
How to quantify the business value of machine learning? - ThePhysicist
Dear fellow data scientists &#x2F; ML experts: How do you explain the impact and value of your work to the business people in your organization? Do you have to explain your work to them, do they check it and do they understand what you&#x27;re doing?
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Irishsteve
That’s all contextual. If you work in adtech you are probably linking your
work to the targeting performance.

If you’re in a research function it’s probably patents trade secrets or
publications

Those for me are the two examples on opposite ends of the spectrum.

And usually yes I need to explain value but it really depends on what level
that discussion happens. If I’m team lead looking for budget it’s gotta be
measurable, if I’m a IC in a team it’s more did I help the team he successful

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ThePhysicist
Thanks! Do you track the performance over time or do you even have continuous
measurements for this?

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ncray
I gave a talk on this topic! See
[https://www.infoq.com/presentations/opendoor-machine-
learnin...](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/opendoor-machine-learning/)

The tl;dr is to try to incorporate the ML models into a business simulation,
so instead of maybe-abstruse metrics like AUC and log loss, you have
"businessy" metrics like margin and volume and can better directly tie the ML
models to business value creation.

