Can you see the forest for the trees? Supporting sense-making through the visualization of project portfolios

Visual representations are powerful thinking aids. We acquire and process more information through vision than all other senses combined. It is not surprising that much of the existing project and portfolio management tools are visual. However, visuals have received surprisingly scant attention from academy and practice. The few studies in the area are disconnected from the literature in data visualization itself, where there is a wealth of literature and wisdom about visual representations. This paper, which is partly funded by the Project Management Institute, shares insights from the data visualization literature and proposes principles to be considered for the engagement of visual representations that can help managers to make sense of project portfolio challenges. We conclude with potential avenues for future research on visualization in project and portfolio management.