How to sort specific content item in performance template configuration?

In the test environment, content items added to performance templates are rendered in alphabetical order by default. In contrast, the production environment does not exhibit the same behavior.

We previously encountered this issue in the test environment and were able to resolve it by prefixing competency names with numeric identifiers (for example, 1., 2., 3.), which resulted in the intended display order. However, applying the same approach in the production environment does not produce the same outcome.

Is alphabetical sorting of specific content items in performance templates an expected system behavior?