A comparative analysis of project scheduling priority rules and prioritization techniques in agile contexts

Abstract

The software development literature presents a theoretical gap between two approaches that address the same decision problem in isolation: priority rules in Project Management (PM) and prioritization techniques in agile contexts. This systematic literature review, based on the PRISMA 2020 protocol, characterizes and compares them to identify similarities, differences, and integration opportunities, analyzing 72 studies published between 2018 and 2026, selected from 807 records in Scopus and Web of Science. No study compares them directly, and only one of the 72 studies (1.4%) algorithmically integrates project scheduling priority rules in an agile context. Possible functional similarities were identified —WSJF and SPT, MoSCoW and EDD, WSJF+FCM and MINTWR—, only the first supported by classical definitions, along with conceptual differences: agile techniques select what to build based on perceived customer value, while PM rules sequence in what order to execute activities under resource constraints. It is argued that the separation between paradigms responds to disciplinary rather than technical reasons, and Product Owner training recommendations and a preliminary metric-translation framework are proposed, which opens integration opportunities still unexplored in the literature.