4 Learnings from
Working on 40 NSMs

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PUBLISHED

Jun 14, 2024

READING TIME

5 min & 0 sec

Dear Reader,

During an ongoing long-term Discovery and Metrics Coaching engagement, I had the opportunity to meet many different external and internal-facing teams. One of this company’s focus points is the establishment of more metrics-informed decision-making, and they landed on North Star Metrics (NSMs) as a critical vehicle for that.

Here are my four key takeaways from considering and working on over 40 attempts to establish an NSM.

#1 Invest in Shared Understanding

It’s crucial to avoid ambiguity when discussing a term like “North Star Metric” to ensure teams don’t develop 10+ different interpretations. Overcoming this is particularly challenging when all the shared examples are from a high-level, abstract company context.

In each of my sparring sessions, I revisited the context of what I meant when talking about a North Star Metric. This definition was aligned with the company’s product leadership, and it was not so much about the RIGHT definition as having the SAME across teams.

#2 Name the Customer First

Many of the teams I met were used to being measured by financials or other high-level metrics outside their Sphere of Influence. To deliberately pull them away from that rabbit hole, I always wanted to get a clear answer from them about who benefits from using their product. Since the idea was to have the NSM sit at the intersection of business and product metrics, we needed to establish that anchor first.

This also helped internal teams to understand who their customers were and what value they tried to create for them instead of getting lost in the end-end-end-customers' success.

Source: Newsletter #315 - How to Define Metrics for Internal Products

#3 It’s not about Finding New Metrics

The value of a North Star Metric is not so much in finding a shiny new object but in establishing the context and making sense of the metrics that already exist. Metrics trees were the most helpful approach for getting what was in people’s heads and on their dashboards into a helpful structure.

This way, the starting point was way more within reach instead of discussing a nice-sounding but abstract metric.

Source: Newsletter #301 - How to Pick Useful OKRs from Metrics Trees

#4 The most effective metric is the one that empowers you to make informed decisions today, not in the distant future.

No amount of theorizing and approval discussions will tell you if you have the “right” NSM. It’s not about finding a metric that adheres to all the artificial definitions done by others (including me) but about a metric that helps prioritize. You’ll only know if an NSM is “right” if you start using it.

That’s why I established a semi-self-serve template walking teams through the most critical questions that should get them to a “Just Enough NSM”-state quickly and then focus on putting this metric into practice before iterating further and further.

HOW TO PUT THIS THEORY INTO PRACTICE

What should an NSM do for you? Clarify the school of thought you buy into and how an NSM should change the ways of working in teams. Then, establish the details.
Questions over Frameworks. Use fundamental questions that characterize an NSM and have teams answer these in clear language instead of having them fill out artificially complex frameworks or canvases.
Don't overthink. Prioritize starting to measure a draft NSM over getting it right in the lab.

Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Do reply. It's motivating. I'm not a robot; I read and respond to every subscriber email I get (just ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here.

Thank you for Practicing Product,

Tim

PS.: Part 3 of my "State of Discovery"-Poll is live on LinkedIn. This time, it's about screening interview participants.

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