Governor Dr.DeLisle Worrell Calls for A Review of Processes for Developing and Implementing Complex IT Systems.

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Using Information Technology Efficiently

Dr. DeLisle Worrell
Governor, Central Bank of Barbados
Information Society of Barbados Conference
October 25, 2011
Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre

Using IT Efficiently
The unacknowledged challenge of IT in modern society is making use of new tools in ways that actually produce superior goods and services, delivered more cheaply and more quickly. By this criterion most of what we do with new technology is frivolous and unhelpful, and we are squandering the rich possibilities which modern technological miracles have made accessible to us. Simply by using the technology more thoughtfully and selectively we may increase our productivity by an order of magnitude, without any additional spending on IT. I will make a few observations to illustrate how we often go wrong, and make some comments on things that have increased my productivity, and things that have not.

Computing the unmeasurable:
Some years ago I worked for an international organization where my job was providing economic policy advice and training of central bank officials in aspects of financial analysis. This often involved missions to countries, in preparation for which a short memo was done setting out the background, the justification for the project, the work to be done and the expected results. Simple, effective and perfectly satisfactory to the beneficiaries. But, evidently, not sufficiently scientific for the people who produced the institution's financial accounts. They instituted, at great expense, a complex computerized database to replace the simple memo. All staff was required to attend training in the use of this database - training that involved nothing more complicated than knowing the sequence in which to fill out various boxes - and we had to replace the simple memo with a database-generated report which regurgitated the contents of the memo, augmented by comments on threats to the success of the project and other inanities.

In this case the use of IT resulted in a marked loss of efficiency: the delivery of the advice and technical assistance to the clients was in no way affected, but the administrative costs of providing those services, in terms of money and time, were significantly increased.

The ineffective use of Powerpoint.
PPT provides us a powerful tool for the visual communication of information, but most of us have not been trained in the techniques of effective visual communication. The seminal text in this field is entitled The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, published 2 decades ago by Edward Tufte (https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/). Judged by the criteria set down in that elementary primer, most presentations would rate a failing grade. The best visual is one which presents the greatest amount of information, or the most complex ideas, in such a way that the main conclusion is obvious at a glance. This requires thought, ingenuity, a deep insight into the material being presented, and, often, hours of drafting and redrafting, to end up with a picture that makes the main point succinctly.

In his book Tufte provides several dramatic illustrations of this principle in action. Among the most memorable is a map of Napoleon’s advance to Moscow in 1812-14 showing his progress by means of a ribbon whose width is scaled to the size of the Emperor’s army. The dramatic effects of losses due to disease and the deadly winter are immediately obvious, when the width of the advancing ribbon is compared with the thin thread of the retreating army.

Developing and implementing complex systems.
We need to revisit our processes for developing and implementing complex systems, because the current procedures require a degree of foresight that is beyond the capacity of the human mind. It requires us to imagine a future where we have the use of the new IT tool, something we cannot readily do, because we will have had no experience with the tool on which to draw. It is a bit like being asked to drive a car if all you’ve ever ridden is a bicycle. You may think you have a pretty good notion of what to do, but it is always going to turn out rather differently from what you thought. This is true, to an even greater extent, with new information systems. We think we have a pretty good notion what we wish new information systems to do for us, but in my experience, it is only when I begin working with a new system that it occurs to me where the most dramatic productivity gains are to be made, and they are often to be found in uses that could hardly have been anticipated.

An example of this is the Central Bank's Economic Review, a publication in which the Bank provides analyses of how our economy works. The Review is now published exclusively online. As expected, this reduces our production time, and costs. But it also allows us to include many more visuals, in full colour. As a result, we may rely on charts and visuals to a far greater extent than previously, in conducting research and presenting our results. Visuals aid the understanding and analysis of economic and financial statistics, and the presentation of the results is easier to follow. The result of electronic publishing is more revealing analysis and a more convincing presentation of the results, both crucial gains that we did not anticipate when we decided to go electronic.

The fact that we the users do not know what we really want from new information systems is an ongoing source of frustration to IT professionals. They pay careful attention to our wish list, they stay in close consultation with us as they develop the programmes we’ve asked for, and they are at pains to deliver exactly what we say we want. Finally it’s all done, and we come all excited to test drive it, and are completely underwhelmed. What has gone wrong?

The best explanation of our dilemma in this regard that I know of appears in Nasim Taleb’s pathbreaking book The Black Swan, which everyone should read. Taleb explains our limitations: “The notion of a future mixed with chance, not a deterministic evolution of your perception of the past, is a mental operation our mind cannot perform. … when we think of tomorrow we do not frame it in terms of what we thought about yesterday on the day before yesterday.” In other words, we are bound to see things differently when we come to experience them, than we pictured them when they were still in the future. In a forthcoming review of this book I explain Taleb’s argument as follows: “Almost everyone seems to believe that you should make a plan and stick to it, but that is usually the path of folly. Instead, a plan should be used as a reference table, against which economic indicators are evaluated as time evolves. It is what informs us that changes may be necessary in order to achieve the plan’s objectives.” That is as true for information systems as for everything else, and we need to build flexibility into the design of information systems, to allow the user to change their mind. It is a major challenge.

Final remarks:
I have given you a couple examples of things that have helped me to increase my productivity and efficiency, and that of the Central Bank, by using technological innovation in unexpected ways. Let me conclude by admitting that I composed these remarks, in their entirety, on my Blackberry, on the flight home from Toronto on Sunday. It is most certainly not what is expected to be using my phone to do. And, unlike most Blackberry users, I seldom do emails from my Blackberry. I never intended to use it as a notepad either. But I find that to be the thing that yields me greatest productivity. One more example of finding productive use of a new device in a totally unexpected direction.

DeLisle Worrell

October 25, 2011

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