Michael UngarCEO of the Industry 4.0 Club

Achieving Sustainable Success in AI Projects

16 Apr 2025 · 2 min

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1:38

In this brief dialogue, two speakers discuss how to ensure AI/ML initiatives deliver lasting value after deployment. Speaker A emphasizes the importance of assigning a clear operational owner who will monitor and act on the project’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and stresses that this owner should be identified and involved from the project’s inception. By bringing long‑term stakeholders into the team early, their input is valued, which helps overcome resistance to change and secures buy‑in. Speaker B adds that effective change‑management also means listening to those who surface friction—people who complain or highlight problems—because addressing their concerns can turn them into allies and further reinforce sustainability.

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I've seen projects, especially in the artificial intelligence/machine learning place, I think really having something implemented to stick later has been a challenge that I'm still seeking to solve. But where I've seen other projects, those sustainable gains, I think the best practice is when the project is complete, having a clear operational owner that we will take the KPIs that you've determined the success of your project and continue on that path, I think are, are really important. And in order to do that, it's, you need to bring them in in the beginning. And so I think identifying who is important for long-term sustainability of that project, then you need to know who they are upfront, pull them in and make them part of the team, make them feel like their input is included and necessary. Especially if you're trying to drive change and the specific organization is resistant to change, having an equal voice and really understanding maybe some of their frustrations and being able to even solve a portion of it, you may get enough buy-in that when the project is complete, the sustainability aspect of it goes a lot easier.
Yeah, I think in that, in that vein and, and to your point of kind of like finding those people that are really committed to the success of a change management or like some continuous improvement project. Is that, you know, listening to the folks that, you know, maybe complain a lot, that like see that friction and like make noise about it, like, okay, let's do something about it.