North Star Framework

The North Star Framework, popularized by Amplitude, is a strategic approach to Product Management. The idea is to identify and track a single metric that serves as a leading indicator for business success. The playbook is accessible online and constantly updated.

Connecting the Dots

The overall idea of the North Star Framework (NSF) is to find a single leading indicator for future business success and connect all activities of the team with that indicator:

The heart of the North Star Framework is the North Star Metric, a single critical rate, count, or ratio that represents your product strategy.

In a nutshell, the idea is to:

1. Find a single metric, the North Star Metric, that acts as a leading indicator for the future success of the product. This is a metric that can be captured quickly and will drive the product strategy because it is, what the team believes, and what moves the needle.

2. Consider the North Star Metric supporting the long-term business goals. However, these are typically lagging indicators, so they are the business outcome and a consequence of the actions as driven by the North Star Metric. Typically, they are hard to influence directly.

3. Collect a handful set of Input Metrics that contribute to the North Star Metric but can be influenced directly by the product offering. For example, when a food delivery service had a North Star Metric like number of items received on time, then inputs might be:

   • number of orders by customers
   • number of items per order
   • ratio of the fulfillment of orders, and
   • in-time delivery of orders

4. Derive The Work in the sense of actual designs, prototypes, and product features to improve the Input Metrics.

The following illustration provides a rough overview:

So, similarly to Impact Mapping, the North Star Framework tries to establish a holistic methodology to connect the dots — from long-term business goals down to features, tasks, and work items of teams.