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Project north star template

Establish a strong foundation for a project to set teams up for success

Project north star

Use this template to align on a project's goals, roles, target audience, and other essential details so that teams can work effectively and efficiently.

The project north star template is a great way to kick off new projects, business pitches, or ad-hoc client requests.

The north star helps you:

  • Get aligned on goals and essential details at the outset of a project

  • Build trust and transparency

  • Define success metrics, milestones, and KPIs collaboratively

How to use the north star template

To use Mural’s north star template, part of the Meta Think Kit design suite, follow the steps outlined below with your team.

Step 1: Assemble your team and gather individual contributions

To get started, the first step is to have your team (asynchronously or in real time) contribute their feedback using color-coded sticky notes (one color per team member) in each of the seven areas of the template:

  • People and roles

  • Goals

  • KPIs

  • Key milestones

  • Target audience(s)

  • Advantages & assets

  • Hopes & fears

Step 2: Bring everyone together to analyze and synthesize feedback

Once everyone has had a chance to contribute, it’s time to bring the whole team together to look for key groups or themes across all your feedback. You can group these themes using tags for sticky notes, or by clustering them together.

Step 3: Align on commitments and ways of working

With your central themes now defined, make sure your team is aligned on how to move forward, your goals, roles, and responsibilities — as well as how you’ll measure success. Take this time to clear up any questions and gauge how people are feeling about the upcoming project.

Step 4: Determine if there are any offline followups necessary

By the end of the exercise, hopefully everyone will be aligned, but if not, make sure to plan for potential offline followups or secondary sessions to clear up any unresolved issues.

Tips for running a north star workshop

To run a successful project north star template session with your team, you should:

  • Make sure that everyone has sufficient time to contribute their thoughts and feedback individually before bringing everyone together to look for themes — this will help avoid any blind spots

  • Make use of Mural’s private mode to avoid groupthink while brainstorming, and anonymous voting to help resolve any questions democratically

  • At the end of your workshop, it can be useful to run a quick check-in to gauge sentiment across your team, now that you’ve defined roles and responsibilities, as well as goals and metrics for success

Mural makes it easy to get everyone engaged, contributing, and aligned

With the Mural platform, it’s easy to capture everyone’s feedback, analyze it with team members and stakeholders, and outline next steps and action items.
Sticky notes & text

Sticky notes & text

Add ideas, action items, and more as a sticky note or text box — then change the colors and cluster to identify patterns and new solutions.

Outline navigation & instructions

Outline navigation & instructions

Structure your mural for easy navigation, then add activity instructions for collaborators.

Private mode

Private mode

Avoid groupthink and get authentic feedback by allowing collaborators to add content privately.

Anonymous voting

Anonymous voting

Gain consensus and reach alignment quickly, either in real time or asynchronously.

Asynchronous collaboration

Asynchronous collaboration

Innovate and collaborate effectively together without booking time on calendars.

Real-time collaboration

Real-time collaboration

Add more productivity and engagement to meetings and calls with features to guide collaboration.

Project north star template frequently asked questions

What is the north star method?

What does north star mean in Agile?

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Mural is the only platform that offers both a shared workspace and training on the LUMA System™, a practical way to collaborate that anyone can learn and apply.