Should KPIs be replaced by OKRs?

In short: No, OKRs do not replace KPIs. They serve different purposes and cannot simply replace each other. However, OKRs actually replace the various methods of managing your KPIs. Key performance indicators and their trends show how well your company or parts of your company are doing. Objectives & Key Results, on the other hand, can be seen as the process by which the value of a Key Performance Indicator changes from value A to value B. This definition makes it clear that OKRs function on the basis of KPIs and do not replace them in any way. You can find out more about this difference in this article.

There are many methods of managing KPIs. Some well-known examples are

• WIG: Wildly Important Goals of the Franklin Covey Institute.

• V2MOM: Vision on value, methods, obstacles and measures by Marc Benioff

There really are many approaches here, some of which have been around for many years. While each has its own strengths, Objectives & Key Results have proven to be extremely powerful and successful in various organizations such as Intel and Google. Basically, OKRs do not replace KPIs but management methods such as WIG and V2MOM.