Through an Architect’s Eyes

February 25, 2008

Angela Shen-Hsieh, the President and CEO of Visual i|o, thinks that powerful user interfaces can cut through much of the miscommunication that characterizes the relationship between IT and finance.

IT-Finance: What is the biggest issue between IT and finance?
Shen-Hsieh: I think the most basic issue is that they don’t speak the same language. When either side hears a document around a requirement is translating it into their own language. Co-founder Mark Shindler and I were both building architecture. The thing that is interesting is that it is the left brain/right brain connection. Architects have to use the social psychology to understand how people want to live or experience life and have to translate it into technical media. So there’s a natural communications in-don’t want to know about. That’s where IT takes over, so I think the biggest problem is in that translation.

IT-Finance: So the difficulty is getting everyone on the same page in terms of how to execute on an agreed-upon concept?
Shen-Hsieh: How do you translate it? I am trying to improve my allocation of resources, trying to better align allocations of resources to a strategic goal. From a business perspective [finance has] a very different picture in their head than IT. IT asks what data they need. The business guy is asking for more than data, asking for insight and analysis. So there’s a lot of translation issues there. What we do at Visual i/o is focused on the last 18 inches, the translation between the screen and how to get the idea the last 18 inches into the brain. We do it through the user interface. What we found in the 12 years of doing this that the UI could translate, that it is a very good common language between the IT and business side. The business side is asking, “Am I getting the insight and the analysis that I need?” and the T side says, “Okay, I know what I need to let onto that screen. They can make their own translation.”internally that architects have to mediate. People on the business side understand what they are trying to do. But all of the nuts and bolts of how that happens they

IT-Finance: Are things moving and evolving in that direction?
Shen-Hsieh: I definitely think so. We are privy to some of the thinking going forward by That’s what big vendors are trying to do.

That’s what big vendors are trying to do. They are trying to connect more with specific needs. What Visual i/o has been able to accomplish is to rethink how the data is structured in terms of business needs and business analysis. We crafted that into a tangible technical component. A layer in our technology is the abstraction of different kinds of business analysis.

I think in general things are trending that way. I’m not sure whether the business side should try to become more technical. I think 10 or 12 years ago I wouldn’t have said that, but these technologies are evolving so quickly. Ten or 12 years ago I could wire my whole office for Ethernet and telephone. Now even that basic type of technology is too complicated for me. I think that the technology is evolving and needs to evolve where more seamlessly integrated. our clients in terms of information technology.A big piece is rethinking the process and personnel and what kinds of skills will be needed in the future. On vendor side I think that a lot of companies are rethinking the way the data is structured. [The question is] how to push the business and the conceptual side down into the technology. I think everything is moving in that direction. insight and the analysis that I need?” and the IT side says, “Okay, I know what I need to get onto that screen. They can make their own translation.”

IT-Finance: So an effective user interface is the key.
Shen-Hsieh: It becomes a language that both sides can interpret. A lot of the problem is that the tools are still nascent. There history of architecture is 3,000 years. We have 40 in information technology.

IT-Finance: What is happening now?
Shen-Hsieh: What has come about is a whole function and set of people and processes that are in between IT and the business side because it is hard to get data. It created a whole functional area that just creates reports. So all the big pharmas have a big swatch of knowledge workers — in some cases they are called business support, business integration or business analyst — that sit between IT system and business. They know about each of their business partners’ needs and say, “I need data about this, get me some reports.” They go over to the system and know how to use some of these difficult-to-use tools to get data out and they put it into Power Points or tables or a document. This is a very cumbersome process. It slows down decision making and also is not a good medium. It is error prone because they don’t know exactly what the business side really wants. The premise that you can look at a Power Point presentation and have all your questions answered is not that reasonable. It tends in reality to create more questions.

IT-Finance: So you want to cut out the middleman, so to speak.
Shen-Hsieh: The thing lot of people are trying to do, including Visual i|o, is bring the ability to analyst to everyone. We hear about BI companies that are trying to create a more seamless integration. Right now IT is still young, a lot of wires are showing and people are building processes to get around that.

IT-Finance: So it’s not necessarily providing more detailed information. It’s providing data in a way that it is accessible to more people.
Shen-Hsieh: I do think there is the need for more left brain/right brain thinking across all industries. I’m not the first person to say that.

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