools are useful strategy thinking partners. They are not strategy consultants, and they’re not a substitute for genuine organisational knowledge.

    AI doesn’t know your specific market dynamics, your team’s actual capacity, or the political realities that shape what’s truly possible in your organisation. The audit questions are most useful when you’re specific about context — “we operate in a market where…” or “our main constraint is…” — and when you treat the output as input to human judgment rather than a replacement for it.

    The best strategy is still made by people who understand the business. AI helps them think more rigorously about what they already know.

    Ready to Audit Your Strategy?

    If you want to run an AI strategy audit on your OGSM, the first thing you need is an OGSM that’s properly structured — with clear Goals, connected Strategies, and trackable Measures. The OGSM Template for PowerPoint and OGSM Template for Excel give you that structure from the start, so when you bring the AI into the review process, you’re working from a solid foundation rather than trying to retrofit one.

    And if you would rather not run the audit prompt by prompt, the OGSM Strategy Builder has both the stress test and the review built in as phases: it runs the mechanical checks, challenges the judgement calls, says plainly what it cannot verify, and prepares your review agenda with the at-risk items first. More on how it works.

  • Is Your Strategy Off Track? 10 Warning Signs and How to Fix Them

    Is Your Strategy Off Track? 10 Warning Signs and How to Fix Them

    Strategies don’t usually fail dramatically. They drift — quietly, gradually, until the gap between where you said you’d be and where you actually are is too wide to close without a serious conversation.

    Your strategy is off track if two or more of these warning signs are present: review meetings focus on activity rather than results, Goals haven’t been updated in months, your team can’t articulate the strategy in a sentence, you keep adding initiatives without removing others, or your Measures are consistently green while your Goals are red. Each sign points to a specific fix.

    Here are ten warning signs to look for — and what to do about each one.

    1. Your Review Meetings Have Become Status Updates

    If strategy reviews are mostly slide decks of “what we did last month” rather than “are we on track and what needs to change,” your review process has become a reporting exercise rather than a decision-making one.

    The fix: Restructure your next meeting around questions, not slides. Start with: “Which Measures are amber or red, and why?” Require anyone presenting a Measure to also propose an action.

    2. Nobody Can Summarise the Strategy in One Sentence

    Ask three people in your organisation to describe the strategy. If you get three different answers — or three blank looks — the strategy hasn’t landed.

    A strategy that can’t be summarised isn’t a strategy. It’s a planning document.

    The fix: Write a single strategy sentence that everyone at leadership level agrees on. Something like: “We are focusing on [target market] with [key approach] in order to [Objective].” Test it until it’s short enough to remember and specific enough to actually guide decisions.

    3. Your Measures Are Green but Your Goals Are Red

    This is one of the most common — and most dangerous — patterns in strategy reviews. Your leading indicators look healthy, but your lagging outcomes are not improving. This means either your Measures aren’t actually measuring what matters, or the connection between your Strategies and your Goals is weaker than you thought.

    The fix: Audit the connection between each Measure and the Goal it supposedly predicts. Are they genuinely linked? If a Measure has been green for three months and the related Goal hasn’t moved, that Measure isn’t a leading indicator — it’s a comfort metric. Replace it.

    4. You Keep Adding Priorities Without Removing Anything

    Every time a new idea or external pressure arrives, it gets added to the strategy. Nothing ever gets removed. The result is a list of twelve “priorities” and a team that quietly does whatever it was already doing.

    The fix: Apply a simple rule: for every new initiative added to the strategy, one existing initiative must be explicitly paused or removed. This forces real prioritisation rather than the illusion of it.

    5. Your Strategies Haven’t Changed, Even Though the Market Has

    A strategy that made sense in January may not make sense in October. If the external environment has shifted — new competition, changing customer behaviour, a technology disruption — and your Strategies look exactly the same as they did at the start of the year, either you’ve genuinely assessed the situation and decided to stay the course, or you haven’t been paying attention.

