example 01 — 6 weeks
Website launch
› Launch the bakery website in six weeks: design, build, taste-testing photos, then go live.
week 1 → week 6
milestone
Build starts one week into Design rather than after it — overlapping the two with lead time saves a week without changing any single task. The half-week gap between “QA & fixes” and go-live is deliberate buffer: the plan absorbs a slip instead of moving launch day.
example 02 — 8 weeks
Product launch campaign
› Plan an eight-week launch campaign: positioning, landing page, content, press outreach, launch day.
week 1 → week 8
milestone
Everything hangs off Positioning — a classic finish-to-start dependency, because writing pages before the story is settled produces rework, not progress. Landing page and Content then run in parallel; Outreach is the chain that determines launch day, which makes it the critical path.
example 03 — 10 weeks
Mobile app MVP
› Build and ship an MVP of the reading app in ten weeks, with two weeks of beta before the store release.
week 1 → week 10
milestone
The first bar is the important one: “Scope cut” is a real task with a real duration, because an MVP that skips it grows sideways for ten weeks — scope creep with a countdown. Beta is what the plan is built around: two protected weeks of real users, with Store prep overlapping so the release date doesn’t wait on paperwork.
example 04 — 4 weeks
Apartment move
› Move apartments in four weeks: give notice, book movers, pack, move day, then hand back the keys.
week 1 → week 4
milestone
Proof that Gantt charts aren’t just for work. “Give notice” is half a week of effort but it gates everything — the clearest possible dependency. Packing can’t start until the decluttering is done (nobody wants to move boxes they meant to throw away), and Utilities has plenty of slack: it can slide a week without touching move day.
example 05 — 8 weeks
Community meetup
› Host a 50-person meetup in eight weeks: venue, speakers, tickets, promotion, and the event itself.
week 1 → week 8
milestone
Events are all milestone: the date is fixed, so the plan works backwards from it. Tickets can’t open before the venue and at least one speaker are confirmed — that’s why the bar starts at week 4, not week 1. Promotion runs right up to the event because it’s the one task where more time always helps; the deliverable is fifty people in a room.
Not sure a timeline is even the right shape? Start with
Gantt chart, kanban board, or to-do list?