Analysis
North-star metric
Also called NSM.
North-star metric is the single product measure a team treats as its primary weekly score. It stands for the value users get, not for the money.
How it is measured
It should reflect a repeated action that shows a user got value, counted per week. Examples include weekly documents shared or recipes cooked. It should move when product work succeeds.
Check it by writing the chain: what must be true for this number to rise, and what customer behavior would make it fall. If the chain runs through a single team's output, pick again.
Worked example
A note-taking app picks 'notes edited by someone other than the author each week' because it shows real collaboration. It reads 4,800 in the week of March 3, up 6 percent from February.
Registered accounts grew faster, 14 percent, but the new users never invited anyone. The team shifts its onboarding to invite a colleague, and collaboration edits rise to 6,300 four weeks later.
How it differs
A north-star metric is the one headline measure. A KPI is any committed measure with a target, and a team may have several. The north star points everyone at one thing.
Common errors
Choosing revenue. Choosing a total that always grows. Picking something no one can affect. Changing it every quarter. Having a north star and forgetting the inputs.
In practice
Write the metric on one line and list its three input metrics. Review it weekly. If it has not moved after two quarters of effort, question the choice.