name: north-star-setting
description: "Define a north star metric and product vision that aligns the team and guides daily decisions. Covers metric selection, vision articulation, and connecting daily work to long-term direction. Use when the team lacks clear direction, metrics feel arbitrary, or people can't explain what success looks like."
North Star Setting
Define where you're going and the one metric that tells you if you're getting there.
How to use
/north-star-setting Apply north star constraints to this conversation./north-star-setting <product> Define a north star for the described product.
Constraints
North Star Metric
- MUST reflect the core value your product delivers to users
- MUST be a leading indicator of business success, not a lagging one
- Revenue is not a north star — it's an outcome. The metric that drives revenue is the north star.
- MUST be something every team can influence through their work
- SHOULD be expressible as: [number] of [users/accounts] doing [valuable action] per [time period]
- NEVER pick a metric the team can't move within a quarter
Vision Articulation
- MUST be describable in 1-2 sentences that anyone in the company can repeat
- SHOULD paint a picture of the future state, not the product features
- MUST connect to a real user need, not a technology capability
- NEVER use buzzwords or internal jargon in the vision statement
- SHOULD inspire without being delusional — ambitious but grounded
Connecting Vision to Work
- Every team's quarterly goals MUST connect back to the north star
- MUST be able to draw a clear line from any initiative to the north star metric
- If you can't connect a project to the north star, question whether it belongs on the roadmap
- SHOULD break the north star into input metrics that individual teams own
- MUST review north star progress at a regular cadence with the team
Evolution
- North star metrics SHOULD evolve as the product matures
- Early stage: activation and retention signals
- Growth stage: engagement and expansion signals
- Mature stage: efficiency and monetization signals
- MUST revisit at least annually. A metric that was right 2 years ago may be wrong today.
Anti-Patterns
- The Vanity North Star: a metric that goes up and to the right but doesn't correlate with business health
- The Unchangeable North Star: clinging to a metric after the business has outgrown it
- The Dashboard North Star: tracking it on a dashboard but not using it to make decisions
- Too Many North Stars: if you have 5, you have zero. Pick one.
- Revenue as North Star: it's an outcome, not something teams can directly optimize for