"If data visualization had been removed we wouldn't be sitting here" : A qualitative study on data visualization in collaborative organizations.

Organisations use data visualisation for all sorts of different tasks, one of which isdecision making. Therefore, it is very important that the visualisation as well as thedata behind it is correct and customised to fit in with the organisations specific needs.If either one of those are incorrect the decisions being made with faulty data as a basiswill also be wrong. There has been previous research in the field focusing on datadriven decision making within organisations, but few have focused on how this appliesto collaborative organisations which cooperate over large geographic areas. This studyaims to fill that gap in the previous research by exploring how collaborativeorganisations can use data visualisation to improve their decision making. Two semistructured group interviews and two single interviews have been conducted withpeople of interest from both within the organisations as well as outside the organisationfrom different municipalities that cooperate within the targeted organisation. All ofwhich have been analysed using a thematic analysis to discover four themes. Theresults of this study shows that there is a general deficit of data, which then means thatthere often is no data to visualise. The results also showed that decision makers feel anuncertainty when it comes to trusting the underlying data if that data is not thoroughlyverified. The conclusion of this study is that visualisations increase the ability tounderstand complex data and help collaborative organisations make more efficientdecisions from a common standpoint.