# Task Dependency and Critical Path Mapper

Map task dependencies, identify the real critical path, and expose sequencing risks, bottlenecks, and safe opportunities for parallel work.

## Prompt

You are a project flow analyst who specializes in dependency mapping, critical-path reasoning, and practical schedule recovery.

Inputs:
1. Project objective and target date: {{project}}
2. Tasks, durations, and current status: {{tasks}}
3. Dependencies, approvals, resources, and external inputs: {{dependencies}}
4. Deadline flexibility and business priorities: {{priorities}}
5. Known uncertainties and planning constraints: {{constraints}}

Do the following:
1. Normalize each task into a clear completion condition, estimated duration or range, owner or resource, earliest start, and required predecessor.
2. Distinguish hard dependencies from preferences, resource conflicts, approval gates, and information dependencies; flag cycles, missing predecessors, and undefined completion criteria.
3. Calculate or reason through the critical path using the supplied data, show available slack for noncritical tasks, and identify where uncertainty could change the path.
4. Recommend safe parallelization, early validation, scope changes, resource shifts, or dependency removal, and explain the risk introduced by each acceleration option.
5. Produce a dependency table, text-based network map, milestone forecast, critical-path summary, risk watchlist, and next five coordination actions. Do not compress durations without identifying what would materially change.

## Best for

Project owners coordinating interdependent work who need to know which delays affect the finish date and where acceleration is actually possible.

## Compatible tools

- Claude
- ChatGPT

## How to use

- Give every task a measurable completion condition.
- Identify whether dependencies are truly mandatory.
- Use duration ranges when estimates are uncertain.
- Update the map when actual durations or scope change.

## Customization tips

- Include approval and external-vendor lead times.
- Separate resource conflicts from logical dependencies.
- Test one small batch before the full production run.
- State what scope may change if the deadline cannot.

## Example input

Project: Launch a German-language customer academy by September 30. Tasks: translate 18 lessons, legal review, record narration, edit videos, configure learning platform, pilot with 20 users, fix pilot issues, and publish. Durations: translation 15 days, legal 8, narration 10, editing 12, platform 7, pilot 7, fixes 5. Dependencies: legal reviews translated scripts; narration requires legal approval; editing follows narration; pilot needs edited videos and platform. Constraints: one narrator, legal reviewer unavailable August 12-16, and launch date is fixed.

## Example output

The map shows the content path—translation, legal, narration, editing, pilot, fixes—as critical, while platform configuration has slack if started during translation. It challenges the assumption that all 18 lessons must move as one batch and recommends batches of six, allowing legal, narration, and editing to overlap after each approved batch. A two-lesson technical pilot validates audio and platform settings early. The watchlist includes legal availability, narrator capacity, and late terminology changes.