OSKAR Model

What the OSKAR model is

OSKAR is a solution-focused coaching conversation framework developed by Mark McKergow and Paul Z. Jackson, introduced in The Solutions Focus (2002) out of their work applying solution-focused brief therapy principles to organizational coaching. The acronym structures a session in five moves: Outcome (what does the client want from this conversation and beyond, the "future perfect"), Scaling (on a 0–10 scale, where are things now against that outcome?), Know-how (what's already working, meaning the skills, resources, and past successes that got the client to their current number rather than zero), Affirm & Action (reflecting genuine strengths observed, then agreeing small next steps), and Review (what's better since last time, opening subsequent sessions with progress rather than problems).

The design philosophy separates OSKAR from diagnostic models: it is deliberately, almost stubbornly, uninterested in analyzing the problem. Where GROW examines current Reality and CLEAR explores underlying dynamics, OSKAR walks past the problem to interrogate the solution that's already partially present. The scaling question is the engine, not because the number matters but because of what it unlocks: "Why a 4 and not a 3?" surfaces existing resources; "What would a 5 look like?" defines the next visible step without requiring the summit to be mapped.

Where coaches use it

OSKAR earns its place in three situations. With stuck or problem-saturated clients (people who have analyzed their situation to exhaustion), its refusal to re-litigate the problem is itself the intervention; the conversation's energy changes within minutes. In momentum and accountability work, the scaling-plus-small-actions loop is a natural fit for clients who know what they want and aren't executing: each session opens with "what's better," creating a progress narrative instead of a compliance report. And in time-boxed or workplace coaching, such as manager-as-coach conversations and brief check-ins, its lightweight structure delivers a complete, useful arc in fifteen minutes, which few frameworks manage honestly.

Its limits are the mirror of its strengths: where the real work is identity, meaning, or a pattern the client can't yet see, relentless solution-focus can skate over what needs to be sat with. Experienced coaches treat OSKAR as one gear, not the gearbox.

The evidence, plainly

OSKAR itself is a practice framework, adopted across two decades of organizational coaching but not validated by controlled outcome trials as a distinct model, which is the standard epistemic status for session structures. It does, however, sit on an unusually solid foundation: the solution-focused approach it operationalizes originates in de Shazer and Berg's solution-focused brief therapy, which carries a meaningful evidence base, and solution-focused coaching more broadly is among the better-researched coaching methodologies. The fair claim: the underlying approach has real empirical support; the specific five-letter sequence is craft, valued because it reliably turns that approach into a conversation anyone can run.