I was reminded today in a book I’m reading on visual analytics that the purpose of any analytical project is ultimately to make better decisions. Coming from a mixed business and IT background, I have had my fair share of IT vs. Business conundrums.
With my IT hat on, I’m always thinking about efficiency, optimisation, ease-of-use, and resource management. What questions are being answered, what problems are being solved, or what the ROI (to a certain extent) isn’t always on the forefront of projects (though almost always who’s the requester is).
With my business hat on, I’m always thinking about what business questions to solve, what information needs I have, and just plain old “getting the answer”, which IT isn’t always the most willing to help retrieve. I don’t care about how long IT takes (so long as its done yesterday) and how much effort they need to put in or how optimised the process is, I just want my questions answered so I can make better decisions. Isn’t that what technology-driven analytics is supposed to do
But, coming from a mix of business and IT backgrounds, I know the problems both sides face. IT needs more emphasis on understanding business needs, while business needs to understand IT constraints.
My current role has me more as a “business” person, and I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. A blessing in that I’m given a lot more face time in business and finance discussions, allowing me an almost voyeuristic view of how the business makes its money. A curse in that IT treats me as any other “business” user who’s request trigger-happy and who doesn’t understand the IT side of things (and therefore who should be ignored most of the time).
It’s tough convincing IT to talk about the things that could potentially give pretty decent ROI when they don’t trust you.
“I’m one of you,” I tell them.
“Yeah, you sure are, buddy,” they reply, smiling, handing me a ticket number.
Donn, fragments 
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