What is OGSM? Application Tips and the Most Detailed, Effective OGSM Template for Businesses

I. What is OGSM? The Role of the OGSM Model in Business

1. What is OGSM?

OGSM is a strategic planning method that helps deploy and control an organization’s business activities. OGSM is an acronym for:

• Objectives: Answers the question, “What does the business want to achieve in the long term?”
• Goals: This element helps the business define specific targets to be set.
• Strategies: Answers the question, “What strategies will help the business reach those goals?”
• Measures: “What metrics does the business need to use to know its level of success?”

Specifically, the elements of OGSM are as follows:

In fact, besides OGSM, businesses today also apply many other business planning models, notably the OKR model. The letter “O” in the names of these two methods is an abbreviation for “Objective,” but in reality, they represent two different elements.

Understanding the differences between these two models will help strategists analyze and choose the appropriate model for their organization.

To learn what OKR is, please refer to our article: “What is OKR? The Most Accurate Way to Evaluate OKRs”

2. The Role of the OGSM Model in Business

Clearly understanding what OGSM is and planning based on the OGSM model helps businesses develop clear and transparent strategies. By grasping and listing all the elements in this model, you can fully control the plan, predict, and manage potential situations.

• Create reports and plans clearly

Unlike traditional work and activity reporting methods that involve tons of documents or dense data, OGSM provides you with work information and data in a scientific and concise manner, helping to save time effectively.

Clarity and coherence in planning are criteria that every business manager aims for. This is further enhanced when planning with the OGSM model due to the detail, clarity, and transparency demonstrated in each element.

• The flexibility of the OGSM model

The OGSM model can be used for long-term strategic plans with a timeframe of 3-5 years or longer. It can also be applied to annual operational plans or budget plans. Any project, regardless of its scale or duration, can easily apply OGSM.

• A tool to promote effective teamwork

The OGSM method is most effective when discussed within a team. You need to gather the team to discuss strategy, analyze the current situation, etc. Through debate, discussion, and finding solutions to issues, managers can decide on a reasonable allocation of resources.

• Supports reasonable resource allocation

OGSM aligns all functions and stakeholders towards a common goal. It then specifies the specific roles and tasks of each person in the process. In other words, OGSM is crucial for ensuring that all parts of the organization are working in the same direction.

II. Comparing the OGSM and BSC Models

Besides OGSM, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) tool is one of the management tools that many businesses have been interested in recently. To avoid confusion between these two models, let’s compare their similarities and differences.

Similarities

• Both OGSM and BSC aim to turn vision into reality
• Are highly quantifiable and interconnected
• The objectives set in both models are long-term
• Both focus on objectives, linking daily actions to the overall goal
• Both models need to be established based on practical principles

Differences

• OGSM Model

The core of OGSM is to realize the corporate vision based on the set objectives. These objectives depend on the company’s future expectations.

OGSM helps businesses plan with quantifiable objectives and develop appropriate strategies to achieve the main goal, making the application of this tool relatively simple and easy.

• BSC Model

Unlike OGSM, BSC manages strategy and objectives based on four factors: financial, customer, process, and people, with the goals of financial efficiency, customer satisfaction, processes that keep up with strategy, and people who can execute the strategy.

In addition to the four characteristics of connection, quantification, and orientation, BSC also aims for a balance among these four factors, creating a sustainable and stable development framework for the business.

III. Pros and Cons of the OGSM Planning Model

As a planning method widely applied by many major brands like Coca-Cola, Honda, etc., OGSM certainly has many advantages that bring specific benefits to businesses:

• Clear structure, an easy-to-apply model with high flexibility
• The conciseness of the OGSM model is highly valued as it allows for planning on a single page
• Easily report progress and track work
• OGSM helps businesses see a clear big picture and long-term plan
• Businesses can outline necessary activities in a specific list for development
• When using OGSM, all members of the business or organization can access information and track work

However, alongside the advantages mentioned above, the OGSM model still has some limitations, such as:

• Businesses can get confused between the 4 evaluation factors (objectives, strategies, vision, and projects)
• Using OGSM makes it quite difficult to track and measure each issue in-depth due to the model’s broad scope
• OGSM does not encourage employee participation in its setup, so it’s likely that good ideas may be wasted or overlooked
• Businesses will need to set up additional support software to leverage the OGSM model most optimally

IV. When Should a Business Use the OGSM Planning Model?

With the pros and cons mentioned above, OGSM needs to be used appropriately to be effective for a business. Therefore, businesses should only use OGSM when:

• They have the most comprehensive overview of the business and the market: This applies when the business lacks a strategy and a sustainable strategic plan with suitable destinations and objectives.
• They have clearly defined financial growth goals: When the business has a stable human resources framework and operations, and can focus on gaining market share and increasing sales, it should apply the OGSM management model.

V. 5 Tips for Applying the OGSM Model for the Most Effective Business Planning

1. Apply the “What-by-How” Model

This method means the business must answer two major questions: “What does the business want to achieve?” and “How will it be done?”.

For a specific example, when a business wants to build a new website, the objective is to reach a large number of customers while enhancing the user experience.

To achieve this objective, the business can collaborate with a website design agency. This process allows the manager to shape all plans more clearly and optimally. On the other hand, it also helps the business manage projects smoothly.

2. Set Goals Intelligently

In other management methods, achieving 75% of a goal is considered a significant success. However, OGSM pushes for even higher efficiency.

For that reason, business objectives must be clear and smart. This means the objectives should be measurable, achievable, and create breakthrough differences. At the same time, a specific and precise timeline also needs to be defined in detail and clarity.

3. Limit to No More Than 5 Strategies

As mentioned above, creating too many strategies makes it impossible for a business to determine its exact destination. But for an organization, how many strategies is too many?

The answer is that a business should use a maximum of 5 strategies. This is because the team will achieve positive results if they focus resources on handling the main strategies. The elements in OGSM can be updated manually or automatically using software tools.

4. Select Effective Measures

Experience shows that using a 100% new measure is often less effective. This is because it requires time and budget for adjustments and modifications to ensure accuracy.

Therefore, businesses can consider using familiar measurement methods or developing them on existing platforms. You just need to prioritize choosing methods that are suitable for your business type or industry specifics.

5. Monitor the Plan Implementation Process

During the monitoring process, the business will have the opportunity to continuously review strategies and implementation measures. Additionally, it allows you to make timely adjustments when the data is not favorable.

Setting up OGSM is just the first step. Monitoring the plan and working within the OGSM framework is the key to success. Thus, OGSM always represents the organization’s biggest objective. All employees and departments will feel motivated to pursue the goal.

V. Detailed OGSM Plan Template for Strategic Planning

To give you a clearer picture of the steps for planning with the OGSM model, please refer to the template below:

VI. Applying 1Office Management Software – Automate Planning, Tracking, and Evaluating Performance Effectively

With 1Office – a widely developed and used work management software, you can easily set goals, link them to key results, and track completion levels in real-time. Goals are 1Office linked easily and flexibly:

• Link according to the business’s operational structure: Company > Department > Team > Individual
• Cross-link between goals within the company
• Cross-link between departmental goals from different cycles

When setting up links, 1Office also helps you automatically link key results:

• Automatically aggregate goals measured by standard indicators (KPIs)
• Visualize inherited changes
• Automatically link monthly goals to quarterly goals

From the information shared above, it is clear that the OGSM model brings alignment and transparency between plans and the metrics that define a company’s success. As a result, it helps teams and departments work with greater focus and better coordination to complete their tasks. For more detailed information, please contact:

• Hotline: 083 483 8888
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