How to fill an OGSM?
OGSM is a strategic planning and execution framework that helps you to achieve your goals. OGSM stands for Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Measures. Wondering where to start and how to write an OGSM? We have answers.
Preliminary research and analysis
Before making an OGSM plan, we recommend doing some preparations. You should learn all you can about:
- Your value chain and business model.
- Your competitors, partners and/or stakeholders.
- The trends in your industry or field.
- The strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of your organization.
- The needs and preferences of your customers and their customer journey.
In order to gather this information, you can use different types of analyses, such as: SWOT, PESTEL, Porter’s Five Forces, Business Model Canvas, or the BCG matrix.
Choose your objective
The Objective describes the conditions that you want to achieve during the agreed-upon time period. It sets the direction for the whole plan. This objective needs to be:
- Ambitious, but achievable
- Intellectually sound and emotionally resonant
- Intuitively understandable and easy to explain in your own words
- Encompassing all the elements that must be present for the success realisation of the strategic plan
- Not including any superfluous elements without which strategic success is also realised
- Providing a clear sense of strategic direction.
Write down your goals
The Goals section of your OGSM translates your Objective into a set of clear and measurable targets that must be achieved to realize it. Goals tend to include key financial targets like market share, profit, numbers of clients, or revenue. They can also include other numbers relevant to your organization’s performance, such as client satisfaction, employee churn or ESG goals. Goals must be SMART, meaning: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Determine your strategies
Strategies are the roadmap to the realization of your Objective. If your Objective defines the ‘what‘ you hope to achieve with the strategic plan, your Strategies should describe how you will do that. Selecting good Strategies is crucial to good performance for any organization. These will define the areas of focus for your strategic plan. When writing your Strategies, it can be helpful to keep a list of strategic areas in mind that tend to be relevant for most organizations. These are Customer, Product, Processes, Partners, and Innovation. Sometimes, you may also want to add ESG as an area.
Measure the progress
The Measures are the most complex part of the OGSM method. The reason for that is the ambiguity of the word Measures. Measures, in the OGSM framework, refer to two different things. This split within Measures is not native to OGSM, but was introduced to enhance the clarity of the model.
- Dashboard Measures: These are performance indicators and metrics that you use to evaluate the success of your Strategies;
- Action Measures: These are actions you take or projects completed as part of the strategic execution process.
Would you like more information on how to track progress towards the execution of your strategy?