The Strategic Road Trip: Strategy, MBO, OKRs, and Monitoring KPIs

Dr. Abdulrahman Aljamouss

MBOs, KPIs, and OKRs are key components in how a company achieves its goals and they each represent a different way to achieve those company goals. MBO stands for Management By Objectives; KPIs stand for Key Performance Indicators; OKRs stand for Objectives and Key Results.

•  Strategy is the process of deciding your destination. It helps you decide where you want to go.
• Management By Objectives, or MBO, is a goal-driven system with a heavy focus on results. Goal success is defined as 100% completion at the end of the objectives assigned lifetime.
• Objectives and key results (OKRs) require you to identify both your target and the metrics that will help you stay on track. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are focused only on tracking your progress — think of them like the signals that you're heading the right way.
• OKR is your GPS, the navigational system of your car: It will help you track if you are on the right path, and course-correct if needed. And just like a GPS, OKR does not help you decide the destination, and it will not help you formulate your strategy.
• Monitoring KPIs are the dials on the dashboard of your car — they tell you if everything else is OK.

 Imagine you want to go on a road trip. The first thing you need to decide is where you want to go, so you use a travel guide and choose to travel from San Francisco down the Pacific Coast Highway.

 After you have decided where you want to go, you get into your car and input the destination on your GPS, which will help you track if you are on the right path and course correct if necessary.

 Finally, as you drive to your chosen destination, your car also has a dashboard that tracks lots of other metrics and will tell you, for example, the amount of fuel that you have. As long as the dials on the dashboard are within certain thresholds, you don’t care about them — what matters, after all, is getting where you want to be. But if your dashboard shows that you are running out of fuel, then you have to adjust your course and find a gas station.