Explain project life cycle.

Figure: -Life cycle of a project

There are 5 stages of any project initiating, planning, executing, controlling, & closeout. These are the general phases and change according to domain. For example when writing a book I will have the following mappings initiating (contacting publishers, & getting copy right etc), planning (Table of contents of book, tool to use, Number of chapters, chapter wise

Deadlines etc), executing (Actually writing the book), controlling (proof reading, page alignments, language checksetc), & closeout (And finally printing and on the shelf for sale). Therefore this classification is at very broader level, for the software development the above figure shows the mapping.

During the Software project management interview expected answer is requirement phase, design phase, coding phase, testing phase & project closure. But you can just impress the answer by giving a normal answer and then showing the mapping.