 Napoleon's March to Moscow and NPD
/ R&D Portfolios
... Seeing
is Believing
"Graphical elegance is often found in simplicity of design and
complexity of data"
- Edward R. Tufte, Prof. Yale
University
from "The
Visual Display of Quantitative Information" ,
Graphics Press, 1982 Chesire, CT
|
|
Did you ever hear of a French
engineer by the
name of Charles Joseph Minard? In his obituary, he was
referred to as a general inspector of bridges and roads. Yet
in 1859 he wanted to convey to his fellow Frenchmen the
catastrophe of war. In one graphic,
Minard summarized the War of 1812 - Napoleon's march on Moscow.
It is just a simple picture (see below), but it tells the
painful story of war in the 1800's.
|
Minard's graphic depicts
Napoleon's Army's march from Paris to Moscow.
The width of the gray striped area is the size of
the Army going to Moscow, placed over a geographic
map. Notice how the width of the band
shrinks, especially when crossing rivers. The
solid black area/line reveals the size of the Army
returning to Paris.
The bottom line
graph displays the temperatures encountered on the
return.
French casualties in
Moscow were light. Yet the Army was consumed in
the march. Only 10,000 of the original 432,000
survived.
Click picture
to enlarge |
No doubt, a picture is worth
a thousand words. Here, it tells a complete
story, revealing insights that are extraordinary. As
Yale University Professor Tufte, the renowned author
of "The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information"
puts it,
good graphics are "powerful."
And while
NPD and R&D portfolio management may not be exactly
Napoleon's march on Moscow (some might argue the case), good graphics
are enormously important in our battles as well. Indeed, when
it comes to communicating to top management, I'd rather have
one good graphic than a dozen data tables. For NPD and R&D portfolio
management, the most important chart to have is, without
question, the
bubble chart. Yet, as the poor manager that is asked
to create them knows, the bubble chart is also the most difficult to generate and
present.
|
|
Management
can easily grasps the notion that, in bubble charts,
each bubble represents a different project, and
that properties of the bubbles reveal information about the projects. At
minimum: all bubbles have an X and Y position, all bubbles have
a size (diameter), and all bubbles have a color.
To make bubbles charts really communicate, it is often helpful to place labels
or names next to the bubble, to show a
"% slice" within the bubble, and to group
project types by the shape of
the bubble (circle, square, diamond, hexagon). All of the
properties, when taken together and through averages and
distributions, convey a visual map
of the portfolio. Good bubble charts can quickly communicate information
about individual projects and often can reveal profound
insights about the portfolio as a whole. Just
like Minard's insightful chart, good bubble diagrams can be
"powerful."
|
|
|
Your Projects'
March to
Launch
Bubble charts that show
the dynamics of a portfolio -- the changing state of
the portfolio, much like Minard's diagram of
the changing state of Napoleon's march -- can
be extremely powerful. But don't think you can create such charts easily with MS Excel charting
function. You can't. However, it is possible to create them easily. Adept's
PortView(TM) charting software
enables users to create bubble charts that reveal
visually the changes happening
in
a portfolio. The software gives users the capability
to assign to the chart a property called "Projection
Arrows." Think of these as vectors showing the movement of the
bubbles.
 |
Creating charts in PortView is extremely easy.
Users simply assign a data field (from a
database table) or a column name (from Excel) to each
property: horizontal axis, vertical axis, size of
bubble, color of bubble, fill style of bubble, shape of
bubble, or slice within bubble. The screen
shot to the left shows a PortView window for
assigning fields to the properties of the bubble. Here
you see a means to assign the values within database
fields or spreadsheet columns to the color of
the bubbles, the full style of the bubbles, the shape of
the bubbles, the size of the bubbles, the slice within
the bubbles and the text label placed next to each
bubble.
Because the output is
formatted as a Microsoft Windows MetaFile (vector
graphic, not bitmap), users may place PortView
's graphic output into any MS Office application,
including PowerPoint. Indeed, the output is
formatted to match the landscape shape of a PowerPoint
slide.
Therefore any chart produced by
PortView may be stored or distributed as a
slide in PowerPoint, and you may ungroup and edit
anything in the chart just like you would any other
PowerPoint slide. If you know how to use Excel and
PowerPoint, you already know how to use
PortView. |
The chart below
displays projection arrows for projects moving through a
stage-gate process. PortView creates these
vectors as lines between by two points: the X and Y center
of the bubble and a second end-point, X' and Y'. Here, the
beginning of the arrow (X', Y') is the position the project
was in at the time of the previous portfolio review. For
this chart, both the direction and the length of
the projection arrow indicate how the project has progressed
since the last portfolio review. Sure, the data or
metrics may be in a table someplace, but communicating true
insights to management about the portfolio requires
such dynamics to be seen. Seeing is believing.
|
|
| The
bubble chart above was created in PortView simply by selecting
the "Project Arrow" function, and then assigning the end-point
X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) coordinates. In the data
table, the column names are "Previous Stage-Gate Position" and
"Previous Time to Market." These names were selected from the
drop down menu created automatically by PortView when it reads
the data table. |
|
|
Without
the projection arrows, issues within
the portfolio may go unnoticed or not
fully understood. Obviously, bubbles vectoring to
the north, as does Venus J,
indicate that projects are taking
longer to develop. Projects (bubbles) with steep, long downward projection arrows are
moving along at a rapid clip. Much
of these insights are lost
in a single static picture of a portfolio. The
projection arrow simply transforms a static snapshot into a
highly dynamic view. This is "powerful."