    The fix: At each quarterly review, spend ten minutes explicitly asking: “What has changed in our environment since we set this strategy? Does our approach still make sense?” This isn’t about rewriting the strategy every quarter — it’s about confirming that the strategy remains valid.

    6. The OGSM Hasn’t Been Updated Since It Was Created

    If your OGSM document looks exactly like it did on the day you built it — same numbers, same RAG status, no updates — it’s become a wall decoration rather than a working tool.

    A living OGSM changes at every review. Status gets updated. Actions get added. Occasionally a Strategy changes. If none of that is happening, the document isn’t being used.

    The fix: Assign a single owner for the OGSM document. That person is responsible for updating it after every review meeting and circulating the updated version within 48 hours.

    7. Your Team Doesn’t Know How Their Work Connects to the Strategy

    If individual contributors or team leaders can’t explain how their work connects to the overall Objective and Goals, the strategy isn’t guiding day-to-day priorities. It’s operating in parallel to the real work.

    The fix: This is a cascade problem. Each team should have a clear line of sight from their tasks to the company’s Goals. If that connection doesn’t exist, either build it through a cascade OGSM or simplify the strategy until the connection becomes obvious.

    8. You’re Consistently Hitting Targets That Require No Change

    If every Goal comes in at exactly 100% every quarter with no significant course corrections, one of two things is true: either your execution is genuinely exceptional, or your targets aren’t stretching enough to drive growth.

    Comfortable targets feel good. They also tend to correlate with stagnant results.

    The fix: Revisit your Goal-setting methodology. A well-set Goal should require your team to do things differently, not just more of the same. If you’ve hit your revenue Goal every year for five years without fundamentally changing your approach, it’s probably time to raise the bar.

    9. Ownership of Goals and Strategies Is Unclear

    In a review meeting, you discuss a red Goal and nobody in the room feels specifically responsible for fixing it. Everyone is vaguely accountable. Nobody is actually accountable.

    The fix: Every Goal and every Strategy on your OGSM should have a single named owner — not a team, not a department, a person. That person presents the status at every review and proposes actions when it’s off track. Diffuse ownership is how strategies die quietly.

    10. You’re Measuring Outputs Instead of Outcomes

    “We published fifteen articles this quarter.” “We ran twelve sales calls.” “We delivered the training programme.” These are outputs — things you did. Outcomes are what changed as a result: traffic increased, pipeline grew, team capability improved.

    A strategy tracked only by outputs is a strategy that can look busy while going nowhere.

    The fix: For every Measure on your OGSM, ask: “Does this tell us about what we did, or about what changed?” Wherever possible, replace output Measures with outcome Measures. “Articles published” becomes “organic sessions generated.” “Sales calls made” becomes “qualified meetings booked.”

    What to Do If Several Signs Are Present

    One warning sign is a flag. Three or more is a signal that your strategy process needs a reset, not just a tune-up.

    A reset doesn’t mean scrapping the strategy. It usually means running a one-day strategy health check — bringing the leadership team together to honestly assess the OGSM against each of these warning signs, and agreeing on three specific changes to make within the next 30 days.

    It also means revisiting your review cadence and format. If the process isn’t working, the problem is usually the structure of the meeting, not the people in it. And it means reassigning ownership explicitly — if accountability has drifted, it needs to be re-established directly, not hinted at.

    The goal isn’t a perfect strategy. It’s a strategy that’s genuinely guiding decisions, being reviewed, and adapting to what you learn.

    A Tool That Makes Off-Track Visible

    One reason strategies drift unnoticed is that the OGSM isn’t in a format that makes status easy to see at a glance. When your Goals and Measures are in a clearly structured, RAG-coded template, it’s much harder to ignore what’s red.

    The OGSM Template for PowerPoint and OGSM Template for Excel are designed to make status visible — so the conversation at your next review starts with the right question: “Why is this red, and what are we going to do about it?”

  • The OGSM Measures Column: Two Types, One Big Mistake Most Teams Make

    The OGSM Measures Column: Two Types, One Big Mistake Most Teams Make

    The OGSM Measures column does two jobs at once — and most teams only see one of them.

