The AI OGSM Plan Builder skill for Claude
You tell Claude which company or team you need a plan for and where you want to go, and you get back a complete OGSM: Objective, Goals, Strategies and Measures on a single page, with the KPIs and actions for each strategy, including an owner and a deadline. It works step by step, makes one proposal with reasoning at each step and then asks whether it is right. No vague missions, no buzzwords, and a mandatory block on what you deliberately are not going to do. If it does not fit on a single page, something gets cut.
the lines above come from the zip on this page · SKILL.md is 9,829 bytes
Direction in, A4 out
reg. G.001This is the example that sits in the SKILL.md itself, shown here in shortened form. The input is three sentences from a business owner. Watch what happens with the numbers: wherever the user has not supplied anything yet, the file literally says X, Y and Z. It does not quietly fill those spots in itself: for each Goal it proposes a number, lays out the assumption underneath and asks whether it is right.
What the AI OGSM Plan Builder is
The AI OGSM Plan Builder is a free skill from our own skill library. A skill is an instruction file, SKILL.md, that gives an AI assistant a fixed way of working for one task. What such a file actually is and why it works, we explain in what Claude skills are NL. This one contains 1,307 words of instruction that tell Claude how an OGSM plan should be put together: in which order the four layers are built up, what sets a good Objective apart from a vague intention, why a Strategy is a choice and not an activity, and which fixed format the end result gets. You download the zip at the top of this page, put it in your Claude environment, and from that moment Claude builds plans following this logic.
OGSM stands for Objective, Goals, Strategies and Measures, and the premise is radically simple: a good strategy fits on one page, otherwise it is not clear enough. The Objective is the qualitative main direction in one sentence. The Goals make that direction concrete in a maximum of five measurable sub-goals. The Strategies are the paths along which you reach those Goals, five at most, and they are choices: they also say what you do not do. The Measures prove for each Strategy whether it works, with KPIs and actions.
And everything connects: a Goal belongs to the Objective, a Strategy supports a Goal, a Measure proves a Strategy. That coherence is what gives the A4 its power, and it is exactly what the skill guards at every step.
The frontmatter of the file lists when Claude should pick up the skill: for direct requests such as make an OGSM, strategic plan on 1 A4, make an annual plan and business plan on 1 A4, but also for broader requests such as translate my vision into a plan. The target audience is in there too: business owners and SME managers who want to sharpen their annual plan, record a team strategy, or give employees direction through a single page. It is part of the skill library NL we make freely available from our AI and automation service, with no account and no sales email afterwards.
One thing you should know beforehand: the skill sharpens your plan, not your business. It forces choices, names assumptions and keeps everything on one page, but the numbers come from your own reality and the execution stays human work. The file puts it best in its own closing line: a good OGSM hangs on the wall, not in a drawer.
Why most annual plans run aground
Anyone who has ever written an annual plan recognises the pattern. The document starts ambitious, grows to forty slides, and disappears after the presentation into a folder nobody looks at again. Not because the ambition was missing, but because the plan tried to be three things at once: a vision piece, a budget and a to-do list. OGSM solves that by giving each of those roles its own layer, and by hard-capping the size: one A4, no more.
The first problem is vagueness disguised as direction. Growing as a business, being the best: it sounds like direction, but nobody can do anything with it, and the file explicitly rejects both wordings. It rejects such wordings as an Objective, and proposes one that does give direction instead, as in the example from the file: being the most requested roofer in North Brabant. That is qualitative, it rules things out, and everyone in the business understands what it means.
The second problem is the opposite: numbers in the wrong place. Increasing revenue to 2 million is not an Objective but a Goal, and the skill moves it there accordingly. The Goals layer is the place where everything gets a number, a deadline and an assumption. Not more clients but a count, not better reviews but a score, not someday but a quarter.
The third problem is that strategies are secretly activities. Creating an Instagram account is not a strategy, it is an action that belongs under the Measures. Working hard is not a strategy either, because it is not a choice: nobody deliberately chooses the opposite. A real Strategy rules something out. Specialising in tiled roofs for listed buildings means saying no to other work, and it is exactly that no that makes it a choice.
In diff form, with lines from the examples in the file: what goes out and what comes back in its place.
The difference is always the same: the line on the left has no owner, no number and no deadline, so nobody is working on it on Monday. The line on the right does. And that is the question the skill's sanity check ends on: does everyone know what to do on Monday? If not, the actions are still too abstract.
Four layers, one page
reg. G.002Every OGSM the skill produces has the same fixed format, and that format is part of the file itself. The structure, filled with lines from the roofing example the SKILL.md uses for the Goals and Measures. The mono lines tell you what each layer guards. Note the bottom row: the block on what you deliberately do not do is just as mandatory as the rest.
