very product professional appreciates the rallying cry of the North Star Metric (NSM): a singular, simple number that should, in theory, unify efforts and encapsulate customer value. For small, early-stage products, this simplicity is a powerful asset. In a scaling Enterprise, however, that simplicity is a catastrophic flaw.
My role as a UX Lead at this scale isn’t just about wireframes; it’s about designing the systems and processes that connect our design inputs to the business’s highest-level outcomes. I’ve repeatedly seen a single NSM cause strategic failure.
Consider ‘Total Minutes Streamed’. If that is our NSM, our individual feature teams—the people responsible for the execution—risk **local optimisation**. They will pursue that number at all costs, often introducing friction, degrading overall performance, or creating technical debt that undermines long-term retention. One team might successfully boost minutes streamed, but if that gain is achieved by compromising the platform’s stability or the integrity of the checkout flow, we haven’t grown; we have simply moved the point of failure.
A strategic system cannot be governed by a single, abstract number. It must be governed by a **disciplined architecture of causality**. I needed to create a framework that compelled every team to justify their work not just against a Product goal, but against the ultimate P&L goal.
Engineering a causal metric hierarchy
In my experience, moving beyond the flawed NSM means imposing a necessary constraint: a three-tiered metric hierarchy. This framework forces strategic rigour and demands that we **organise** our measurement to reflect the true flow of value from execution to financial result.
Level 1: The True North (Business Health)
This is the ultimate measure of our success and is not a product metric. It is the financial outcome owned by the C-suite. In our Enterprise, this is **Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) per Quarter** or a similar P&L indicator. This metric is the ceiling; all other goals must cascade downwards from it and prove their contribution to it.
Level 2: The Strategic North (Value Exchange)
This is where the product leadership lives. Instead of a singular, consumption-focused NSM, this must be a metric that proves a sustainable exchange of value. I define this as **Weekly Active Users (WAU) with a High-Value Action (HVA)**. The HVA is the critical element: it is the specific, rare action—identified through our UX research—that has the highest statistical correlation with long-term subscription and high ARPU. This metric is my focus as a lead, as I am accountable for designing the entire service experience that reliably drives the user to that critical HVA.
Level 3: The Tactical Inputs (Execution Levers)
These are the operational metrics owned by the feature teams. They are the actual **levers** of execution that we pull daily: **First-Time Conversion Rate**, **Search Success Rate**, **Performance Load Time**. The strategic constraint here is paramount: a team’s success in moving one of these levers is **meaningless** unless that movement demonstrably shifts the Level 2 Strategic North metric. If a $30%$ improvement in component load speed doesn’t lead to a verifiable lift in HVA completion, then that optimisation was an engineering success, but a strategic failure.
Shifting from metrics to strategic judgement
This metric architecture is more than just a dashboard; it is an **organisational discipline**. It forces us to stop chasing abstract targets and to start asking fundamental questions about causality.
For instance, if the WAU with HVA metric is stalling, the tactical teams cannot just blame the market; they have to analyse which input lever failed. Was it the onboarding flow’s conversion rate, an issue of technical latency, or a fundamental misunderstanding of the user’s core motivation? Analysing this causal chain requires genuine leadership and **judgement**—qualities that a single NSM never demands.
In a high-stakes environment like Live Broadcast, where failure has immediate financial and reputational consequences, we must demand this level of rigour. We must use strategic constraint to drive focus, efficiency, and clarity. Moving from the simple, flawed NSM to a complex, organised hierarchy is the only way to ensure that our execution aligns perfectly with the company’s financial success. It is the necessary architectural shift that transforms execution teams into true business drivers.
Preach! My biggest peeve is when a CEO calls ‘Monthly Active Users’ a North Star. No, that’s a vanity metric. The real North Star has to be something like ‘Reduced Time-to-Value’ or ‘Percent of Users Hitting Value Threshold.’ It has to be tied to the customer’s success, not our internal volume.
I appreciate the constraint framing, but I’ve seen North Stars used incorrectly to block necessary innovation. For instance, if your North Star is ‘Reduce Churn,’ every experimental feature that might initially increase churn but lead to a huge new revenue stream (like launching a premium tier) gets shut down. The North Star should constrain execution toward value, but not constrain vision. You have to review the North Star metric itself every 18 months, or it becomes an anchor.