Instagram · Metrics · Senior · 60 to 90 minutes

Instagram Reels North Star and Guardrails

Instagram is a mobile app where people share photos, videos, Stories, Reels, and messages, and discover friends, creators, and interests. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Metric design
Strategic judgment
Tradeoff analysis
Cross functional alignment
Risk management

The situation

The Head of Instagram has asked you, a senior PM, to propose the primary scorecard for Reels before the next half planning review. Reels is a major part of Instagram, but leaders are not aligned on what success should mean. Some teams point to rising video consumption and shares as proof that Reels is winning. Others worry that the product is being pushed toward passive viewing, repetitive content, weaker friend content, and unstable creator incentives. Assume the following numbers are illustrative: Reels now accounts for 38% of time spent on Instagram, up from 29% a year ago. Reels shares to DMs are up 12%, but user feedback about seeing too much irrelevant video has worsened, and posting by casual creators is flat. Ads, creator, integrity, and Feed leaders all want a metric framework that protects their goals too. Your task is to define the north star metric for Reels, the guardrails that keep it healthy for Instagram as a whole, and what the team should stop optimizing for.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page metric strategy memo.

Your answer must

Recommend exactly one north star metric for Reels, define its numerator, denominator, level of aggregation, and review cadence, and explain why it best captures long term value for Instagram.
Define 3 to 5 guardrail metrics that cover consumer experience, creator health, spillover on the rest of Instagram, and integrity or safety, and give a target direction or threshold for each.
Name at least two plausible metrics you considered but rejected, and state the specific bad behavior each could drive if used as the main goal.
State clearly what Instagram should stop optimizing for on Reels, and explain how that would change ranking, product, or experiment decisions.
Include a segmentation and measurement plan that covers at minimum new versus mature users, viewers versus creators, and short term versus medium term effects.
Describe how you would align leadership on this scorecard, naming at least three partner teams or leaders and one likely disagreement you would need to resolve.

Constraints

You have 3 weeks before the next planning review.
Analytics can support only one new derived metric and one new survey question this quarter.
No major UI redesign or recommendation model rewrite can ship in the next 8 weeks, this decision is meant to guide existing roadmaps and experiments.
The framework must work globally on iOS and Android and comply with current privacy, youth safety, and content policy commitments.

Format

Structure the memo in five parts: goal, north star, guardrails, what to stop optimizing for, and rollout or alignment plan. Keep metric definitions concrete and tie each one to a decision it would change.