Project north star template

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