As a Technical Program Manager, a key responsibility is aligning your team with the strategic direction, often referred to as the North Star.
Established by leadership, the North Star reflects the organization’s long-term vision and guides your team’s efforts. It ensures everyone stays focused on overarching goals, even while working on specific tasks.
To support this, Pillars break down the North Star into key focus areas that guide the team's annual objectives. These actionable Pillars help prioritize efforts in alignment with the long-term strategy.
Building from these, annual Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are set. Objectives define what you aim to achieve, while Key Results are measurable indicators of success. By establishing OKRs yearly, the team stays focused on immediate priorities while remaining aligned with broader goals.
Clear communication of the North Star, Pillars, and OKRs is essential. Ensuring the team understands the strategy, feels ownership, and stays informed fosters accountability and drives success.
Now, let’s talk about Program Objectives and Key results.
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A North Star is big purpose of your program wants to bring to your product customers. North Start should be short and motivational. To make more hands-on, let’s probably create toghether our own Program to get better understanding. Let’s imagine, we have a e-commerce product designed as a web-based application to act as a marketplace where small companies sell different things like laptops, desks and so on. Our North Star can sound like ‘our users always find what they want’ because from a business perspective it would help to drive reveneu, not only for us, but our small businesses. And we need this to spreas this key idea to everyone’s mind, so product managers and TPMs know where to focus when they build new functionality. So, it’s crucial to get an idea why we need a North Start even thought it should be build by a leadership. As a TPM, your role would be help your Product Team to establish a Program Objectives. To move towards the North Star, our e-commerce program would be focusing on three pillars every year so that we connect them to objectives:
- 'New Product or Feature Development' By working closely with Product Managers, you help them to pick a right idea by working on a technical feasibility and an overall implementational idea.
Let’s create an objective toghether for our progam like: ‘Ability to personalize products for our customers’ To measure a scusses we would love to see more purchases for 20%.
- Next, we will take 'Scale Our Business,' Basically here, we expand new markets by deploying a product in other contries. Your role here would be help with Legal constraints and Scalability work. To measure suscsss we would want to get it deployed in the next quarter.
Here, we can have ‘expand a product in the EU, keeping in mind we’re only in the USA’
- "Technology & Quality,' This could be a good opportunity for you to shine and bring ideas.
Here, let’s consider an idea to allow users to access an information faster by redusing latency. Let’s measure a sussess here by having 1 second latency for key user journeys instead of 2 seconds. From the bussiness side, we would love to see that customers complete the jouenry with actuall purchases by 10%.
Alright, let’s wrup up, North Star established by a leadership and should flag a direction; Pillars would help you and your product team to create objectives every year. Also, objectives and Key results should be established annually.
How OKRs Can Accelerate Your Business Success
In today's fast-paced business environment, staying aligned and focused is critical for success. This is where Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) shine. By linking high-level goals with measurable outcomes, OKRs provide a clear roadmap for achieving success.
An Objective outlines what you aim to accomplish—a bold and inspiring goal. For example, “Expand our market reach in Europe.” It serves as the guiding star for your team, fostering alignment and motivation.
Key Results, on the other hand, define how you'll measure success. For instance:
- Launch operations in 3 new European countries by Q4.
- Achieve 25% market share in the first year.
- Build partnerships with 10 local distributors.
Together, OKRs transform lofty ambitions into actionable and measurable outcomes. They ensure everyone is on the same page, focused on impactful tasks that drive meaningful results.
What makes OKRs particularly effective?
- Clarity and Focus: By specifying a few key priorities, they prevent teams from getting overwhelmed.
- Measurability: Progress is tracked against clear metrics, ensuring accountability.
- Flexibility: OKRs can be adapted as goals evolve, keeping pace with dynamic business needs.
- Alignment: They connect individual, team, and organizational goals, ensuring everyone works towards the same vision.
When implemented effectively, OKRs can help your business achieve ambitious goals faster while keeping teams motivated and aligned.
Bonus Section: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in OKR Implementation
While OKRs are incredibly powerful, their success hinges on proper implementation. Here are some common challenges and how to overcome them:
The North Star, established by leadership, serves as a guiding principle reflecting an organization’s long-term vision. It ensures that all team efforts remain aligned with overarching goals, even when focusing on specific tasks. This shared vision fosters clarity and alignment across the organization, creating a unified direction for everyone.
To operationalize this vision, Pillars break the North Star into actionable focus areas that guide annual objectives. These Pillars prioritize efforts, helping teams align their daily work with broader strategic goals. By connecting individual contributions to these focus areas, the team stays motivated and focused on what matters most.
Building on these Pillars, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) create a roadmap for success. Objectives define what the team aims to achieve, while Key Results provide measurable indicators of progress. Through OKRs, teams focus on immediate priorities without losing sight of their long-term direction. Clear communication of the North Star, Pillars, and OKRs is essential for fostering ownership and accountability, ensuring the team understands the strategy and remains informed.
Imagine applying these concepts in an e-commerce program. For instance, a North Star might be framed as “ensuring users always find what they want,” serving as a motivational statement that aligns everyone with a shared purpose. To bring this vision to life, you could establish key Pillars such as developing new features, scaling to new markets, and enhancing technology. These focus areas help shape annual objectives and ensure each team member knows their role in achieving the broader vision.
OKRs transform aspirations into actionable outcomes. They provide clarity and ensure alignment, connecting individual and team efforts with the organization’s larger goals. OKRs encourage focus, track measurable progress, and adapt to evolving needs, making them a dynamic tool for achieving success.
However, implementing OKRs requires careful consideration. Overloading teams with too many objectives can dilute focus, while vague or unrealistic goals can hinder progress. Collaboration is key—when teams are involved in setting OKRs, they feel a stronger sense of ownership. Regular progress reviews also ensure alignment, foster accountability, and keep everyone motivated.
Understanding and addressing these challenges can unlock the full potential of OKRs. By focusing on alignment, clarity, and collaboration, organizations can create a thriving environment where teams remain motivated and positioned to achieve ambitious goals.
Key Lesson Concepts:
- Align the team with the North Star established by leadership
- Define actionable Pillars to focus annual priorities
- Set annual Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
- Ensure OKRs are aligned with the SMART criteria
- Communicate the North Star, Pillars, and OKRs clearly
- Create a sense of ownership and accountability