What is the project management approach that have a serious of distinct steps?

There are five phases to a project lifecycle; known as process groups. Each process group represents a series of inter-related processes to manage the work through a series of distinct steps to be completed. This type of project approach is often referred to as "traditional" or "waterfall". The five process groups are:

Typical development phases of an engineering project
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling
Closing

Some industries may use variations of these project stages and rename them to better suit the organization. For example, when working on a brick-and-mortar design and construction, projects will typically progress through stages like pre-planning, conceptual design, schematic design, design development, construction drawings (or contract documents), and construction administration.

While the phased approach works well for small, well-defined projects, it often results in challenge or failure on larger projects, or those that are more complex or have more ambiguities, issues, and risks

The waterfall, sometimes called traditional, approach is the project management approach that has a series of related processes.