Finding Your North Star – Creating a Shared Long Term Vision

In the context of agile product management, the term “North Star” refers to a guiding principle or overarching goal that helps align the team’s efforts and provides a clear direction for product development. It is often used to define the ultimate vision or desired outcome of the product.

The concept of the North Star is derived from the metaphor of using the North Star as a navigational reference point. The North Star represents the long-term vision that the team strives to achieve. It serves as a constant reference point that guides decision-making and prioritization throughout the development process.

The North Star is typically a high-level objective that encapsulates the value proposition and core purpose of the product. It should be ambitious, and inspiring – allowing the team to track progress toward the desired outcome. While the North Star provides a clear direction, it also allows flexibility in how the team achieves the goal, as agile methodologies emphasize adaptability and iterative development.

Having a North Star helps the team stay focused, aligned, and motivated, especially in complex and fast-paced environments. It provides a common understanding of the product’s purpose and allows for better decision-making by aligning all stakeholders around a shared vision. Additionally, it serves as a reference point for evaluating the impact of product decisions and prioritizing work to ensure that efforts are aligned with the ultimate goal.

Even though the North Star concept has originated from product management, the same concept and thinking work well for strategic development portfolios and strategic initiatives – the long-term vision and guiding principle providing direction, alignment, and motivation for the team and stakeholders is super important!

Let’s have a look at the steps to identify your North Star!

Steps to Identify Your North Star

1. Understand the purpose

Begin by gaining a deep understanding of your product / development scope, its intended users, and the problem it solves. Clarify the purpose and value proposition. What is the core benefit it provides to users? How does it address their needs or pain points?

This understanding forms the foundation for defining the North Star!

2. Identify long-term goals

Think about the long-term goals or outcomes you want to achieve with your product. These goals should be ambitious, meaningful, and aligned with your product’s purpose. Consider the impact you want your product to have on users, the market, or the industry. Examples of long-term goals could include increasing user engagement, driving revenue growth, or becoming a market leader.

3. How to measure?

To ensure that the North Star is meaningful and trackable, it’s important to make it measurable. Define key metrics or indicators that can be used to gauge progress towards the North Star. For instance, if your goal is to increase user engagement, you could measure metrics like user retention, time spent in the product, or the number of active users.

Tip! Objectives and Key Results could be a great way to include also measurable key results with your North Star.

4. Align with stakeholders

Engage with relevant stakeholders, such as your product team, executives, customers, and any other key individuals or groups. Share your proposed North Star and seek their input and feedback. Ensure that the North Star resonates with their expectations, aligns with the overall business objectives, and reflects the needs and desires of your target users.

5. Iterate and refine

Defining the North Star is an iterative process. Gather feedback from stakeholders, evaluate its relevance and feasibility, and refine your definition accordingly. Iterate on the North Star until you reach a clear, compelling, and measurable goal that aligns with your product’s purpose and stakeholders’ expectations.

6. Communicate and share the North Star

Once you have defined the North Star, it’s crucial to communicate it effectively to your team and stakeholders. Ensure that everyone understands and embraces the North Star’s importance and how it guides decision-making. Regularly reinforce its relevance and progress to maintain alignment and motivation throughout the product development journey.

Remember, the North Star should be an aspirational goal that provides guidance and focus but allows for adaptability and iteration. It should inspire and motivate the team, align stakeholders, and ultimately drive the product’s success.

North Star – examples from leading companies for inspiration

The North Star may vary in wording and specificity across different sources and may evolve over time as companies adapt to new challenges and opportunities. Here are some examples of North Stars from leading companies:

• Google: “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
• Tesla: “Accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
• Airbnb: “Create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.”
• Spotify: “Unlock the potential of human creativity.”
• Amazon: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
• Netflix: “Delight our customers with great content anytime, anywhere.”
• Apple: “Design innovative products that enrich people’s lives.”

Conclusion

Defining an inspiring North star is not easy, and it may require also many discussions and alignment. Having a clear guiding principle and long term vision, the North Star, creates clarity for prioritization and ensures, we navigate to the correct direction, even though daily work may keep us busy with the details.