The “first time ever” to try setting OKR of many brave Sunners

As you all know, from the second quarter of 2020, Sun* Vietnam officially deployed OKRs - a key management tool and key results across the company to focus on developing the motivating workplace for each member.

Before that, many Units at Sun* such as R&D Unit, HRV Unit, Vietnam Education Unit, ... have applied it and gained valuable experiences during the deployment of this new method. Let's see how their story end up!

Ngô Thị Ngọc Ánh - HRV Unit

"At the beginning, I encountered a lot of difficulties, especially how to put Key Results appropriately. I believe this is a common problem for everyone when implementing this tool. You just need to stay calm, research and learn, it will run smoother.

Thanks to OKR, I can focus on important goals without any distraction. In addition, I also feel more responsible for my own task and for the team's task. Especially, looking at OKR you can see what values you have created for yourself and for the team. "

Nguyễn Mỹ Hạnh - HRV Unit

"After a period of time testing OKR, we had a pause to check. At that time, I heard one member of the team said: Why hasn't the team run OKR again? Without OKR, I lost the motivation to read books. "

Or when chatting with the R&D team, which is a pretty strong R&D team, a friend told me that he had to admit that the OKR forced him to do the things he didn't like, but when looking back, those things had a really positive effect on him.
So, I think the good thing about OKR is "force" each person to "build up a habit" and "force" "to create motivation". When everyone is in their Comfort Zone, they are being easy on themselves, for example: you set Goal for yourself that you read 10 pages per day, but today you are very tired, you will sleep for 5 minutes and then wake up, or you may think it is so tired so stop reading and reading 20 pages tomorrow is fine .....

OKR will solve those problems and gradually people will realize how OKR has a positive impact on themselves. "

Đỗ Hoàng Hiệp - R&D Unit

"I surely believe that when applying OKR, everyone will face a lot of difficulties and bewilderment. Many of them worry whether OKR was a rate for their personal ability or not?

However, after the first time of implementation, the R&D department of Mr. Tran Duc Thang always had continuous and suitable changes so that the targets would not be rigid. From there, people began to open their hearts and welcome it more freely and naturally.
A few positive points from OKR in my opinion: 

- Everyone's contributions, even the small and quiet one are all applauded and encouraged.

- Helping you in creating habits to build specific goals, put yourself in the frame to try to do better! 

- Creating good habits like reading - researching - helping and sharing knowledge for everyone.

- Helping spread the values to the community as well as everyone’s life 

- Helping members in following the common mission of the company and trying harder for that common goal. "

Ngụy Minh Tuấn - R&D Unit

"At first, I found it quite bewildering because everything was new to me. Through learning and sharing, I gradually created my own OKRs. It is clear that every work we do at work is directed towards these OKRs.

Now the team and I have set much higher goals than when we first set up OKR, which is a great step for both the team and myself. Sometimes it feels like if there is nothing to do right now, I can look at OKR to know what I have to do, how to strive to achieve my own goals and my team's goals."

Nguyễn Trung Sơn - R&D Unit

"I always put pressure on myself to complete at least 70% OKR of a quarter, it is also the only OKR I repeat every quarter.
Actually, I used to have a notebook at home to do the weekly plan, just like setting OKR on the system, but now it is really convenient for me to use directly on the system. .

The OKR encourages me to build self-discipline and get more motivation because when finishing something I have made up, it’s really happy and exciting. It's like you have tried to get it done and not wasted any time, being helpful to your colleagues, bringing benefits to the team as well as the company and the whole society."

Nguyễn Văn Thịnh B - R&D Unit

"When applying OKR, the positive value I find is that there are always clear goals because just by looking at OKR, you know what to do. Also, it motivates yourself more, you can make better use of your free time to do things set in OKR like reading a book or learning something new ... "

Nguyễn Văn Khánh B - R&D Unit

"To be honest, OKR is a very nice and useful tool. Everyone has their own goals, such as: becoming a profesional DEV, a famous hacker or something like that. It is very difficult to accomplish that goal, it is important to know what to do and how to achieve it.
One thing we need to really care about is how to track the OKR progress as well as the time of OKR. Before using OKR, I often keep it in mind and do the work anytime I want to, no one tracking and reminding me. Also, I’m not sure whether I was going the wrong way to achieve the initial goal.

But now, OKR makes it clearer to track what we need to do to achieve our goals, which reduces the load for our brain."

Nguyễn Văn Quy B - R&D Unit

"I think the biggest difficulty when applying OKR is how to set the Objectives and Key Results in an appropriate way as well as their rating.  The appropriate way here means it not too difficult to implement and not too simple to easily achieve. Each will have a different rating of difficulty.

After a while implementing OKR, I have received many positive things, such as:

- Set goals and accomplish them.

- Improve my performance.

- Have a clear vision of work and the future for each quarter.

- Contribute to better individual and collective development. I can see what people are doing, with what goals, and try to improve more.

Hopefully, I will keep achieving even greater goals in the near future."

When reading the sharing of some Sunners who have tried OKRs since 2019, we realized that: everyone can encounter difficulty, but those who are serious and persistent with it will receive great value.