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| Criterion | ![]() Growth North Star Metric | ![]() Business Strategy Strategy Map | ![]() Engineering Goal Question Metric | ![]() Product Strategy SMART Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When product teams track many metrics, the view of the actual customer outcome easily gets lost. A North Star Metric bundles growth, usage, and value contribution into one signal that makes the system's direction visible. | A Strategy Map translates strategy into a few connected objectives across perspectives such as finance, customers, processes, and learning. This makes visible which capabilities and activities are meant to drive which results. | Helps clarify technical problems, hypotheses, and next steps in concrete terms. It breaks a technical problem into testable parts. The result is captured as a GQM table and metric briefs. | When goals are formulated too generally, it brings measurability, direction, and timing into shape. It prevents intentions from staying without clear verification. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | Low |
Timedifferent | 1-2 h | 2-4 h workshop plus review | 90-180 min | 15-30 min |
Participantsdifferent | 3-8 | 4-10 | 3-6 | 1-8 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | North Star metric, Input metric tree, Measurement cadence | Strategy Map, Objective Set, Cause-Effect Hypotheses | GQM Table, Metric Profiles | SMART Goal, Measurement Note, Deadline |
Tags1 shared | GrowthMetricsAlignmentRetention | AlignmentExecutionGoalsCausality | MetricsMeasurementEngineeringAlignment | GoalsPlanningMeasurementAlignment |



