Why you shouldn't have dependency lines in your high-level timeline

If you are creating a high-level timeline, you likely do not need to include dependency lines. This is because a high-level timeline is meant to give an overview of a project, and is not meant to be used for detailed project planning.

dependency lines add a lot of complexity to a timeline and many users don't understand how to read them correctly. A high-level timeline should be easy to understand and should not be cluttered with too much information.

In an ideal high-level timeline, the title of each block within the context of the other blocks should make it clear why it might not be able to start until a previous task has finished. A good alternative to dependency lines is to use colour coding to show which tasks are grouped together and therefore dependent on others.