A product north star
An organizational product north star (PNS), also known as a north star metric, is essentially a standard for evaluating the product team inside the business. It is, without a doubt, a broad-brush approach. Still, it provides critical stakeholders with a quick and straightforward means of assessing and monitoring a product’s success and alignment with company objectives.
The North Star model is a tool for visualizing the process by which a product’s north star is determined. It is, in fact, a hierarchy of measurements and key performance indicators (KPIs), with the product’s north star appropriately positioned at the top.
The PNS core is the north star metric, a tool to accurately assess the connection between the difficulties that the project team is working on and the business objective in the long run.
The importance of a Product North Star
When it comes to products, one of the company’s most valuable resources is the time and effort the product team puts into various tasks. These tasks include solving problems and assessing the ground the product is standing on right now and the goals for the short term, mid-term, and long-term regarding the product. Without PNS or with a PNS performed inadequately, the decision-making process will inevitably be blind. A company without PNS will decide on the product without knowledge about how its actions affect the product’s performance in the market. By doing so, you will likely make some fatal errors.
The advantages of a Product North Star
- Product North Star can assist you with your decision-making process and understand the order of importance you must establish. It can guide your teams as well. They can understand what they should prioritize to bring the best results for the company’s prosperity if they have a well-thought-out plan.
- PNS can help your team communicate better and work together more efficiently.
PNS versus KPI
When a key performance indicator (KPI) is vague and general—more downloads, more users, more orders—it’s easy to confuse it with a north star, which is why the framework visualization might be helpful. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are always crucial, but they should also serve a higher purpose – and that is the north star of success.
How to Use the Product North Star
Real-world examples are maybe the most effective way to comprehend how a product performs in practice.
Consider the following scenario: you’ve created an app that assists consumers in obtaining discounts on their internet purchases. In this situation, you may have key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:
● Number of monthly installs
● X number of users who are active daily
● Every week, X number of discount activations are made
These are all valuable measures, but they do not capture the genuine value of a product to a consumer in the way that they should.
In this situation, the total percentage discount active every week would be a good product for the north star to keep an eye on. Why? To maximize consumer value and increase the likelihood of utilizing the app regularly, you can offer a discount on all of your products.
