Elephant and Monkey story in research| Dataknobs

The elephant monkey story describe story of 2 villages and how they get food. They use diffferent approaches to collect. In enterprise also we have to use research and execution. The story desrive how to combine researh and execution tasks, how to use different methods to get results.

Elephant and Monkey story

There were 2 villages. First village had an elephant. Second village had a monkey. Everyday elephants and a monkey used to find food in the jungle for their villagers.

Elephant used to go thru known paths in the Jungle. If an elephant found food, he could easily get it by the power of his trunk. Elephant could carry plenty for the whole village. If an elephant could not find food in a given direction, it was very difficult to try a second direction. Villagers have to sleep without eating food if the elephant does not find food in two attempts.

Villagers were unhappy with the Elephant as they could not get food everyday.

On another hand, the 2nd village used to get some food every day. Their Monkey was quick. Monkey used to climb and jump through trees. If Monkey did not find food in one direction, Monkey went in 20 different directions. Monkey could invent new paths. Monkey always found food. However Monkey was small. Monkey has to struggle to pluck food from trees. Monkey have to make multiple trips to carry food. Even after multiple trips the monkey could not carry enough for the whole village.

Villagers were unhappy with Monkey too as Monkey could not bring required food.

A tourist went to both villages and noticed both methods. He brought two villages together and asked Elephant and Monkey to collaborate.

Everyday in Morning, Monkey used to go in different directions and check where food was. Then Monkey used to sit on the Elephant back and navigate him to go to a place where food is. Elephant could pluck and carry plenty of food for both villages.

Both villagers were happy with this approach.

In above analogy

  • Elephant = Waterfall method, Monkey = Agile, Villagers = customers, Tourist = Data science Leader.

  • Elephant = Execution, Monkey = Research. Villagers = Customers, Tourist = Data science leader

  • We go through the same situation in Machine Learning and in research projects. We do not know which experiment will give the result. We should use a light weight agile approach in areas of ambiguity & research. (monkey approach)

  • We should resolve ambiguous items in the beginning. As we get confidence in experiment outcomes, we should use a more structured & heavy weight approach to get results. In the beginning of research it is hard to find how much food (ROI) a team will get, after the research team can draw conclusions on what ROI, Success criteria can be established for the project.


    Link on my Linkedin post - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/monkey-elephant-story-manage-machine-learning-prashant-k-dhingra/

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