    The Measures column holds two fundamentally different types of content: Dashboard Measures (KPIs that tell you whether your strategy is working) and Action Plan Measures (specific initiatives with owners and deadlines that will make it work). Most teams treat the column as a single unified list and end up with a document that is neither a useful dashboard nor a credible action plan. Separating the two is the single clearest way to make your Measures column actually useful.

    This article explains both measure types in detail, shows you what each looks like in practice, and gives you a clear test for which type belongs where in your Measures column.

    OGSM Measures Explained: What Is the Measures Column Actually For?

    If you’ve read a standard OGSM explanation, you’ve probably seen the Measures column described as “how you’ll know you’re succeeding.” That’s true, but incomplete. In practice, the column carries two fundamentally different types of information — and they serve different masters.

    One type answers: Is our strategy working?
    The other answers: What are we doing to make it work?

    These are not the same question. Conflating them is how an OGSM ends up as a project plan dressed up as a strategy.

    What Are Dashboard Measures?

    Dashboard Measures are the KPIs that track whether a Strategy is delivering results. They’re lagging or leading indicators — numbers you monitor regularly to diagnose health, not manage tasks.

    What they look like:

    • Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) growth: +8% quarter-on-quarter
    • Customer retention rate: ≥ 87%
    • Net Promoter Score: ≥ 42 (tracked monthly)
    • Time to hire: ≤ 21 days

    These measures exist to answer one question: is the Strategy producing the outcome we predicted? They’re visible on a dashboard, reviewed in monthly or quarterly business reviews, and owned by whoever is accountable for the Strategy.

    Dashboard Measures should be outcome-oriented, quantified, and time-bound. If a measure can’t be plotted on a trend line over time, it probably isn’t a Dashboard Measure.

    The review cadence for Dashboard Measures aligns with your strategic review rhythm — typically monthly for fast-moving strategies, quarterly for longer-horizon objectives. For more on building that rhythm, see our guide to OGSM review cadence.

    What Are Action Plan Measures?

    Action Plan Measures are the specific initiatives, workstreams, and milestones that will cause the strategy to succeed. They’re not metrics — they’re commitments.

    What they look like:

    • Launch new onboarding email sequence — Owner: Head of CX — Due: 30 June
    • Complete competitive pricing review — Owner: Commercial Director — Due: 15 May
    • Pilot referral programme in 3 accounts — Owner: Sales Lead — Due: Q3

    Action Plan Measures carry three essential components: what is being done, who owns it, and by when. Without all three, it’s a wish, not a measure.

    These are reviewed in operational rhythm — weekly or fortnightly in execution meetings. They’re not strategic indicators; they’re the levers you’re pulling to move the strategic indicators.

    What’s the Difference Between Dashboard and Action Plan Measures?

    Dashboard Measures Action Plan Measures
    What it tracks Outcome / health of the strategy Activities / execution progress
    Who owns it Strategy owner Initiative lead
    Review cadence Monthly / quarterly Weekly / fortnightly
    Format Number + target + trend Task + owner + deadline
    Retail example Like-for-like sales growth ≥ 5% Launch loyalty card pilot — Head of Retail — Q2
    SaaS example Logo churn rate ≤ 1.5% / month Redesign in-app onboarding — Product Lead — May
    Services example Client satisfaction score ≥ 4.2/5 Roll out quarterly account reviews — CS Director — Q1

    The key distinction: Dashboard Measures tell you how you’re doing. Action Plan Measures tell you what you’re doing. Both belong in the Measures column, but they should never be confused with each other.

    What’s the Most Common Mistake Teams Make with Measures?

    Here’s what I see most often when I audit an OGSM: the Measures column is filled entirely with activities.

    “Run leadership training programme.”
    “Implement new CRM.”
    “Review supplier contracts.”

    These aren’t measures. They’re tasks. And when the entire Measures column looks like this, the OGSM has lost its strategic function. You can tick every box and still have no idea whether your strategy is working.

