During Covid uncertainty do you need a 'North Star Metric'?
Posted on September 14, 2020 by Paul O'Dea
There is so much uncertainty, whether Covid-19, economic or political. Teams are pulled in many directions so progress on important stuff is slower!
Getting your team aligned around a single goal or ‘North Star Metric’ brings coherence.
The ‘North Star Metric’ originally coined by start-up investor Sean Ellis is the most important metric in your business. Sean has also kindly written the foreword for the soon to be published book ‘The Growth Roadmap®’ written by Emer O’Donnell and myself.
The one that captures the core measurable value you deliver to customers.
The ‘North Star Metric’ can be broken into smaller metrics that drive ownership at an individual level.. Think of your ‘North Star’ at the top of the pyramid with other supporting metrics like sales, delivery and customer satisfaction all contributing to the ‘North Star’.
Smart leadership teams figure out this metric and get their whole team behind making a difference to it.
Below are some examples of ‘North Star Metrics’:
- For a hotel – number of nightly stays
- For Uber – number of taxi rides daily
- For an online software product – daily customer usage
- For an online financial application - daily active users
- For a website – read time (how much time do people spend reading content?)
Taking time to clarify your ‘North Star Metric’ generates good conversations about what’s important? about what matters? If metrics are not contributing to the ‘North Star’ metric, maybe they should be dropped altogether?
Once you’ve agreed your ‘North Star Metric’ then track it, publish it. Make sure your whole company know how they contribute to it.
Your ‘North Star Metric’ should do three things:
- Reflect customer measurable value
- Measure progress
- Truly measure performance
Maybe it’s worth putting the ‘North Star Metric’ conversation onto your leadership team agenda?
