Reporting R&D Expenditure: A Visual Approach for Technology Managers and Senior Executives

Abstract

Visualizations have the potential to be a powerful means of communication, especially for quantitative data, helping managers to see significant patterns and deviations. To be effective, visuals need to be appropriate for the task and properly designed. Most organizations tend to limit themselves to a small repertoire of rather simplistic graphs and charts. More expressive and intuitive representations can be deployed to provide both useful and engaging formats. This article presents a new composite form of visualization that has been designed to better convey research and development budget and expenditure figures to senior executives. In addition to providing a summary overview of the data, this functionally designed visualization offers a means to structure discussions in management meetings and provoke examination of what the data means in terms of financial allocations, top budget holders, requested funds, potential shortfalls, and weak/strong performing areas. The visualization deploys a combination of Sankey flow streams, mini pie charts, technology readiness levels, bar charts, annotated tick-marks, and graphic equalizer-style tally bars. Using a real-world dataset, an illustrative example is provided. This novel combination of visual objects provides an exemplar, which other organizations can adapt and apply, to support funding reviews and investment decision-making.