    The underlying cause is usually one of two things: the team found Dashboard Measures hard to define (it requires knowing what “success” actually looks like, which is uncomfortable), or they copied Action Plan items into the Measures column without adding the corresponding KPIs.

    The result is an OGSM that answers what are we doing but never asks is it working. That’s a project plan. A strategy document needs both.

    This connects directly to the most common pattern of OGSM failure. If you’re diagnosing a broader OGSM that feels off, the full OGSM guide covers the framework end-to-end and explains how each column should relate to the others.

    How Do You Tell Dashboard Measures from Action Plan Measures?

    If you’re staring at your Measures column and not sure what you’ve got, run each entry through these three questions:

    1. Can you plot it on a graph over time?
    If yes, it’s probably a Dashboard Measure. If not — if it’s an event that happens once — it’s an Action Plan Measure.

    2. Does it have a named owner and a deadline?
    If it has both, it’s an Action Plan Measure. If it’s tracked at team level without a single accountable person, it’s likely a Dashboard Measure.

    3. Does it tell you if the strategy is working — or just that someone is working on it?
    This is the most important question. A Dashboard Measure tells you about outcomes. An Action Plan Measure tells you about activity. Both are necessary. Neither substitutes for the other.

    For a deeper look at how Measures relate to Goals in the framework, the OGSM Goals vs Measures explainer covers the structural logic in full.

    How Do You Fix Your Measures Column Without Starting Over?

    If your existing OGSM is live and you want to fix the Measures column without rebuilding from scratch, here’s the simplest approach:

    1. Separate the two types. Create two sections within the Measures column: one for Dashboard Measures (KPIs), one for Action Plan (initiatives). Even just labelling them helps.
    2. Check every Dashboard Measure for a number, unit, and timeframe. “Improve retention” is not a measure. “Retention rate ≥ 88% by Q4” is.
    3. Check every Action Plan item for an owner and a deadline. If either is missing, it’s incomplete. No owner means no accountability. No deadline means no urgency.

    This audit takes less than an hour for most OGSMs and tends to surface uncomfortable conversations that were previously hidden inside vague language — which is exactly the point.

    For a complete list of what good Measures look like across different types of organisations, the OGSM Measures examples article covers retail, SaaS, professional services, and public sector in detail.

    Why Does Getting This Distinction Right Actually Matter?

    The OGSM framework works because it forces alignment between intent and action. The Objective captures where you’re going. The Goal quantifies it. The Strategies define how you’ll compete to get there. The Measures column — when it works — shows both whether the strategies are producing results and what the team is doing to execute them.

    When the column collapses into a flat task list, that connection breaks. You lose the feedback loop that makes the OGSM useful as a management tool, not just a planning artifact.

    Get both types of Measures right, and your OGSM becomes something you actually want to open at the start of every review meeting.

    Rock on.

  • 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.

  • 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 Dashboard Examples: How to Track Your Strategy Week by Week

    OGSM Dashboard Examples: How to Track Your Strategy Week by Week

    The best OGSM dashboard is a simple visual that shows you — at a glance — whether your Measures are green, amber, or red, who owns each one, and when it was last updated. You don’t need expensive software. A Google Sheet, a PowerPoint slide, or even a whiteboard wall can do the job. The goal is to make progress (or the lack of it) impossible to ignore.

    Why Most OGSM Implementations Stall at the Tracking Stage

    You built the OGSM. You ran the workshop, aligned the leadership team, printed it on a nice slide. And then… nothing. Six weeks later, nobody’s looking at it.

    This is the most common failure point in OGSM execution — not the strategy itself, but the absence of a tracking rhythm. Without a dashboard that makes it painfully obvious whether each Measure is on track, the OGSM becomes a once-a-year exercise rather than a live management tool. I’ve seen this in organisations of every size. The strategy is sound. The execution tools are non-existent.

    The problem isn’t that leaders don’t care. It’s that nobody built a simple visual to anchor the weekly conversation. A dashboard removes the friction of having to ask “where are we?” It puts the answer in the room before the question is asked.

    The fix isn’t a fancier tool. It’s a visible, consistently-updated display of your Measures that forces the conversation every single week.

