Unleashing Excellence with SGR?: Bridging the Gap Between OKRs and Balanced Scorecard for Smarter Management

With the advancement of technology, we have seen many inventions aimed at enhancing and tracking management efficiency, such as OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and Balanced Scorecard, which stood out as game-changing innovations. While these frameworks have shaped strategic thinking for decades, their relevance is now being questioned considering the growing complexities of human behaviour and organisational dynamics. There is a chunk of people still grappling with these systems, finding them useful but far from perfect, others are searching for more intuitive and hassle-free alternatives that better align with today’s fast-paced, ever-changing landscape.

Introduction of OKR

In the 1950s, the founder of Modern Management, Peter Drucker, felt the need to view the management as a separate structure in a business system. With the vision to help managers devote more time to the company’s long-term strategy, he introduced the concept of Management by Objectives (MBO) in his book The Practice of Management. The primary idea behind it was to define the objectives of both employees and managers to increase the organisation’s performance. However, as Drucker himself agreed later, the idea wasn’t impeccable.? For instance, if a company had to set a specific goal such as a production target, it pushed workers to achieve those targets by fair means or foul, and as a result, quality was hindered.

By the 1970s, Intel’s CEO, Andy Grove, drew inspiration from the concept of MBO. He borrowed the idea of ‘Objectives’ and modified it with ‘Key Results’, a method to measure the progress towards those objectives. This idea of key results restrained employees from resorting to shortcuts to attain the objectives and provided clear metrics to ensure they were working in the right direction. This is how the modern Objectives and Key Results (OKR) was introduced.

Introduction of Balanced Scorecard

Back in the early 1990s, Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton introduced it first in the HBR article The Balanced Scorecard—Measures That Drive Performance. The paper advocated measuring the performance of a business extending across human and financial domains. A few years later, Kaplan and Norton published their book The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, where they further elaborated their ideas. Initially, they designed their concept for for-profit companies, but currently, it is also adopted across non-profit and governmental organisations.

Understanding the Gaps: Are these frameworks still applicable in the era of modern technologies?

After using these frameworks, it has been argued that they are not flawless hence there has been a discussion about the potential drawbacks:

• Complexity: Setting up tailored objectives and indicators for OKR or BSC can be challenging, especially for small businesses with limited resources. Tracking the metrics can also be complex and time-consuming.
• Restricts Monitoring – frame: OKRs are used for setting short-term objectives, while BSC is focused on the organisation’s long-term vision and strategy. Using any one of them will limit your goal tracking.
• Limits Productivity: Setting numerous OKR or BSC objectives may be attractive, but having too many goals can be overwhelming and affect productivity.
• Complications within the Ecosystem: Setting up with OKR & BSC for goal tracking could be incomprehensible for the new team members, taking a while to get accustomed to the new system.

SGR (Strategic, Goals & Review) Beyond OKRs and Balanced Scorecard: The Future of Performance Alignment

Prajjo has developed a patented solution called SGR? (Strategic, Goals & Review), which is a performance management software designed to help organisations focus on their overall objectives. This robust system incorporates OKR and Balanced Scorecard functionalities to merge leadership style, transparent goal setting, and agile planning cycles, enabling teams to concentrate on and achieve their set goals.

• Create appraisal cycles
• Align employee goals with company goals
• Make business strategy known to your people
• Segregate unproductive activities from productive activities
• Define reporting periods, set up schedules, and send reminders to involved parties
• Administer performance rating tags and easily understand your employees' performance caste for talent planning purposes

Understanding Growth, Profit, Effectiveness and Efficiency as the core of any sustainable business, SGR stands ready to revolutionise how organisations manage performance. Its unparalleled features, ease of use, and future-proof design make it not just a tool but a strategic advantage in navigating today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

?If you’re ready to elevate your business and outpace the competition, now is the time to embrace SGR. Unlock the future of performance management today – let’s start a conversation.