Translated from Português (Brazil) • View original For those who have doubts about the differences between these two methodologies, summarized in a simple and easy-to-understand way. By Robin Pagano Originally published on the intellinsights.com.br BSC or OKR Blog? Which strategic management system to adopt? Have you already made your choice? Be careful, is there a catch in the original question you ask? Which one? The option for "or". How so? Simple, why should we choose an "OR" another and not an "AND" another system? Both contemporary systems were thought and designed to allow the achievement of strategic results to be achieved in a cooperative way, with aligned actions, coordinated efforts, and learning about hypotheses that do not prove to be valid. However, although their intention is the same, there are significant differences in their foundations and operationalization. Without going into details about the operationalization system of each model, we can briefly describe the methods as follows. 
The BSC (acronym for Balanced Scorecard) is a method to be applied from the top to the bottom of the organization, which starts from a framework with performance perspectives, which carry cause and effect relationships with each other, which makes it possible to detail objectives, metrics and strategic initiatives, and so on, with systematic deployments to the tactical and operational levels. OKR (acronym for Objectives and Key Results) is a method designed to be applied from the bottom to the top, which guides the proposition of objectives and key results (goals and respective actions) for their achievement, in order to allow the strategic objectives to be achieved. The focal point of arrival, which gives rise to these developments, is the Vision of the Future (the great objective), without losing sight of the organizational purpose and mission. Both BSC/OKR systems, due to their logic of alignment with strategic objectives and unfolding of initiatives/actions with the details reaching/starting at/from the operational areas, allows learning about cause and effect hypotheses. Once the fundamentals (top-to-bottom or vice versa) and the general logic of each method are understood, we can move on to the question of opting for "OR" vs. "AND" one method and the other. I understand that both models can be applied to the same organization, in a coordinated way, with productivity and engagement gains. How? Due to its constructive framework, with its perspectives, with cause and effect relationships between and within perspectives, the BSC is a better method for defining objectives, goals and strategic initiatives, originating from a structured strategic planning. The BSC will be taken to the tactical level, and may go through the business units (if any) of the organization. When it reaches the level where the detailing of results (objectives, their metrics and respective goals) of functional areas where the processes are carried out, whether from the perspectives of the market, internal processes and learning and growth, OKR may be a better option for the following developments. Being a less structured method, it can give greater vent to people's creativity at the more operational level, thus allowing to obtain more significant, sometimes surprising, contributions, due to the wide degree of freedom to detail solutions to the problems to be solved (read, objectives to be accomplished). In this way, the BSC or OKR issue does not need to be put on the table. In fact, it is better to think and adopt a joint solution, with the BSC operationalizing the developments at the strategic level, in the business units, going up to the tactical level, and the OKR operationalizing the details at the more operational levels with clear alignment with the tactical objectives determined in the BSC.