Abstract
Selecting an appropriate project management methodology is a consequential governance decision in information technology (IT), where requirements, technical dependencies, stakeholder expectations, and regulatory obligations vary substantially. This article synthesizes literature comparing Agile and Waterfall approaches and develops a context-sensitive framework for methodology selection. A systematic literature review was reported using the source manuscript’s four-database search and screening record, with thematic synthesis organized around planning, requirements volatility, stakeholder participation, delivery cadence, documentation, risk, quality, scalability, and organizational readiness. The reviewed evidence indicates that Agile is particularly useful when uncertainty is high and value can be delivered incrementally, because short feedback cycles make assumptions visible and permit reprioritization. Waterfall remains useful when requirements and interfaces are sufficiently stable, sequential dependencies are consequential, and formal documentation or approval gates are necessary. Neither approach guarantees success: Agile can suffer from scope drift, weak documentation, meeting overhead, and dependence on experienced teams, whereas Waterfall can defer learning and make late changes costly. The central contribution is a contingency-based decision framework that links methodology choice to requirements stability, risk, compliance, stakeholder availability, technical uncertainty, and delivery constraints. Hybrid governance is treated not as an automatic compromise but as a deliberate configuration requiring explicit decision rights, integration practices, and quality controls. The review also identifies reporting limitations in the underlying evidence and recommends more transparent, longitudinal, and comparable empirical studies.