Seeing is
Believing
The visual display of
metrics is tremendously important in NPD
and R&D Portfolio and Pipeline Management. The advantage of the
PortView software is that it is simple to use and it makes
superb portfolio views. By using projection arrows, portfolio views
do not have to be static snapshots. PortView can
easily convey the dynamics of a portfolio in an
easy to understand picture.
|
|
|
PortView
reads a data source such as Excel from
anywhere a path can be created. Users then
assign properties to create the chart as
they see fit. Output (the chart) may be
placed in PowerPoint and ungroup for further
editing or simply distributed to anyone with
PowerPoint.
|
Learning about PortView
and how this credit card priced tool
engages management is very easy. Simply
click here to obtain a Free Demo Download of PortView
and
pricing or click here for a quick, online slide show.
Hundreds of companies around the world like
Pfizer, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Dow Chemical,
Novartis, and Hershey are active users. It is embraced by
both firms just starting up portfolio management and by organizations with well-established
enterprise systems already in place supporting product
development and portfolio management.
While Portfolio
Management may not be
the same as Napoleon's march to Moscow, Minard showed
us that smart graphics are the best way to reveal
and communicate profound insights. There is
no doubt that using great graphics to convey
insights about your portfolio is vital to your NPD
and R&D productivity. PortView can
help. Take a moment and give it a try.
It' s a powerful tool.
|
|
PortViewTM Offers
Superb Features,
For NPD
and R&D
Portfolio
Management
 |
Direct creation of
MS
PowerPoint
slides.
Also
enables
insertion
of
views
into
MS
Word
for
full
text
reports.
|
|
Ease-of-use, with many
pre-established and optimal defaults (yet you
can change each
as
you
wish)
|
|
Handling
and
filtering
of
metrics,
with
no
restriction
on
the
number
of
projects
included.
|
|
On-screen
display
of
"drill
down"
project
metrics
and
information.
|
|
Zoom for closer-in views. Creates
PowerPoint slides that are "zooms"
on
project
"clusters." Axes
and
all
variables
are
instantly
adjusted.
|
|
Reads a
data
source
into
an
array
(in
your
computer’s
memory)
for
extremely
fast data
manipulation.
Data
source
is
not
disrupted.
Quick
changes
made
to
data
within
PortView
may
be
saved
as
a
separate
data
file.
|
|
Enables plotting
of
"Strategic
Groups",
such
as
target
markets,
project
types,
geographic
areas and
technology
platforms
|
|
Enables charting and display of
Strategic Buckets
(such
as
business
units)
and
their
statistical
summaries.
|
|
Direct-to-chart
display
of
labels
(names
next
to
each
bubbles)…
built-in
algorithmic
separation
of
text
so
that
there
is
no
overlay
of
labels.
Fast
and
easy
use
of
templates.
|
|
Simply import
of next month’s data for next month’s
view. All
saved
graphs
are
templates
for
making
other
graphs.
|
|
Setting
and
using
grouping
variables as
axes
(categorical
axes).
For
example,
using
“stage
of
development”
along
an
axis.
|
|
Dividing numeric
data
fields
into
ranges
of
“n-tiles”
(e.g.,
quartiles).
|
|
Displaying
calculated
data
on
Strategic
Buckets
(means,
data
ranges,
etc.)
into
both
views
and
data
tables.
|
|
Using
data
to
show
“Projection
Arrows”
that
visually
communicate
dynamic
changes
over
time
(e.g.,
this
project
is
moving
in
this
direction)
|
|
Extremely fast editing of views with MS
office style "undo" to help correct
mistakes
|
|
Distribution of all output in
PowerPoint decks
|
|
Adept Group support and assistance
on creating your own world-class Portfolio
Views. |
|
|
|
Best
Regards,
Paul O'Connor
The Adept Group Limited,
Inc.
Tel: 904-273-5319
www.adept-plm.com
Focused on Productivity in New
Product Development
|
Check out
PortViewTM
Our superb desktop
software for charting portfolios.
Click HERE
|
Smart
Portfolio,
Pipeline, and Platform Management
Workshop
Click
to download brochure
|
|
Brief
Bio on Paul O'Connor:
Paul O'Connor is an expert in the fields of New Product Development
Productivity. He has conducted assignments, implementation initiatives
and benchmarking activities with such firms as Akzo-Nobel, SBC,
Hercules, Shell Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Black & Decker,
L & F Products, DuPont, Polaroid, Kraft, Raychem, Bausch &
Lomb, Exxon, Nabisco, Ameritech, Corning, Dow, Eastman Chemical,
Pitney Bowes, Lucent Technologies, S.C. Johnson, Eaton, US West,
Calgon Carbon, Milliken, Reynolds Metals, Kodak, Mead Paper, AT&T,
Shuford Mills, General Electric, McNeil Labs, Blue Cross Blue Shield,
Uniroyal Chemical, DuPont-Dow Elastomers, Sprint, UPS, Ashland,
Johnson & Johnson, AlliedSignal, Praxair, Senco and Stanley
Tools.
Mr. O'Connor is Managing Director and principal shareholder
of The Adept Group. Paul is also Past-President of the
Product Development and Management Association, and teaches Portfolio
Management for PDMA and the Adept Group. More
PortView is a
trademark of The Adpet Group
MS PoewrPoint, MS Word and MS Excel
are Trademarks of Microsoft
If you know others who might wish to
receive this periodic e-newsletter, simply have
them email to:subscribe-request@adept-plm.com
To unsubscribe from these periodic
emailings, please email us
at:
unsubscribe@adept-plm.com |
|
|
|
Copyright 2007 The Adept Group, Ltd. All rights
reserved.
|
 |
|
|
