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Explaining data science's ROI problem
Data scientist has been consistently ranked the best job in America by Forbes Magazine
from 2016 to 2019, yet the best job in America has not produced the best results for the
companies employing them. According to VentureBeat, 87% of data science projects fail
to make it into production. This means that most of the work that data scientists perform
does not impact their employer in any meaningful way.
By itself, this is not a problem. If data scientists were cheap and plentiful, companies
would see a return on their investment. However, this is simply not the case. According
to the 2020 LinkedIn Salary stats, data scientists earn a total compensation of around
$111,000 across all career levels in the United States. It's also very easy for them to find
jobs.
Burtch Works, a United States-based executive recruiting firm, reports that, as of 2018,
data scientists stayed at their job for only 2.6 years on average, and 17.6% of all data
scientists changed jobs that year. Data scientists are expensive and hard to keep.
Likewise, if data scientists worked fast, even though 87% of their projects fail to have
an impact, a return on investment (ROI) is still possible. Failing fast means that many
projects still make it into production and the department is successful. Failing slow means
that the department fails to deliver.
Unfortunately, most data science departments fail slow. To understand why, you must
first understand what machine learning is, how it differs from traditional software
development, and the five steps common to all machine learning projects.
Defining machine learning, data science, and AI
Machine learning is the process of training statistical models to make predictions using
data. It is a category within AI. AI is defined as computer programs that perform cognitive
tasks such as decision making that would normally be performed by a human. Data
science is a career field that combines computer science, machine learning, and other
statistical techniques to solve business problems.