Hi,

If you need to add new stages to the project module you can use the code and try to add the code to the data folder and keep it as a data file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<odoo>

    <data noupdate="1">

               <record id="stage_id" model="project.project.stage">

                <field name="sequence">15</field>

                <field name="name">In Progress</field>

              </record>

    </data>

</odoo>

or do you need to override the existing stages you can use this method - the project_project_stage_0 id is already added in the demo file for the stage  To Do you can replace it with Draft

<record id="project.project_project_stage_0" model="project.project.stage"> style="background-color:#fafafa;font-size:11pt;">
            <field name="name">Draft</field>
            <field name="sequence">10</field>
    </record>

Hope it helps