What the SKILL.md actually says
A skill is only as good as its instructions, so we simply describe them here. After the frontmatter with the triggers and the target audience, the file opens with a role description in three sentences: you are an experienced strategist who builds OGSM plans, you make complex direction concrete and executable on one A4, no vague missions or buzzwords but sharp goals, hard numbers and clear actions. Then comes the theory in brief, and then the core: a working method of seven fixed steps. Version 1.0.0, MIT licence.
The most important rule sits above the steps and sets the whole tone of the conversation: work out the OGSM step by step, only propose a next step once the previous one is sharp, and no eight ideas at once but one proposal with reasoning, then ask. So you do not get a waterfall of options you have to pick from yourself. For the Objective the skill proposes one, explains why that wording, and asks whether it is right. For the Goals it backs up every proposal with the assumption underneath, and explicitly asks whether you want to adjust anything. That way it stays your plan, with the skill as referee.
The steps themselves: first the context, with four questions about the company or team, the period, the current situation and any existing vision or mission. If you do not have time for an extensive intake, the file literally says the skill works with what is there and makes assumptions explicit.
Then the Objective, with good and bad examples in the file itself. Then three to five Goals, each specific, measurable, time-bound, relevant and challenging but realistic. Then the Strategies, with the requirement that every Strategy is explicitly linked to the Goals it supports, and the rule that a Strategy is also about what you do not do. Then the Measures: for each Strategy one to three KPIs and three to five actions with an owner and a deadline.
Step six is the sanity check, and it is stricter than you would expect from a fill-in helper. Five check questions: does it fit on one A4, and if not, cut it, three strong Strategies rather than five weak ones. Does everything connect: does every Goal touch the Objective, does every Strategy touch at least one Goal, does every Measure prove a Strategy. Is there focus, because an OGSM that wants everything achieves nothing, and what have you explicitly cut? Are the numbers ambitious but achievable?
And the last one, the best of the five: does everyone know what to do on Monday? If not, the actions are still too abstract. Only after that comes step seven, the fixed delivery format you saw in FIG.02, including the block on what you deliberately do not do.
The file closes with a list of five things that may never appear in it, worked out below in Section 04, a source list of three titles, and a closing note on rhythm: plan a review every quarter, because the Objective rarely changes, Strategies sometimes and Measures often. More on that below.
What passes inspection, and what does not
reg. G.003The sharpest part of the SKILL.md is the examples of good and bad. They are not there for decoration: the skill measures your wording against exactly this bar. The lines from the file, put through the inspection. Every line in quotation marks sits literally in the skill, and so does the verdict behind it.
Where OGSM comes from
OGSM is not a consultancy invention from last year. The framework was used in the 1980s by Honda and Procter & Gamble, two organisations that had the same problem: global ambitions that had to be translated into concrete, checkable plans per country and per factory. The answer was a format that forced direction and measurement onto one page, so every layer of the business could read the same document. The method was later adopted more widely through advertising network TBWA Worldwide, and that is how it appears in the file's source list too.
In the Netherlands, OGSM was made popular by Marc van Eck and Ellen van Zanten. Their book Business Plan op 1 A4 was published in 2008 by Pearson Education Benelux and received a revised edition in 2020; OGSM, het plan op 1 A4 followed in 2014. Their contribution is mainly the translation to SMEs: you do not need a strategy department to make an OGSM, you need an afternoon and the willingness to choose. The SKILL.md names both titles as a source, and the skill follows their view that the A4 is not a summary of a thicker plan, but the plan itself.
The file ends with a rhythm recommendation that comes straight from that school of thought: an OGSM is not finished after the first session. Plan a review every quarter and adjust as the world changes. The three layers each have their own pace here: the Objective rarely changes, Strategies sometimes, Measures often. Anyone who leaves their plan hanging unchanged on the wall for a year does not have a stable plan but an outdated one.
Even without installing the skill, you can use these principles to improve your own annual plan: put your direction in one sentence without numbers, give every goal a number and a deadline, turn every strategy into a choice that rules something out, and write down what you deliberately do not do. Want to go deeper into the wording per goal, there is the SMART Goals Coach skill: the requirements OGSM sets for a Goal, specific, measurable, time-bound, come from the same tradition.
What the skill refuses
reg. G.004The SKILL.md closes with a list of five things that may never appear in it, and that list matters at least as much as the steps. An OGSM full of management speak and goals without numbers is not a plan but a mood. Every line is a request you might make, with the response the skill gives according to its own instructions.
