Peter Drucker first popularized management by objectives in his 1954 book The Practice of Management.
Management by objectives, usually abbreviated MBO, aligns an organization’s goals with specific objectives assigned to teams or individuals. Managers and employees discuss expected results, establish measurable targets, and later review performance against those targets. Drucker presented the approach as a way to focus management on results rather than activity alone.
Drucker did not invent every underlying idea from scratch. Earlier management thinkers, including Mary Parker Follett, had discussed participation and coordination, and Drucker synthesized related practices into a broader management system. George S. Odiorne later developed MBO further and helped popularize its formal use in the 1960s.
A frequent mistake is choosing Alfred Sloan, whose work at General Motors influenced modern organizational management, or later writers such as Tom Peters. Drucker is the canonical answer because he introduced and popularized the term in The Practice of Management. MBO also influenced later goal-setting and performance-management systems, although modern organizations often use different names and more continuous review cycles.