How P&G Presents Data to Decision-Makers - Tom Davenport - Harvard Business Review

I highly recommend this article by Tom Davenport in a recent Harvard Business Review.

"Those of us who believe that managers make better decisions when key data are presented visually tend to get very excited about all the innovation going on in the graphical display of information. (For a sampling of some new and cool tools, see the popular Hans Rosling TED talk.) However, if you work in a large organization and want it to make better use of data visualization, I'd argue that commonality is more important than creativity. If you can establish a common visual language for data, you can radically upgrade the use of the data to drive decision-making and action."

Innovative desktop "dashboard" displays, meeting spaces called "Business Spheres," and graphics such as the "heat map" shown above are fueling better decisions. 

H/T: DS