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According to the reading, top-down estimates is good for strategic decision making where the costs with developing better estimates have little benefit. The bottom-up approach is more reliable because it assesses each work package not the whole project.

For many years, I have worked in worked in IT. I look at data from portfolio management, project management, and task management, and each of these concepts look very similar. I’ve got an ID field, a description field, and a start and end date in all three.

I notice people can mean a lot of different things by “portfolio management,” but the most meaning common is probably project selection and prioritization. The principles ultimately affect everyone in the organization, but the process is of great interest to senior executives. Management starts off with certain constraints, such as a total available budget. If the portfolio management process is mature, this analysis might include not just new ideas but also existing projects.

To create a portfolio selection and prioritization process, management must analyze what business criteria drive the organization and agree in advance on the metrics that will be considered when looking at new and existing projects. Perhaps we should consider effects on client satisfaction or staff retention or alignment with strategic objectives. Whatever the key metrics are, management has to weigh each project initiative with a view to how that project can advance those objectives and how each project compares with alternate initiatives on which the money could be spent.

This is a highly analytic process even if it’s done in one’s head. Even once the analysis from software arrives in a report or a view, there is virtually always some management-level oversight where a final decision on priorities gets made. When that is complete, the final results must be transmitted to those who will do project management of each of the projects. The effects of these decisions...