The project life cycle, a well-established concept in project management literature and education, is used to highlight the dynamic requirements placed on a typical project manager. As a project moves through the selection, planning, execution, and termination phases, the project manager and team are faced with different, vying areas of concern--including the immediate task priorities, the probable sources of conflict, and the relevant critical factors for project success. Unfortunately, traditional representations of the project life cycle emphasize accounting-oriented aspects of the life cycle that are less interesting, such as percent complete and level of effort. In this article, the authors introduce a new framework, the eye diagram, that illustrates the more substantive aspects of the life cycle concept in an intuitive and accessible format. (Contains 10 figures.)