Throughout many of the other project management terms that you may encounter, often times they will be peppered by references to the project’s specific project life cycle and how certain specific activates or events fit into that particular life cycle. Specifically speaking, the concept of the project life cycle refers to the entire collection of generally and typically sequential project phases that are designed to e accomplished over the course of the given project. Those particular project phrases typically are assigned a name and number that are determined by the controlling needs of the given organization and or total number of organizations that are said to e involved in the project, in some capacity or another. The project life cycle begins the moment that a project is conceived and ends when the final elements of the project conclude, and may even extend longer in the event there are certain documentation tasks to be done at a later date.
This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.