The Challenge of Connecting Metrics Across All Levels
Companies measure a lot but learn little. In the context of strategic planning, this is a common trap. According to the MIT Sloan (2025), 70% of organizations report an excess of indicators without clarity of priority. Meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review (2024) warns that poorly defined metrics can compromise strategy execution and decision-making.
This scenario has direct impacts on organizational performance: teams overloaded with non-actionable reports, managers without clarity on which metrics really matter, and strategies that get lost amid disconnected numbers. The result is the dispersion of efforts, loss of focus, and often a false sense of control. Instead of accelerating the execution of strategic planning, the multiplicity of indicators ends up creating noise, decision-making delays, and fragility in adapting to dynamic contexts.
Download the infographic and discover how to align KPIs, OKRs and BSC in a practical way.
Differences Between KPIs, OKRs and Balanced Scorecard in Strategic Planning
In the context of strategic planning, it is essential to understand the differences between KPIs, OKRs and the Balanced Scorecard, since each approach contributes in a distinct way to results management. KPIs act as performance indicators, measuring both retrospective and predictive aspects, which makes it possible to track past achievements and anticipate future trends. OKRs, in turn, focus on translating strategic objectives into verifiable key results, usually defined in quarterly cycles, creating greater clarity and execution discipline. The Balanced Scorecard, on the other hand, is established as a comprehensive framework that organizes metrics into strategic perspectives (such as financial, customer, internal processes and learning), offering an integrated view of organizational performance and facilitating alignment across different levels of management.
- KPIs: measure performance.
- OKRs: translate objectives into verifiable quarterly results.
- Balanced Scorecard: organizes metrics into strategic perspectives.
How to Connect Metrics Across the Three Levels
Connecting metrics across the three levels requires creating cause-and-effect links that tie day-to-day operations to long-term strategic goals. The first step is to translate the strategy into clear priorities, usually synthesized in the Balanced Scorecard, which serves as a compass. Next, these priorities should be broken down into tactical OKRs, guiding each area or team on how to contribute to the strategic outcome. Finally, operational KPIs should be defined in a way that feeds the key results (KRs), ensuring that the monitoring of daily and weekly activities is always linked to tactical goals.
The central point lies in the consistency of the cascade. An operational productivity KPI, for example, should connect to an efficiency KR at the tactical level, which in turn reinforces a strategic objective of margin growth. Without this chain, each level risks getting lost in its own metrics without generating real business impact. Connecting, therefore, means aligning what is measured with what is intended to be achieved, creating a continuous flow of information that provides visibility and coherence to strategic planning.
- KPIs synthesized in the BSC.
- OKRs derived from strategic priorities.
- Daily and weekly KPIs that feed into the KRs.
Download the infographic and discover how to align KPIs, OKRs and BSC in a practical way.
Practical Examples of Aligned Metrics
To visualize how this connection works in practice, consider the industrial sector. At the strategic level, the goal may be to reduce CO₂ emissions. This priority unfolds at the tactical level into an OKR of increasing energy efficiency by 10%. At the operational level, the metric that supports this result is the daily monitoring of energy consumption, ensuring that progress can be tracked and corrected quickly.
Industry:
- Strategic = CO₂ reduction.
- Tactical = OKR of 10% efficiency.
- Operational = Daily energy consumption.
In the financial services sector, the strategic focus may be on increasing the digital customer base. To bring this priority to life, a tactical OKR emerges aimed at achieving 20% growth in app usage. The support comes from operational metrics such as the average response time to bugs, which directly impacts user experience and, therefore, adoption of the digital solution.
Financial Services:
- Strategic = Increase digital customers.
- Tactical = OKR of +20% app usage.
- Operational = Bug response time.
In the retail sector, the strategic goal may be to increase customer loyalty. This translates, at the tactical level, into an OKR of increasing the repurchase rate by 15%. To achieve this result, operational monitoring includes indicators such as the daily stock-out level and on-time service rate, which directly affect customer satisfaction and the decision to repurchase.
Retail
- Strategic = Increase customer loyalty.
- Tactical = OKR of 15% increase in repurchase rate.
- Operational = Daily monitoring of stock-out level and on-time service rate.
Strategic Planning with Fewer Indicators and More Learning
Connecting the Balanced Scorecard, OKRs and KPIs within strategic planning makes it possible to create an integrated system that ensures coherence and avoids the so-called ‘metric inflation.’ More than measuring everything, the discipline lies in choosing a few good indicators, capable of aligning efforts at all levels of the organization and generating continuous learning. When each metric is linked to a clear objective, strategic planning ceases to be a bureaucratic exercise and becomes a living process that guides decisions and sustains consistent results over time.
Next steps
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