HBR Guide to AI Basics for Managers

CHAPTER 6

Ramp Up Your Team’s Predictive Analytics Skills

by Eric Siegel

With today’s high demand for data scientists and the high salaries that they command, it’s often not practical for companies to keep them on staff. Instead, many organizations work to ramp up their existing staff’s analytics skills, including predictive analytics. But organizations need to proceed with caution. Predictive analytics is especially easy to get wrong. Here are the first three “don’ts” your team needs to learn, and their corresponding remedies.

Don’t Fall for Buzzwords. Clarify Your Objective.

As fashionable as it is, “data science” is not a business objective or a learning objective in and of itself. This buzzword means nothing more specific than “some clever ...