What is a Project Phase?
A project phase is a collection of logically related activities culminating in the completion of one or more deliverables — design, build, test, deploy. Phases run sequentially, overlap, or iterate, and each typically ends at a gate where governance decides whether the next one starts.
Keep the exam trio distinct: phases chunk the timeline, process groups categorize activity within any phase, and the life cycle is the full set of phases end to end.
Worked example
A water-pipeline project runs four phases: route study → detailed design → construction → commissioning. The design phase ends with stamped drawings and a gate review; construction overlaps its tail (early trenching starts while final crossings are still being drawn — a calculated overlap the gate explicitly approved).