Could you tell us a bit about your current North Star? What were the thoughts behind it? How does it connect to your overall vision and strategy?

At Ecare, we develop Electronic Health Record (EHR) software that healthcare professionals use to manage patient care. For the product I am working on, Elderly Care, our North Star is focusing on decreasing administrative burdens while increasing the quality of care. We aim to ensure that our users spend minimal time in our product, allowing them to dedicate more time to their patients.

However, solely focusing on reducing administration could negatively impact care quality. Therefore, we also provide functionalities that enable them to deliver high-quality care while keeping the product simple.

The North Star aligns with our vision to support healthcare professionals by offering them with an efficient and straightforward product, allowing them to leverage their expertise to determine the best course of action.

‍How did you first learn about the North Star Framework? What made you want to try it out in your company? 

I learned about the North Star Framework through Visma, when we received a workshop from them. At Ecare, we really value working together with our customers.

We already had multiple ways in which we asked for their feedback and ideas. However, the North Star Framework gave us an additional way to quantitatively measure our progress on the goals we are working on.

‍What are some successes and challenges you have experienced with your North Star? How would you describe the impact on your teams and company?

During the workshop, it was really nice to see our shared vision for the North Star coming together. It was valuable to learn what everyone considered important and to discuss how we could achieve this vision together.

One recent success revolves around the positive feedback we have received from our customers. A customer recently mentioned that our product reduces their administration time, which is a core aspect of our North Star. This sentiment was also mentioned by others in recent interviews with some of our end-users. For example, someone said: “The product makes my job easier”. It is always great to hear back from end-users, and in this case, it is especially rewarding since it aligns with our goals.

Another success is the impact of the North Star input metrics on the team. I share updates during our regular meetings, so everyone is aware of the progress we are making. I believe this brings positive energy to the team because there is concrete feedback on changes made by various team members, allowing them to quickly see the effects of their work on the end-user experience.

An initial challenge was setting up the measurement of input metrics. Preferably, I could access this information without needing a developer to fetch data for me every month. The initial set-up took some time from a developer, but now I can access the data for our metrics and analyse them using Azure Monitor Application Insights. This method works really well for our team.

Would you recommend the North Star Framework to other companies? What advice would you give companies that are considering implementing a North Star?

I would recommend the North Star Framework because it gives the entire product team a common understanding of what they are working towards and how they might reach it. This knowledge is shared across all roles helping them in working effectively together towards shared goals. 

My advice to other companies starting with this is to begin by measuring input metrics that track processes they are focusing on in the next six months. At first you might have a lot of good ideas for processes or tasks you would like to measure, and it is good to write them all down. However, some input metrics can be hard to measure or may involve processes you won't change in the coming year. 

When you are new to product analytics, starting with measuring processes you are working on this year, you can get others in your team excited about the metrics. They can see how their work contributes to the end-user experience, which might then motivate the team to measure more. In my experience, when you start measuring successfully you will only want to add more metrics and other feedback methods.