Chapter 3: Understanding and Defining Business Problems

This chapter covers topics that are the most critical for success and yet are not discussed in detail in data science programs or books. Although the topic of understanding and defining business problems is mentioned very briefly as something that should be done, it is very rare that the discussion will go into how to actually do it properly. In this chapter, we will go into specific tools and methods that can be used to gain an understanding of the system under consideration and determine the problem that needs to be solved.

This section is independent of DataRobot, as DataRobot cannot help you with this part of the process. This is something that a data analyst, a business analyst, or a data scientist has to do. Correctly defining a business problem is hard to do—it is not automatable, and it is also not done properly most of the time. If you gain this skill, you will become invaluable. This is a key area where there...