    What a Good OGSM Dashboard Actually Shows

    Before you look at examples, understand what your dashboard needs to communicate. A useful OGSM tracking dashboard surfaces four data points for each Measure:

    • RAG status — Red, Amber, or Green. No percentages. No nuance. Just a colour that tells you whether this Measure needs attention this week.
    • Trend — Is it getting better or worse compared to last week? An up arrow, down arrow, or flat line is enough.
    • Owner — One name. Not a team, not a department. One human who is accountable for moving it.
    • Last reviewed — The date this Measure was last discussed in a meeting. Stale dates are a red flag that your review rhythm is slipping.

    That’s it. Four data points per Measure. If your dashboard shows more than that, you’re adding complexity that slows down the review conversation and gives people reasons to debate methodology instead of fixing problems.

    For a deeper look at how to design your Measures in the first place, read how to write OGSM measures that actually get tracked.

    3 OGSM Dashboard Examples

    Example 1: The RAG Spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel)

    This is the default for most teams and the right starting point.

    Layout: One row per Measure. Columns: Measure name | Target | Current value | RAG status | Trend | Owner | Last reviewed | Notes.

    How it looks: Use conditional formatting to colour the RAG status cell automatically — green if you’re at or above 90% of target, amber if you’re between 70–89%, red if you’re below 70%. The colour-coding does the work. You scan the column and instantly know where to focus. No interpretation required.

    Who it’s for: Any team that already lives in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Zero extra cost, zero setup friction. Export it as a PDF and paste it into your weekly agenda so the data is in front of everyone before the meeting starts.

    Illustrator note: A clean table with six rows (one per Measure), a vivid RAG colour in column 4, and simple up/flat/down trend arrows in column 5. Use a muted grey background for the header row. Keep the font clean and the layout uncluttered.

    Example 2: The One-Page Slide Dashboard (PowerPoint or Google Slides)

    When you’re presenting to a leadership team or board, a single slide works better than a spreadsheet.

    Layout: Four quadrants — one per Strategy. Inside each quadrant, list the 2–3 Measures for that Strategy with their RAG dot and owner initials. At the top of the slide: the Objective in bold, and a single RAG status for the overall OGSM. One slide, total picture.

    How it looks: Think of a 2×2 grid with a header bar. Each cell is a Strategy, labelled clearly. The Measures inside are concise — five to seven words max. A large coloured dot (●) sits to the left of each Measure name.

    Who it’s for: Executive teams who meet weekly or fortnightly and need a single artefact to anchor the conversation. Print it double-sided — OGSM on the front, action log on the back. It’s also the right format for a board update where you have five minutes to communicate strategic health.

    Illustrator note: A clean slide with a bold title bar (“OGSM Dashboard — Week 19”), four coloured quadrant boxes in two columns, and RAG dots beside each Measure name. Minimalist, data-forward. White background, dark text.

    Example 3: The Wall Chart (For In-Person Teams)

    If your team shares a physical office, nothing beats a wall chart you can see from across the room.

    Layout: Print your OGSM on A0 paper (or use a large whiteboard). Use sticky dots — green, amber, red — to mark each Measure’s current status. Add a “last reviewed” date label under each dot using a marker.

    How it looks: A large printed OGSM framework with physical coloured dots stuck on each Measure. The dots are changed during the weekly stand-up. When the whole left column is green, there’s a visual satisfaction that no digital tool replicates. When something goes red, the whole team sees it instantly — no email needed, no login required.

    Who it’s for: Operations teams, manufacturing floors, agile product teams, any group that physically gathers. The wall chart creates social accountability — everyone walking past can see the state of play. It’s also useful for teams that find screen-based meetings draining.

    Illustrator note: A large printed OGSM on an office wall, with circular sticky dots next to each Measure. One person (illustrated from behind) is updating a dot — swapping a red dot for an amber one. Bright, energetic office setting.

