This comparison comes up a lot, and it rests on a confusion worth clearing up: SMART and OGSM are not competing frameworks.
SMART is a test for a sentence. OGSM is a plan. You can, and probably should, use both.
They are not alternatives
SMART asks whether a goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. It is a good checklist and it has survived because it catches the most common failure in goal-setting: writing something nobody can tell whether you achieved.
But notice what it does not do. It says nothing about which goals matter most, what you decided not to pursue, how the goals relate to one another, or what anyone is actually going to do on Monday.
Which means an organization can have a hundred immaculately SMART goals and no strategy at all. In fact that is a recognisable failure mode: every department sets its own SMART objectives, all technically well-formed, all pulling in different directions, and nobody has made a choice.
OGSM is about the choice. SMART is about the phrasing.
Where SMART fits in an OGSM
Usefully, in two of the four blocks.
Goals: yes. An OGSM Goal should be specific, measurable and time-bound. “Revenue above €35 million” with the horizon attached passes SMART comfortably, and the achievable and relevant tests are worth applying explicitly. Relevant, in OGSM terms, means it makes a part of the Objective concrete: a Goal that traces to no part of the ambition does not belong.
KPIs: yes. Same reasoning. Thing measured, target value, unit, and a measurement frequency.
Strategies: no. A strategy is a choice expressed in words. Making it measurable turns it into a KPI, which it already has. The relevant test for a strategy is whether it excludes something.
The Objective: deliberately not. This is the important one.
SMART’s blind spot
The Objective in an OGSM is written in words, not numbers, and it fails SMART on purpose.
In three years we are the trendsetter in our industry by excelling in technology that serves both people and climate.
Not specific in SMART’s sense. Not measurable. And that is correct, because the Objective’s job is to be something people can repeat from memory and want to work on. A number cannot do that.
The measurement comes immediately below, in the Goals, which is precisely how OGSM resolves the tension. The ambition inspires; the Goals underneath make it unambiguous. You get both, in the right order.
Teams that apply SMART to everything end up with an Objective like “increase EBITDA by 14 percent by 2029.” Perfectly SMART. Nobody has ever been inspired by it, and it gives no direction about how, which is the half of the ambition that tells five teams they are heading the same way.
There is a second blind spot worth naming: achievable can quietly become unambitious. An objective should be ambitious and just achievable: you should have to work hard for it. Applied timidly, the A in SMART is a licence to set targets you already know you will hit.
Side by side
| OGSM | SMART | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A framework for a whole plan | A quality test for a single goal |
| Scope | Ambition, choices, measures and work | One sentence |
| Tells you what matters most | Yes. That is what strategies are | No |
| Tells you what not to do | Yes, explicitly | No |
| Shows how goals relate | Yes: strategies connect ambition to work | No |
| Tests whether a goal is well written | Partly, through the checklist | Yes. This is exactly what it is for |
| Use it for | Deciding and executing a strategy | Sharpening the sentences inside a plan |
A worked comparison
Take the same intent, written both ways.
As SMART goals:
- Increase revenue from recyclable products to €12 million by 31 December 2028
- Reduce production waste to below 3 percent by 31 December 2028
- Achieve customer satisfaction of 8.5 by 31 December 2028
Each one is well-formed. Together they tell you what the organization wants and nothing about how, why these three, or what anyone does tomorrow.
As an OGSM: the same three become the Goals, sitting under an Objective that says where the company is going and broadly how, above strategies that make the actual choices, each with its own KPIs and a set of actions with owners and deadlines.
The SMART goals are not wrong. They are one block of a four-block plan, and on their own they leave three blocks empty.
What to do
Use SMART inside OGSM, on the Goals and KPIs. It is a fast, useful test and it catches vagueness.
Do not apply it to the Objective. Let the ambition be words.
Do not use SMART as a planning method. If your organization’s planning consists of everyone writing SMART goals, you have a measurement exercise rather than a strategy, and the missing piece is the strategies: what you chose, and what you are no longer doing.