welcome
Thank you for purchasing the MEAP for Look Before You Leap.
If you have ever faced the frustration of stalled AI projects—as a project manager, developer, business user, or sponsor—and are convinced that there is a better way, then this book is for you.
Look Before You Leap presents a repeatable, pre-development methodology that stress-tests AI opportunities before any proof of concept (PoC) is launched. Technology-agnostic across generative AI, classical machine learning, and optimization, it helps leaders make evidence-based investment decisions before developing or acquiring any model. The method unifies user-centered design (desirability), hypothesis-based problem solving (economic viability), and data/engineering (feasibility) into a step-by-step “road test” that teams can run in days, not months.
Readers gain practical tools—including one-page canvases, problem-solving templates, readiness and maturity scorecards, stakeholder interview guides, prioritization frameworks, and editable prompts—along with explicit go/kill/pivot criteria. The result is a de-risked, continuously refreshed pipeline of AI initiatives that users want, that create measurable business value, and that can be delivered with the available data and tooling—ensuring organizations avoid waste and deliver results.