    How to Run the Weekly Dashboard Review (5 Steps)

    Having the dashboard means nothing if you don’t use it. Here’s the five-step process I recommend for teams running a weekly strategy review:

    Update before the meeting. Each Measure owner updates their RAG status the morning of the review. No surprises, no data gathering during the call. If data isn’t ready, the status defaults to amber.

    Start with the reds. Open every review on the red Measures only. Greens don’t need airtime. Cap each red discussion at five minutes.

    Identify the single next action. For each red or amber, agree on one action, one owner, one deadline. Write it in the notes column immediately.

    Take five minutes on trend. Even if something is green today, a downward trend is a warning sign. Flag it before it becomes a red.

    Update the “last reviewed” date. This sounds trivial. It isn’t. A date that hasn’t moved in two weeks tells you the review rhythm is breaking down before anyone has to say it out loud.

    The whole review should take 30 minutes or less. If it’s taking longer, you have too many Measures or too many people in the room.

    Common Dashboard Mistakes

    • Tracking activities instead of outcomes. “Delivered 12 training sessions” is not a Measure — it’s a task. Your dashboard should show what changed as a result of those sessions: retention rate, engagement score, time-to-competency.
    • Updating the dashboard retroactively. If owners are backfilling data to make things look green, your RAG status is fiction. The discipline of real-time updates is where most teams fall down. Build it into the meeting ritual, not the prep work.
    • Too many Measures on one dashboard. An OGSM should have 6–10 Measures total across all Strategies. If your dashboard has 25 rows, you’ve confused activity tracking with strategy tracking. Go back to your OGSM framework and cut ruthlessly.

    Get the OGSM Template

    If you’re building your first tracking dashboard, start with a template rather than from scratch. The free OGSM template includes a pre-built RAG spreadsheet with conditional formatting already set up — add your Measures and you’re ready for your first weekly review.

    Rock on.

  • How to Use OGSM for a 90-Day Sprint Plan

    How to Use OGSM for a 90-Day Sprint Plan

    Annual strategies are great on paper. The problem is that most people don’t look at them again until it’s too late to change anything.

    To use OGSM for a 90-day sprint plan, take your annual Objective and Goals and break them into a focused sub-OGSM for the quarter: keep the Objective, select the one or two Goals most critical this quarter, define the Strategies you’ll run in this period only, and set Measures with 90-day targets. Review progress every two weeks.

    The 90-day OGSM sits inside your annual strategy, not instead of it. Here’s how to build one that actually works.

    Why 90 Days Is the Right Unit for Execution

    A year is long enough to lose focus, change direction, and still feel like you have time. A week is too short to see any meaningful movement on strategic priorities. Ninety days is the sweet spot — long enough to make real progress, short enough to keep urgency high.

    The 90-day sprint model works just as well with OGSM — and arguably better, because OGSM naturally scales from annual to quarterly without requiring a different framework.

    The Difference Between an Annual OGSM and a 90-Day OGSM

    Your annual OGSM sets the year’s direction. Your 90-day OGSM answers: what do we actually work on in the next three months to move toward that direction?

    Annual OGSM — 3–5 Goals, multiple Strategies, Measures tracked monthly or quarterly.

    90-Day OGSM — 1–2 Goals (the ones where you need the most progress this quarter), 2–3 Strategies (the specific campaigns or initiatives running right now), Measures tracked weekly or bi-weekly.

    You’re not rebuilding your strategy every 90 days. You’re focusing it.

    How to Build Your 90-Day OGSM

    Step 1: Start With Your Annual Objective

    Your 90-day Objective is the same as your annual Objective. Don’t rewrite it. The purpose of the sprint is to make progress toward the annual direction — you don’t need a new destination every quarter.

    If your annual Objective is “Become the go-to provider of OGSM training for European mid-market businesses,” that’s also your 90-day Objective. The sprint just defines what “progress” means for this quarter.

    Step 2: Select Your 90-Day Focus Goals

    Look at your annual Goals and ask: which one or two of these are most important to make progress on right now?

    In Q1, you might focus on building awareness and pipeline. In Q3, you might focus on revenue conversion and retention. Not all Goals are equally urgent in all quarters.

