Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4-15:
Radial hierarchy and circular hierarchy of viral e-mails.
An alternative circular layout will set out each successive level as another
set of circles around each successive node—as shown on the right side of
Figure 4-15
. It may not be particularly appealing on this hierarchy with a
few hundred nodes but can work well with even larger hierarchies. It tends
to look good on hierarchies where intermediate nodes in the tree tend to
have degrees higher than 3 or 4 so that the circular shape is more visibly
apparent.
Figure 4-16
shows a hierarchy of more than 4,000 managers in a Fortune
500 company. The president is the person shown near the bottom left of
the image as a light yellow dot. People with more direct reports are clearly
more visible surrounded by larger circles of nodes. And you can get a sense
of circles made up of smaller circles. The upper-left quadrant of the image
shows in the center a direct report of the CEO, surrounded by many smaller
bubbles showing successive levels of managers and sub-managers.
Comparing these various levels of bubbles provides a much stronger sense
of who is responsible for different areas of the company, compared to the
traditional organizational chart showing only one or two levels seen back in
