KPIs monitor. OKRs move.
The most-asked question, answered directly. KPIs monitor; OKRs move.
A KPI is a permanent instrument: it watches the health of Business-as-Usual, has a threshold, lives on the KPI Scorecard, and is reviewed to catch drift. An OKR is a time-bound bet: it targets a step change, has a from-X-to-Y Key Result, lives in the quarterly cycle, and is worked by Initiatives, Process Commitments and Experiments.
The tells when they're being confused: a "Key Result" that restates a dashboard number at its current level (that's a KPI wearing a costume, see Task-Based Key Results for the other costume), or a scorecard metric with no threshold that nobody would act on (that's an orphaned ambition).
The membrane between them is the promotion/demotion cycle (KPI Scorecard): a KPI promotes to an Operational Excellence OKR when broken beyond firefighting or deliberately pushed to a new level, and demotes back with a new threshold when the step change lands. You need both, and you need to know which is which, see BAU Has Its Own Approach.
From the ZOKRI OKR Handbook, the methodology we install and maintain.
Reading about method is not the same as running it. We install this system and build the capability that stays.
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