    Choose a maximum of two Goals for the sprint. For each, set a 90-day sub-target — a milestone rather than the full-year figure.

    For example, if your annual Goal is “Grow organic website traffic from 4,000 to 10,000 monthly sessions by December,” your Q2 sub-target might be “Reach 6,500 monthly sessions by 30 June.”

    Step 3: Define Your Strategies for This Quarter

    Your 90-day Strategies are the specific initiatives you’ll run during this sprint. Be more specific here than in your annual OGSM.

    Annual Strategy: “Build thought-leadership content to drive inbound traffic.”

    90-Day Strategy: “Publish eight SEO-optimised blog articles targeting OGSM search terms; promote each via LinkedIn and email list.”

    The more specific your 90-day Strategies, the easier it is to assign work and track progress.

    Step 4: Set Weekly or Bi-Weekly Measures

    Your 90-day Measures should update every one to two weeks — not monthly. At 90 days, you don’t have time for monthly check-ins to reveal you’re off-track.

    For a content-focused sprint, your Measures might be:

    • Articles published per week: target 2
    • LinkedIn post reach per article: target 800 impressions
    • Email open rate for content newsletter: target 35%
    • Organic sessions: tracking weekly against the 6,500 target

    These aren’t big strategic questions — they’re operational metrics that tell you whether the engine is running. If one drops, you address it quickly rather than discovering the problem at month three.

    Step 5: Review Every Two Weeks

    Block a 30–45 minute review every two weeks for the duration of the sprint. Use the same structure as a full strategy review: Measures first, Goals second, actions third.

    At the end of the 90 days, run a proper sprint retrospective: what worked, what didn’t, and what should inform next quarter’s sprint plan.

    A 90-Day OGSM Example

    Objective: Become the go-to provider of OGSM templates and training for European business strategists.

    90-Day Focus Goals (Q2):

    • Grow organic monthly website traffic to 6,500 sessions by 30 June (from 4,000).
    • Generate €8,000 in template sales by 30 June (from €4,500 in Q1).

    90-Day Strategies:

    • Publish eight SEO-targeted articles focused on OGSM search terms.
    • Run a LinkedIn content series (three posts per week) highlighting OGSM use cases.
    • Launch a promotional campaign to the email list for the Excel template.

    Measures (bi-weekly):

    • Articles published: target 1 per week
    • LinkedIn engagement rate: target 4%+
    • Email click-through rate: target 3%+
    • Weekly organic sessions: tracking toward 6,500 by end of June
    • Weekly shop revenue: tracking toward €8,000 by end of June

    When to Use a 90-Day OGSM

    A 90-day sprint plan works best when:

    You need to rebuild momentum. If a strategy has been dormant or underdelivering, a focused 90-day sprint with a clear end date is better than a vague renewal of commitment to the annual plan.

    You’re in a period of rapid change. If market conditions are shifting fast, a 90-day planning horizon keeps you responsive without abandoning strategic direction.

    Your team needs focus. Annual strategies can feel overwhelming. A 90-day sprint with two goals and three strategies gives people something concrete to work toward.

    You’re testing a new Strategy. If you want to know whether a new approach works before committing to it for the year, run it as a 90-day experiment with clear Measures.

    What to Avoid

    Treating every quarter as a blank slate. Your annual OGSM is the constant. Sprint plans should build on each other, not restart the strategy from scratch every 90 days.

    Adding too many Goals. If you’re trying to make significant progress on four or five Goals in 90 days, you’ll make marginal progress on all of them. Pick two, go deep.

    Setting Measures that update monthly. Monthly Measures in a 90-day sprint leave you with only three data points. Weekly or bi-weekly is the right cadence.

    The Template Makes It Simple

    The cleanest way to run a 90-day OGSM sprint is with a template that lets you work at both levels — annual and quarterly — without juggling two separate documents. The OGSM Template for PowerPoint and OGSM Template for Excel are structured so you can use the same layout for your annual plan and your quarterly sprint, keeping your strategic logic consistent while your operational focus sharpens every 90 days.