North Star Metric: One Metric to Align Them All

This is one of RoadmapOne ’s articles on Objective Prioritisation frameworks .

The North Star Metric is a single metric that captures the core value you deliver to customers. Spotify’s “time spent listening.” Airbnb’s “nights booked.” Facebook’s “daily active users.” One number that, if it goes up, means customers are getting more value and the business is succeeding.

The concept is powerful when applied correctly. It aligns the entire organisation around what actually matters. But it’s also dangerous—a single metric can oversimplify, get gamed, or crowd out other important concerns.

In RoadmapOne, the North Star isn’t a prioritisation framework. It’s a tagging dimension that lets you see what percentage of your roadmap directly targets your core value metric—and whether that balance is strategically appropriate.

Sign up now (free) to tag and track North Star allocation

What Makes a Good North Star

It Captures Value Exchange

A good North Star metric represents the moment when customers get value and you get value simultaneously. The incentives align.

When the North Star goes up, both customers and business win. That alignment is what makes it powerful.

It’s Measurable and Movable

A North Star must be something you can measure accurately and influence through product work. “Customer happiness” is too vague. “Revenue” is measurable but hard to move directly through product decisions. “Conversion rate” or “activation rate” are measurable, movable, and connected to value.

It Sits Above Objectives

The North Star is the enduring metric that defines product success. Objectives are time-bound goals that contribute to the North Star.

At Trainline, conversion was the North Star—an enduring focus that persisted across quarters and years. An Objective might be “Increase mobile conversion from 4.2% to 5.0% by Q3.” The Objective is specific, time-bound, and measurable—classic OKR format. But it serves the North Star.

Connect Objectives to your North Star in RoadmapOne

North Star as a Tagging Framework

In RoadmapOne, tag Objectives by whether they directly target the North Star metric:

With this tagging, you instantly see roadmap balance: “35% of capacity targets our North Star (conversion), 65% targets other strategic priorities.”

Getting the Balance Right

At Trainline, roughly a third of roadmap capacity was dedicated to conversion initiatives. That balance reflected strategic reality:

• Enough North Star investment to move the core metric meaningfully
• Enough other investment for market expansion, operational excellence, platform health, and compliance

If 100% of your roadmap targets the North Star, you’re neglecting infrastructure, compliance, and future bets. If 0% targets it, you’ve lost focus on what matters most.

The right percentage depends on your context:

• Growth-stage products might allocate 40-50% to North Star initiatives
• Mature products might allocate 20-30%, with more capacity for efficiency and expansion
• Products with urgent operational debt might temporarily reduce North Star allocation

The point isn’t a specific number—it’s visibility into the allocation so you can make deliberate choices.

When the North Star Works

For Organisational Alignment

When everyone understands the North Star, decisions align naturally. “Will this improve conversion?” becomes the default question. Teams don’t need detailed guidance on every trade-off because the North Star provides direction.

For Portfolio Conversations

When leadership asks “Are we focused on what matters?”, the North Star tag gives a quantified answer. You can show the percentage of roadmap capacity targeting conversion versus other goals.

That visibility enables strategic conversation: “We’re at 25% North Star allocation this quarter because we’re investing heavily in platform migration. Next quarter we’ll rebalance to 40%.”

For Avoiding Drift

Without explicit North Star tracking, roadmaps drift toward whatever stakeholders shout loudest about. Sales wants customer-specific features. Engineering wants technical debt reduction. Marketing wants launch features.

North Star tagging makes drift visible. If your North Star allocation drops from 35% to 15% over three quarters, you can see it happening and course-correct.

When the North Star Fails

Goodhart’s Law

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

If “time spent in app” is your North Star, teams will game it. Add friction to increase session length. Send notification spam to drive opens. Build dark patterns that trap users. The metric goes up; actual customer value goes down.

The antidote is guardrail metrics. Track the North Star, but also track satisfaction (NPS), support ticket volume, and other indicators that would reveal if you’re gaming the metric at users’ expense.

Oversimplification

A single metric can’t capture everything. Optimising for “nights booked” might neglect host experience, trust and safety, or long-term market health. Optimising for “conversion” might create a checkout flow that converts well but leaves users frustrated.

The North Star tells you what to optimise. It doesn’t tell you what constraints to respect. You need guardrail metrics alongside the North Star.

Wrong North Star

Some organisations pick North Stars that don’t actually represent value exchange:

• Revenue — Important but lagging; doesn’t tell you about user experience
• Daily Active Users — Easy to game; doesn’t distinguish valuable usage from empty engagement
• Feature adoption — Output metric; doesn’t confirm users got value

A wrong North Star misaligns the organisation. Everyone optimises for the metric while customer value stagnates.

Avoid North Star pitfalls with balanced tagging in RoadmapOne

Connecting North Star to OKRs

The North Star sits above Objectives in your planning hierarchy:

North Star Metric (enduring)
    ↓
Objectives (quarterly, time-bound)
    ↓
Key Results (measurable outcomes)
    ↓
Initiatives (the work)

North Star: Conversion rate (persists across years)

Objective: Increase mobile conversion from 4.2% to 5.0% by Q3

Key Results:

• Reduce mobile checkout time from 4 minutes to 90 seconds
• Increase payment method options from 3 to 7
• Achieve mobile checkout satisfaction score of 4.5/5

Initiatives: Checkout redesign, Apple Pay integration, guest checkout option

The North Star provides direction. Objectives make it time-bound and specific. Key Results make it measurable. Initiatives make it actionable.

Practical Implementation

Define your North Star. What single metric captures the core value exchange with customers? Be specific. “Conversion” is better than “growth.” “Weekly active users completing a core workflow” is better than “DAU.”

Validate alignment. Does improving this metric genuinely benefit customers? If you can game the metric without improving customer value, it’s the wrong metric.

Tag existing Objectives. Go through your roadmap and tag each Objective: does it directly target the North Star? What’s the current allocation?

Set a target allocation. Based on your stage and strategy, what percentage of capacity should target the North Star? Make it explicit.

Add guardrail metrics. What would tell you if you’re gaming the North Star at users’ expense? Track those alongside.

Review quarterly. Is your North Star allocation where you want it? Has it drifted? Adjust deliberately.

The Bottom Line

Your North Star Metric is the single metric that captures core value delivery. When it goes up, customers and business both win.

In RoadmapOne, tag Objectives by whether they target the North Star. See instantly what percentage of capacity goes to your core metric versus other priorities. At Trainline, that was roughly a third—enough to move conversion meaningfully, with capacity left for everything else.

The North Star provides focus. Tagging provides visibility. Together, they ensure you’re investing appropriately in what matters most without neglecting everything else.

Don’t let your roadmap drift. Tag by North Star, track the allocation, and make deliberate choices about balance.

Get started with RoadmapOne (free) and track North Star allocation

References

• Sean Ellis, The One Metric That Matters — North Star concept origins
• OKRs for Product Teams — Connecting Objectives to North Star
• HEART Framework — Comprehensive UX metrics beyond North Star
• Leading vs Lagging Indicators — Predictive vs confirmatory metrics
• Objective Prioritisation Frameworks — Complete guide to all frameworks