Task prioritization methods in flexible software development methodologies

Abstract

The modern task prioritization methods that are used in flexible software development methodologies are discussed in the paper. Very flexible development methodologies such as Scrum, Kunban and others are currently the most popular because they allow making adjustments to it at any stage of a project, to improve the quality of the created product through daily monitoring of its creation and quickly release the first versions of the software. All task prioritization methods that are used in software projects de-velopment including flexible methodologies are divided into those that take into account the point of view of the development team and those that are based on various quantitative assessments, among which various metrics, expert opinions, points of view of those who are interested in the project, availa-ble classifications etc. Among the considered prioritization methods, which take into account the opin-ion of the development team, there are such popular and actively used nowadays methods, as MoSCoW, story map (User story mapping) and proactive improvement. Among the considered methods, based on quantitative assessment, is Kano's model, the method based on the creation of evaluation sheets, the method for estimating relative priorities for a set of functions offered by Carl Wigers and the method of structuring quality functions (Quality Function Deployment). Depending on the features of the project, customer requirements, the wishes of the development team and the other objective or subjective fac-tors, the project can use one or several prioritization methods at the same time or the combination of them. In addition, some of the considered methods can be used in short-term planning, the others – in the long-term, but there are those that can be used at each stage.