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AI Use Case Business Review Process

Background & Scope

The purpose of the AI Use Case Business Review process is to keep information on organization's AI use cases and their impact current. Existing Data & AI Governance processes record use cases in the AI Use Case Registry. The business review process complements AI Governance by:

  • Keeping registry information up to date.
  • Identifying additional use cases that should be raised with Data & AI Governance team.
  • Collecting measures of AI adoption and business value.

The scope of this review does not cover small ad-hoc use-cases created for a single individual within broader platforms. For example, we document the use of Databricks Genie, but not every single use-case that staff have found for using Genie in a workflow. Similarly, some AI agents get pushed into our tenant by third-parties, e.g., the myriad of third-party agents in MS365 Copilot, and we do not intend to keep each of these in the registry unless it is taken up into a materially impactful use-case.

Process Definition

The AI Use Case template in Alation defines the information collected for each use case. See the AI Use Case Registry for details. The template may change, but its data elements generally cover:

  • The use case description and intended uses.
  • Known risks.
  • Stakeholders and stewards.
  • Business domains.
  • Implementation status.
  • Quantitative and qualitative measures of adoption and business value.

The Enterprise AI/ML and Advanced Analytics team aims to review each use case in the registry twice per fiscal year. The first review occurs when a use case is created in the registry. Schedule its next review two fiscal quarters after creation, then schedule subsequent reviews at two-quarter intervals. This means a use case created in the second half of the fiscal year receives its next review in the first half of the following fiscal year.

The review process includes these steps:

  • Each fiscal quarter, AI/ML team members are assigned a set of use cases to review.
  • Review tasks are scheduled into sprints, with story points that reflect their impact on team capacity.
  • The assigned team member contacts the use case's AI Stewards by email or, if needed, in a brief meeting, then updates the registry entry.
  • The assigned team member asks the AI Stewards whether they know of undocumented use cases that should be raised for broader awareness.

If the team member is unable to reach the respective AI Steward, then it will be escalated through the AI/ML team leader. The team leader may also attempt outreach to the AI Steward or escalate the issue to the manager. If outreach is not successful, then the use case should be flagged in Alation as potentially out of date.

Workload management

  • Divide the number of active use cases by the number of available sprints in the half-year, then round up to determine how many reviews to start per sprint.
  • Historically, our teams have conducted 25 sprints per year, 23 of which are two weeks and 2 of which are three weeks (around Thanksgiving and New Year's, respectively). Therefore, the reviews in the second half of the calendar year may require a higher initial throughput to account for the end of the year slow-down.
  • A review is expected to take one to four weeks due to communication and scheduling with use-case stewards. We anticipate a total effort of a couple of hours of work per review, spread over this time period.
  • Each team member may have up to two active reviews at a time.

Technical Solution

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Will update with solution architecture diagram]

To facilitate this process, the AI/ML and Advanced Analytics team will design, develop, and maintain an integration between Monday Dev and Alation. The integration will satisfy the following requirements:

  • Review tasks for use cases in the registry are automatically created in Monday Dev and assigned to the appropriate fiscal-year quarter.
    • Create a task when a use case is added to the registry.
    • Close or archive tasks when a use case is archived.
  • When a Monday Dev review task is marked done, update the use case in Alation with the completion date of the most recent review.