From the course: Predictive Analytics Essential Training for Executives

Why deployment, not insight, is the primary goal

From the course: Predictive Analytics Essential Training for Executives

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Why deployment, not insight, is the primary goal

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- [Instructor] I happen to love Tang. You know, the sugary powdered orange drink from the late '50s early '60s? I think it's because when I was a little boy they would always run TV advertisements for Tang that said it was the drink of the astronauts. Apparently, the advertisements exaggerated the truth a bit, but the TV ads described it as a so-called spinoff technology, an added benefit of our achievement of space flight. What does this have to do with predictive analytics? Well, I want to clarify what should be the primary goal of a project versus what should be a spinoff benefit. Many projects have insight as the primary goal. After all, who doesn't like analytical insights? Here's the problem. If that is your primary goal, you never really know when you are done and it's virtually impossible to establish return on investment. So for years, I've been on a bit of a campaign against insight projects with my clients. Projects defined as insight projects tend to meander. While projects are inherently iterative, insight projects cover the same ground over and over again. They have good days in which an insight was found and bad days in which no insight was found, yet they never actually finish. Here's the good news. It doesn't have to be this way. We just change the goal from gaining insights to deploying a working model. If a deployed model is the primary goal, you will find insights, probably lots of them, just along the way. I've never encountered a project that made it all the way to deployment that didn't have spinoff benefits, not once. Sometimes the insights are so dramatic that the project is put on pause or might even be redefined in light of those insights, but here is the irony. If you go looking for insights, you may or may not find them. However, if you have a focused project with a purpose that is designed to culminate in a deployed model, then you are guaranteed to find them.

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