Installing in Claude Code, Claude.ai or Codex
The zip contains one folder, ai-ogsm-plan-builder, with the SKILL.md inside it. Installing is a matter of putting the file in the right place, and that place differs per environment. SKILL.md has been an open standard since December 2025, so the same skill also works in Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI. So you are not downloading a Claude file but a working instruction any modern AI assistant can read. The full guide per environment is in installing Claude skills NL.
- Unzip it into
~/.claude/skills/(or.claude/skills/in your project). - Claude then picks the skill up by itself as soon as you start talking about an annual plan or OGSM.
- You can also call it directly, with
/ai-ogsm-plan-bouwer.
- Go to Customize and then Skills.
- Upload the zip there as a skill.
- Or paste the contents of SKILL.md into the project instructions of a Project.
- Open
AGENTS.mdin your repo. - Paste the contents of SKILL.md into it, or put SKILL.md next to it as a separate file and point to it from
AGENTS.md. - Codex reads that along at every session.
After that, using it is simple: give a few lines of context about your company or team and ask for an OGSM. It asks the questions it needs by itself, and then works step by step towards the A4, with one proposal and the question of whether it is right at each step. Want to learn to write such an instruction file yourself, read writing a SKILL.md NL. And if you are new to this kind of file, the knowledge base has the broader explanation of working with AI.
When to use it and when not
It is at its strongest the moment there is ambition but no structure: you roughly know where you want to go, but it is in your head, in loose notes or in a presentation nobody opens any more. For an annual plan for a business, a team or a project, the format fits precisely, and a quarterly plan works too, because the period is one of the first questions. The target audience in the file is honestly broad: business owners and SME managers who want to give direction without a strategy department. You do not need a finished vision document, but you do need the willingness to choose, because every step steers towards that.
There are also situations where you are better off leaving it be. If you are looking for a story for investors with market analyses and financial projections, one A4 is not the format and this skill is not the tool. If you mainly want to formulate a vision or mission, the skill only touches that at the edge: it asks about it in step one and helps sharpen the Objective, but a deep vision process is different work. And do not expect market figures: the skill backs up its proposals with assumptions from your own context and makes those explicit, but it does not research your industry and does not invent benchmarks.
The most honest limit sits in the closing line of the file itself: an OGSM is not finished after the first session. Without a quarterly review the plan ages, and without rhythm on the Measures the A4 is just a nicely designed wish. Building your plan and sharpening it again at every review, it can do that, but hanging it up, discussing it and steering it stays yours. No file helps with that. A good OGSM hangs on the wall, not in a drawer, and nobody hangs it on the wall for you.
Run it yourself or have it run
reg. G.005This skill is the free do-it-yourself version of work we also deliver as a service. It stays complete and with no catches, but be aware of what a skill is: it teaches your AI how to do something, while every new session starts empty. It is not the engine and not the memory. You prompt, you supply the figures for the review again every quarter, you check. Anyone who wants it differently has two follow-up steps: hand over the engine, or sort out the memory.
where you are now The skill: you are the engine You run the AI OGSM Plan Builder yourself in Claude, Codex or Cursor. Costs nothing, works today, and you keep it fully in your own hands: no trial period, no locked-off parts. The limit is your own time: the plan only gets revised when you prompt, and you supply the KPI status of the Measures yourself at every review.
have it prepared The AI employee: the report is ready without you prompting An OGSM lives on its Measures, and keeping those Measures up to date is rhythm work. The Reporting employee prepares weekly and monthly reports without you having to sit behind Claude for it, so the KPI status is ready when the review starts. Control stays with you, because output stays a draft until a person gives approval. We deliver this through Mansotti, the company TheSEO trades under, which builds an Offer employee and a Sales employee alongside the Reporting employee. Read what an AI employee is and does.
everything from one source Jarvis: all your AIs work from the same company knowledge The skill teaches the AI, the brain is where the memory lives. Want all your AIs to work from the same company knowledge: that is Jarvis, the organisation brain. It connects ChatGPT, Claude, Codex and your people to the same projects, core knowledge and decisions, so your next AI session does not start over. For this skill that means: you do not have to supply your Objective, your Goals and the block on what you deliberately do not do again at every quarterly review. What that delivers in practice, from the plans to your first week, you can read at Jarvis itself.
What Jarvis actually delivers
reg. G.006An OGSM is by definition a document with a rhythm: a review every quarter, Measures that change often, an Objective that should stay still. That is exactly where separate AI sessions start to strain, because every chat starts empty and does not know your plan. Jarvis is the organisation brain that solves that: it remembers what your AIs need to know, divides the work and keeps track of what happened. You notice it first at the start of a quarterly review.
We have been running on this system ourselves for months. Every agent session, every task and every decision is logged in it and can be read back. A new session therefore does not start blank: it first fetches the recorded decisions, the running projects and the latest changes, and carries on where the previous one stopped. So we are not describing a promise but the way we work every day ourselves.
