Afsheem Alam

1. Allstate Marketing Agile Analytics

2. 2© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential
MARA Models Update
THIS IS NOT AGILE
• You have to go until phase 5 of the process to get
to places
• Its an incomplete product until stage 5
Picture source: https://pixabay.com/en/photos/einstein/

3. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 3
THIS IS AGILE
vision of a
genius……..
Group
• Each and every product is a complete product
that can be used
• Speed to Market – business value earlier
• Market testing can be done
• Design improvement can take place
• Fail Fast approach
Picture source: https://pixabay.com/en/photos/einstein/

4. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 4
SPEED TO MARKET
Potential Shippable Increments
$$
Value
Speed to market
Test
Feedback
Change
Include
or drop
variables
Develop
CI Feedback loop
Deliver Potential Shipment Increments – or deliver
models with data easily available
Use techniques that produce a model within weeks
rather than months
Deliver the highest value models first
Test the market with models, and bring them back to
the lab after feedback/test results

5. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 5
HOW WE IMPLEMENTED AGILE AT ALLSTATE
1
2
3
Symbol Count Description
Order of models
Product Backlog
1 Task
1 1 Model 1
3 1 Model 3
2 1 Model 2
1 Idea
1 Time
1 Master.23
1 Master.26
1 Note
Business Idea 4 Master.40
Validation
Implementation
Business
Idea
Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Time Boxed
Sprints
Sprint
Review

6. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 6
CHALLENGES OF AGILE – HANDLED WITH AGILITY
Management
Data Scientists
Non Agile Teams
Global Operations
• Research Mindset
• Fear of failure
• Business Results
• Fail fast approach
• Scope Creep
• Business idea loosely
defined
• Prioritized Stories
• Clearly defined
acceptance criteria
slides
• Random ETAs of key
dependencies
• Standardized
Delivery Dates
• No oversight on
process
• Daily meetings and
pictures of scrum boards

7. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 7
RESULTS AND USE CASES
Use Cases
October 2016 until June 2017
• 38 predictive models ready to go
• 12 R&D Sprints
• 18 Training Sprints
• 3 model fails
Digial
Digital Marketing Direct Mail/Email
Marketing
R&D

8. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 8
Appendix

9. MARA Models Update
© Allstate Insurance Company Proprietary and Confidential 9
HOW TO RUN SPRINTS – SAMPLE BOARD
• Sprint Planning meeting (half
day)
• Daily Stand up meeting 15 mins
• Update Scrum boards at the daily
meetings.
• Sprint Review meeting to present
acceptance criteria
• Sprint Retrospective meeting at
the conclusion of every sprint to
improve process.
Sprints
Sample Scrum Board