A PMBoK Extension Proposal for Data Visualization in Software Project Management

Although the human brain stores images more easily than text, most of the tools adopted for software project management are based on textual reports. The number of software projects that fail is huge, and the lack of understanding of the project complexity by the stakeholders is among the reasons for project failure. Data visualization techniques and tools can help to identify the project issues and reduce misunderstandings. In this paper, we investigate how project management can benefit from data visualization. To do so, we adopted a hybrid research approach composed by a systematic mapping study, a survey, and three focus group sessions. As a result, we identify a set of the 16 visualization techniques and tools that can be used to support software project management and we propose a PMBoK extension that provides a reference for practitioners who are planning to use data visualization to support software project management.