OGSM Planner

What this tool does

CM8-363 holds a one-page strategy in the OGSM shape — objectives, goals, strategies and measures — and checks that the shape holds together. It tracks every measure against its target, judges progress against how far through the period you are, and flags the things that quietly break a plan: an orphaned strategy, a goal with no number, a strategy nobody is measuring, an owner carrying half the plan on their own.

Everything runs inside this single file — no account, no upload, no network request of any kind.

What OGSM is

Four levels, each answering one question:

• Objective — where are we going? Words, deliberately. One or two, not five.
• Goal — what does that mean as a number, by when? Every objective needs at least one, and a goal is always measurable.
• Strategy — how will we get there? The choices: what we will do and, by implication, what we will not.
• Measure — how will we know it is working before the goal moves? Leading indicators, checked monthly.

The discipline is the value. Anybody can write objectives; the work is being forced to say what each one means numerically, how you intend to achieve it, and what you will watch in the meantime.

What one row is

One row is one item at one level. A plan with two objectives, four goals, eight strategies and sixteen measures is thirty rows, and that is a normal size for a business plan a whole company can hold in its head.

References and parents

Every item has a reference you choose and, except objectives, a parent reference. A numbering that mirrors the hierarchy makes the plan readable at a glance:

The tool follows the parent references rather than the numbering, so the numbers are for humans. It checks that every parent exists, that nothing points at itself, and that nothing sits under an item at its own level or below — a measure parented to another measure is a common and confusing mistake.

Anything the hierarchy walk cannot reach is printed at the foot of the one-page table marked !! rather than silently dropped, because an item that has fallen out of the plan is exactly what you need to see.

The line between an objective and a goal

The single most useful rule in OGSM: an objective is words, a goal is a number.

"Become the obvious choice for aerospace subcontract machining" is an objective. "Aerospace revenue reaches 2.4 million" is a goal. The tool refuses to save a goal without a target, and the structural check flags any that slipped through, because a plan full of unmeasurable goals is a plan that can never be wrong — and one that can never be wrong is one nobody has to act on.

How progress is calculated

Measured from the baseline, not from zero. This matters more than it looks: moving revenue from 900 to 1,480 against a target of 2,400 is 39% of the journey, not 62% of the target. Judging against the target alone flatters every measure that started somewhere other than zero, which is most of them.

Record the baseline when you set the plan and do not adjust it afterwards. A baseline that moves is the most common way a plan reports progress it has not made.

Against plan, not against target

Set the period start and end in Settings and every measure is judged against where it should be today, not against where it should be at the end. Thirty percent complete is excellent in month two and alarming in month eleven, and a plan that only compares against the final target discovers this in the last quarter, every time.

The straight-line assumption is a simplification and the tool says so: a measure that only moves when an audit passes or a contract signs will read badly right up to the moment it reads 100%. Use the status field to say so, and read the notes rather than the colour on those rows.

Measures where lower is better

Changeover time, defect rate, days to pay. The arithmetic needs no special case: put the higher figure in the baseline and the lower one in the target, and the progress formula works unchanged. Going from 95 minutes towards 45, currently at 78, is 34% of the way. The direction field is recorded for the reader's benefit rather than the calculation's.

The structural check

Eleven checks, all of them mechanical, and all of them things that make a plan fail quietly rather than loudly:

• Strategies with no measure — the most common fault by a distance. A strategy nobody measures is an intention, and it will be reported as "ongoing" for a year.
• Goals with no strategy — a number nobody has a plan for. Usually a target handed down rather than agreed.
• Goals with too many strategies — nine strategies for one goal means no choice has been made about where effort goes.
• Items with no owner — everything below objective level needs a person, not a department.
• Current figures with no date — a number with no date stops being trusted within a month, and rightly.

A plan passing all eleven is not a good plan. It is a plan whose structure no longer obscures whether it is a good plan, which is the most a tool can honestly do.

How big a plan should be

The point of a one-page strategy is that people can hold it in their heads. Practical limits that survive contact with reality: one or two objectives; two to four goals each; no more than four strategies per goal; one to three measures per strategy.

A plan with six objectives is a list of everything the business does, which is not a strategy — a strategy is what you have chosen to do instead of other things. The owners chart is the fastest check on this: if one person owns nine items, the plan has more ambition than capacity.

Using it in a review

Filter to measures, sort by against-plan, and start at the worst. Twenty minutes on the three measures that are behind is worth more than an hour walking through everything that is fine.

Update current figures with their dates before the meeting, not during it. The one-page table with a title block is the pack; it prints on a page and does not need a separate slide deck.

What it cannot tell you

• Whether the strategy is right. A perfectly structured plan can be perfectly wrong.
• Whether the measures are the right measures. The easiest ones to collect are rarely the ones that predict the goal.
• Whether the goals are achievable, or whether they were set by someone who would have to achieve them.
• Whether the strategies conflict with each other, which is what actually stops most plans.
• Anything about capacity. It counts what people own; it has no idea what else is in their week.

Printing and sharing

The Report tab prints the tiles, charts and both tables with a title block you fill in. The one-page table is indented to show the hierarchy and is meant to be printed and put on a wall.

Saving your work

The plan is held in this browser, on this computer, and stays there between visits. Use the backup button to write a JSON file you control; the spreadsheet download gives you the same rows.

Accuracy & disclaimer

Every figure here is yours. The tool checks structure and calculates progress; it has no view about the content of the plan and no way of knowing whether a number you typed is true.