Critical path

Once you have marked the links, trace the longest unbroken chain of must-precede tasks. That chain sets your earliest possible finish date. Every task off it has slack, so a day lost there costs nothing, while a day lost on the chain slips the whole launch.

Once you have marked the links, trace the longest unbroken chain of must-precede tasks. That chain sets your earliest possible finish date. Every task off it has slack, so a day lost there costs nothing, while a day lost on the chain slips the whole launch.

Example

On the 40-item launch list, the chain runs: vendor contract, then security review, then integration test, then app store submission, 23 days end to end. Copy, pricing page, and launch emails sit off it with 9 days of slack. Fix the review, not the copy.