See all four plans at jarvis/prijzen NL. Through the waiting list NL you only pass on your preferred plan, without obligation. That does not yet create an account, an order or a payment obligation. We discuss business bespoke work first.
The skills around it
reg. G.007An OGSM rarely stands alone: there are other frameworks for the same translation step, there is a format per goal, and there is the execution that follows the plan. These skills from the same library of 100 each take on a different piece of that work.
Same question, different framework
choosing goalsTranslating strategy into goals can be done in more ways than the A4. These two are the best-known alternatives.
OKR CoachAmbitious quarterly goals with key results: the shorter rhythm alongside the yearly frame of OGSM.SKILL Balanced Scorecard CoachThe same translation step across four perspectives, with a Strategy Map that draws the causal chain.SKILLFrom goal to execution
the building blocksEvery Goal needs a sharp formulation, and the requests that come out of your Strategies have to go somewhere.
SMART Goals CoachThe wording requirements of a Goal as a separate skill, for goals inside and outside the A4.SKILL Offer WriterFor the execution: turns the requests your Strategies produce into proposals that get signed.SKILLFirst understand how skills work
the foundationNew to skills? These three articles lay the foundation, from concept to writing your own.
What Claude skills areWhat a SKILL.md is, why it works and what you can do with it.DOC NL Installing Claude skillsThe full installation guide for every environment.DOC NL Writing a SKILL.mdBuild a skill yourself following the open standard.DOC NLLooking further
the contextWhere this skill comes from and what else there is.
The whole skill libraryAll 100 free skills in one place, sorted by topic.HUB NL AI and automationThe service behind it: from separate skills to working automation in your business.SRV AI trainingIf your team wants to learn to set this kind of work up themselves.SRV NLFrequently asked questions
What does the AI OGSM Plan Builder skill cost?
Nothing. The skill is free, falls under the MIT licence and you do not have to create an account or leave an email address. You download a 4.0 KB zip containing one folder and a single file, SKILL.md, and that is the complete skill. There is no paid version and no sales email follows.
Does this skill also work in Codex, Cursor or Gemini CLI?
Yes. SKILL.md has been an open standard since December 2025, so the same file also works in Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other tools that follow the standard. In Codex you unzip it into .agents/skills/ in your project, or into ~/.agents/skills/ for all your projects; Codex has supported SKILL.md directly since the open standard of December 2025. Pasting the contents of SKILL.md into your AGENTS.md still works too. The instructions are readable text, so any AI assistant that accepts instruction files can work with it.
What is the difference between OGSM and OKR?
OGSM is a complete strategic plan on a single A4, usually for a year: direction, goals, strategic choices and measurement in one coherent document. OKR is a quarterly goal rhythm: ambitious objectives with measurable key results, without the strategy layer in between. They do not clash. Many teams use OGSM for the annual plan and OKR to give it execution each quarter.
How many Goals and Strategies does my OGSM get?
Five of each at most, and the file steers towards fewer: three strong Strategies rather than five weak ones. The sanity check at the end is strict about it. If the plan does not fit on one A4, something gets cut, because an OGSM that wants everything achieves nothing. For each Strategy you get one to three KPIs and three to five actions, each with an owner and a deadline.
Does the skill invent the numbers for my Goals?
No, it proposes and you decide. The skill works step by step and makes one proposal with reasoning at each step, not eight ideas at once. For each Goal it explicitly names the assumption underneath and asks whether you want to adjust anything. If you do not have time for an extensive intake, it works with what is there and makes every assumption visible, so you can correct them.
Do I already need to have a vision or mission?
No. The skill does ask about it in the first step, because if a vision already exists the Objective should connect to it. If there is nothing, you formulate the Objective together in step two: the skill proposes one sentence, explains why that wording was chosen and asks whether it is right. The Objective stays yours that way, the skill mainly makes sure it gives direction without numbers.
Is my OGSM finished after one session?
The plan is there by then, but the file itself says no: plan a review every quarter and adjust as the world changes. The Objective rarely changes, Strategies sometimes, Measures often. The last line of the skill sums it up: a good OGSM hangs on the wall, not in a drawer. Without that rhythm, even the finest A4 is just a document.
First found, then measured
In the example on this page, local online visibility is not by accident Strategy number one: for most SME businesses growth starts with being found by the people you are looking for. If that strategy is also in your OGSM, you want a baseline measurement for the Measures that go with it. The free SEO scan shows in a few seconds where your site stands, and that is immediately the starting value for your first KPI. And if you want to keep talking about what AI can do for your business beyond this, from separate skills to full automation, we simply do that in a conversation.
