Glossary
North Star metric
A north star metric is the single number a company picks to stand for the value it delivers, used to keep every team pointed the same way. Weekly active teams, rooms cleaned, meals served, gross bookings. It is a communication device more than a management tool, and it works only if the choice is argued out honestly and then left alone for a year or two.
01
Whether a small company needs one number above the rest
A north star does not go on the weekly board as a fourteenth row. It sits above the board, and the Scorecard rows underneath should each be traceable to it. When a leadership team cannot say how a row connects to the one number, that is usually a sign the row is a habit rather than a measure of the business.
The value of picking one is that arguments about priority get shorter. The risk is that a single number is easy to satisfy in ways nobody intended. A company that picks weekly active users will find teams sending notifications, and one that picks revenue will find discounts. Pair it with a counter measure, usually something about quality or retention.
Worked example: A field service company chose completed jobs per week as its one number. Within two months dispatch was pushing short easy jobs ahead of longer ones and the callback rate rose. They kept the metric and put first-time fix rate beside it, which is what made the pairing honest. Both went on the wall, and only one of them went on the weekly board.
Sources: Measure What Matters, John Doerr (2018); kpi.org/kpi-basics
KPI
A KPI is a number a leadership team has agreed to run the business by: one owner, a goal written next to it, and a slot on the weekly agenda.
02OKR
OKR stands for objectives and key results: a short qualitative objective paired with about three measurable results that prove it happened.
03Vanity metric
A vanity metric is a number that reliably goes up, feels good to report, and changes no decision: page views, followers, total signups since launch.
04KPIs: what they are, how many to track, and which matter
A practical guide to key performance indicators for small companies: definitions, leading vs lagging measures, examples by department, and how many to track.
Start with a real question
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