MBO, which stands for ‘Management By Objectives,’ was formed by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book ‘The Practice of Management.’ MBO helps organizations improve their performance. It is one of the most popular management tools in the market, alongside OKR. The difference between MBO and OKR is that MBO is about helping you set out what you want to achieve, while OKR goes deeper than that. OKR helps you answer the what and how questions relating to your goals and objectives. Another difference is that MBO is reviewed in the long term, usually annually, while OKR is reviewed in shorter periods, usually quarterly. MBO is a private and confidential discussion within the organization, while OKR is public and transparent. Only a few members in the organization contribute to the discussion around MBO. For OKR, the whole team can have a say towards it. MBO adopts a top-down approach to goal-setting, while OKR uses a bottom-up and sideways approach. MBO has compensations attached to it for performances, while OKR does not use that approach.  Another difference between MBO and OKR is that the former is risk-aversive and terms to set safe objectives that the company can easily achieve. OKR, on the other hand, takes a more aggressive and aspirational approach.