Artificial Intelligence for Business

CHAPTER 3Defining the Project

Now that you have an introduction to artificial intelligence and an idea bank in place, you are ready to take the next step toward implementing AI technology and harnessing its many benefits.

In this chapter, we will look at how to take an idea from your idea bank and construct a plan to actualize it. A methodical approach here will help you not to lose sight of your progress or allow your project to end up in the “never completed” bin. This step will build a high-level roadmap for the successful implementation and completion of any of your chosen tasks. Most traditional software development philosophies start with building an extremely detailed specification document, covering individual development tasks and coming up with estimates for each. This approach, however, requires a large upfront investment at the point in your project when you, by definition, know the least. This means that lots of the painstakingly identified details and minutia put into your document may well become irrelevant soon after the project starts.

For reference, you can probably imagine how such a detailed document would inhibit the development process in the context of AI models. Assume that after a couple of weeks, the selected AI model “X” specified in the requirements document is proven to be ineffective for the type of problem it is being considered for. In such a case, it becomes imperative to try different models in an attempt to find one that will fulfill the project's ...