What the tool gives you, and what it cannot know
The tool drafts the four parts of an OGSM from your aim: one Objective in words, Goals in numbers, Strategies, and Measures. It is a first draft. It does not know your market, your numbers or what your team has already tried, so every line needs checking before anyone commits to it.
OGSM has no founding article or book. It was already built into Procter & Gamble when Roger Martin began advising the company in the mid-1980s1, and the claim that P&G invented it in the 1950s has no primary source. For its history, the evidence behind it and a full walk-through, see the OGSM framework guide.
Check the Strategies column first
This is where most OGSMs go wrong, generated or not. Martin wrote that on most OGSMs the S box holds a list of sensible initiatives, which makes it a plan: "A Plan is not a Strategy."1 He argued the box should hold one joined-up set of choices about where to compete and how to win1. At P&G, the OGSM was where leaders had to state exactly that2.
Test each generated strategy with three questions:
- Where? Does it name the customers, products or places you will focus on?
- How will you win there? Does it say why those customers will pick you over the alternatives?
- What will you stop? If nothing gets dropped, it is probably a wish, not a choice.
A weak Strategies line and a stronger one
These rewrite the coffee subscription example shown above. The business is invented for illustration.
| Weak | Stronger |
|---|---|
| Win on freshness and roaster storytelling | Sell only whole beans, shipped within three days of roasting, to brewers who grind at home. Stop selling pre-ground coffee. |
| Grow via brewing-community partnerships | Find new subscribers through home-brewing clubs and forums, not paid ads. Move the paid social budget into tasting boxes for club members. |
| Launch a mobile app | This is a project, not a strategy. Move it under the strategy it serves as an action, or cut it. |
The weak lines could belong to any coffee company. The stronger ones choose a customer, a reason to win and something to give up. Keep three to five. More than that usually means projects have crept in.
Then fix the Goals and the Measures
Give every goal a starting point. "Reach 10,000 active subscribers in 12 months" means little until the page also says how many there are today. Specific, hard goals tend to beat vague ones such as "do your best," as Edwin Locke and Gary Latham summarized in American Psychologist in 20023. A goal with no baseline is only half specific.
Make measures track the strategies, not repeat the goals. "New subscribers per month" measures a goal. A measure for the freshness strategy is the share of orders shipped within three days of roasting. For the club strategy, it is the share of new subscribers who came from clubs.
Do not put a number on everything. Lisa Ordóñez and colleagues argued in Academy of Management Perspectives in 2009 that goals that are too narrow or too many can lead people to ignore what is not measured and cut corners4. Pair a growth measure with a check, such as new subscribers with six-month retention.
Add owners and actions. The page is a summary. The actions, owners and dates that carry out each strategy go underneath it5.
What the page does not answer, and what to use next
- Whether the strategy is right. OGSM records a choice; it does not help you make it. Playing to Win is built for making that choice.
- What is happening outside. A SWOT analysis or a PESTLE analysis gives the strategies something to stand on.
- Which numbers to watch. The KPI picker and the SMART goals generator help tighten the Measures and Goals.
- What happens this quarter. Many teams set a yearly OGSM and run each quarter with OKRs.
Before the page goes to a leadership meeting, have each person mark the strategy line they would cut first. Lines no one defends are usually the projects.
Frequently asked questions
- What is OGSM?
- OGSM stands for Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures. It is a one-page planning framework that connects a qualitative aim to quantified goals, the strategies to get there, and the metrics that track them.
- What is the difference between Objectives and Goals in OGSM?
- The Objective is qualitative: the direction. Goals are the quantified targets that make it measurable. One objective usually has several goals.
- How is OGSM different from OKRs?
- OGSM adds an explicit Strategies layer (the choices about how you will win) between the goals and the measures. OKRs go straight from objective to key results.
- Why keep OGSM to one page?
- The one-page constraint forces prioritization. If the whole plan fits on a page, everyone can hold it in their head.
- Who created OGSM?
- No one can say for sure. It has no founding article or book. Roger Martin wrote that it was already built into Procter & Gamble when he began working there in the mid-1980s1. The claim that P&G invented it in the 1950s is widely repeated but not documented.
- How many strategies should an OGSM have?
- Three to five is the common advice. More than that usually means projects have crept into the strategy column. Each strategy should say where you will compete, how you will win there and what you will stop doing1.
- What is the difference between a strategy and an action in OGSM?
- A strategy is a choice about where to compete and how to win, such as serving only one kind of customer. An action is a project that carries a strategy out, such as launching an app, with an owner and a date. Actions go under the page, beneath the strategy they serve5.
- What is the difference between Goals and Measures in OGSM?
- Goals put numbers on the objective: they say what success looks like for the whole page. Measures put numbers on each strategy: they show whether that one choice is working. If a measure only repeats a goal, it cannot tell you which strategy is failing.
Sources
- Roger L. Martin, "Strategy is Singular," Roger Martin on Strategy (Substack), January 9, 2023. rogerlmartin.substack.com
- A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin, "Instituting a company-wide strategic conversation at Procter & Gamble," Strategy & Leadership 41(4), 2013, pp. 4 to 9. doi.org
- Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, "Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey," American Psychologist 57(9), 2002, pp. 705 to 717. doi.org
- Lisa D. Ordóñez, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Adam D. Galinsky and Max H. Bazerman, "Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting," Academy of Management Perspectives 23(1), 2009, pp. 6 to 16. doi.org
- OGSM.com, "OGSM model: what is it? A complete guide," accessed September 2026. ogsm.com
Written by Tom Olajide, Founder. Last reviewed September 24, 2026.