OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures) is a way of defining what you want to achieve, and how you will get there. OGSM Is a business-planning framework that can help organizations link their long-term vision and strategies to short and medium term goals. It can help you monitor the progress towards these goals and help you maintain the required focus along with way.
OGSM is believed to have been developed in the 1950s by Japanese car manufacturers, building on Peter Drucker’s idea of Management by Objectives.
Getting into the definitions of each of the attributes of OGSM:
Objective. This defines the vision. It sets the direction for the organization for the next three to five years. It describes the objective of the business and answers the question: What are we trying to achieve? The Objective should define the playing field and the rules for winning.
Goals. The stepping stones to achieve the higher-level objective. It needs to be specific, measurable, and achievable. Goals are typically numbers that define what success looks like over a three-to-five year time horizon.
Strategies. What choices would you adopt to achieve the objective? This would include where one needs to focus. Strategies guide the work activities and allocation of limited resources across the organization.
Measures. These are the KPIs or benchmarks to measure the success criteria. Each Measure is tracked to determine the progress of a Strategy, and used to make decisions regarding any necessary adjustments.
Useful Resources
OKR
Have you had a look at OKR? We will do a comparison of OKR and OGSM in a subsequent article.
