Project management activities are made up of a series of phases that project needs to pass through from initiation to termination or closure. There are different types of project life cycle and one of them is the predictive life cycle.
The predictive life cycle is defined as the scope of the project, including time and costs, that are necessary to deliver it are determined early in the project’s lifecycle as possible. Since the deliverables and products are already defined from the very start of the project, the project manager should manage the changes in the scope to prevent any problems in implementing the entire project.
The activities in the predictive life cycle follow a series of sequential or even overlapping phase. The project management team focuses on defining the scope for the project. From there, they need to develop a plan on how they can deliver the product and then proceed to the other phases to execute the plan. The presence of changes usually requires the project team to re-plan and accept the new scope. This type of life cycle is preferred if the deliverable are well understood and if there is a substantial base of the practice of a particular industry.
This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.