The company I work for builds solutions - these are the items we take to market. Solutions consist of programs (1-to-many) - these are repeatable projects, or 'recipes' that we piece together to make a solution. Programs consist of multiple components. Components can (and typically do) apply to more than one program (many-to-many). What we end up with is a fairly complicated set of network dependencies - e.g.:
Explaining the network of solutions and components to internal teams is difficult so we build Solutions Maps to show how things interrelate. The purpose of the Solutions Map is to visually describe to our internal teams, how our world fits together. It is designed to be printed out in large format and posted on the walls of our offices. Some typical usage scenarios:
- it helps people learn how our world wires together - new employees / tech teams can see how components are re-used between solutions
- it explains to what segments our software provides value - sales can understand what components are applicable to which channels
- it illustrates how we do business - anyone can see how we take our software to market
Solutions Maps are not too far removed from the diagram above and use connectors to represent relationships. The issue is that this visualization itself is now too complex, and will only get more complex as our portfolio size increases.
What are some other ways we can visually represent the relationships between these objects such that a single static image can contain the entire graph?
UPDATE: updated the audience and purpose as a result of @adrianh answer below.
UPDATE: as per @vitaly's comment below, there are 5 solutions, each with 4-6 programs, and 30 or so components that each belong to between 2 and 10 solutions.