Use machine learning judiciously

Despite the hype, machine learning should not be the default approach to solve a problem. Complex problems, tightly tied to how our brains work like machine vision and natural language processing, are generally accepted as best tackled with artificial intelligence based on machine learning. Many real-world problems affecting a modern organisation are not of this nature and applying machine learning where it is not needed brings ongoing complexity, unpredictability and dependence on skills that are expensive to acquire and maintain. You could build a machine learning model to predict whether a number is even or odd - but you shouldn’t.

We typically recommend trying a non-machine learning based solution first. Perhaps a simple, rules-based system might work well enough to be sufficient. If nothing else, attempting to solve the problem with a non machine-learning approach will give you a baseline of complexity and performance that a machine learning-based alternative can be compared with.