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How could I have answered the following interview question? Please piece together the high level steps of a project - from start to finish, but haven't found anything concrete.

Here's how I understand it:

0) Sponsor has an idea
1) Sponsor drafts Project Charter
2) PM reviews Charter with the team
3) Once approved by PM, Project Management Plan is drafted by PM
4) Sponsor reviews/approves Project Management Plan
5) Team begins development cycle (Agile, Waterfall, etc)
6) Sponsor reviews/approves satisfaction with project
7) Project is completed
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    Your question is very broad. There are many different types of project and many different approaches to doing them. Could you possibly make it more specific? – Barnaby Golden Mar 23 '16 at 20:48
  • I'll comment on the confusion part only (for the rest I tend to agree with Barnaby, it's quite broad). PMP, PMI, and PMBOK belong together. PMI is the Project Management Institute, a US-based organization for standards and policies concerning project management. PMP is one of their credentials, the Project Management Professional. PMBOK is what they call the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Prince2 is a different set of tools and methods for project management, not related to PMI but from UK-based AXELOS. – Ghanima Mar 24 '16 at 0:34
  • VTC. Way too broad. You might be able to cobble together "standard" steps for one or a group of similar methodologies, but other approaches and methods will have other quite dissimilar steps. There just is not a standard set of steps to take other than 1) Figure out what needs doing 2) Do those things – Marv Mills Mar 24 '16 at 9:04
  • @BarnabyGolden I couldn't agree with you more, but this question was actually asked during an interview I had the other day. I was afraid the answer "Your question is too broad" wasn't what he was looking for, he just emphasized "the standard steps". I ended up telling him I don't know and he never told me what he was expecting so that's why I came here to ask. – smaili Mar 24 '16 at 16:52
  • @smaili It was a bad interview question. If you reframe the question as "How could I have answered a bad interview question like..." it might be on-topic over on WorkplaceSE. It probably wouldn't be on-topic here because that type of question still has no strictly canonical answer from a project management "field of practice" standpoint. – Todd A. Jacobs♦ Mar 24 '16 at 20:44
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Check out Rita's Process Chart for a high level overview of a project from PMI's perspective. The project charter will probably not be approved by the PM since she may be the one developing it.

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