Understanding how dependencies actually work
When I first started using Asana dependencies I thought they were just fancy checkboxes. You set one task to be waiting on another and Asana won’t let you mark it complete until the first step is done. Sounds easy right But then you actually try to use them in a real project and the cracks start showing. For example I had a content calendar where every draft of a blog post depended on my editor giving the green light. In theory once she approved it I’d get notified that I could start formatting. In reality the notification fired twice. It showed up in my email and then again inside my inbox tab. Not the end of the world but when you’re juggling twelve open tabs it feels like Asana is heckling you 😛
The main thing to understand is that a dependency has two parts. There’s the blocking task the one that needs to be finished first. And there’s the blocked task the one stuck waiting. If you’re new it’s easy to mix them up. Click on the three dots beside a task name set dependency and choose which direction it points. I once made half my spreadsheet stuck behind the wrong step because I set every design task as waiting for copy edits when the plan was the other way around. Took me an hour to untangle.
Where dependencies save actual headaches
The moment dependencies really bailed me out was during a launch cycle for a client website. We had a bug where the staging site went offline and the dev team had to rebuild. If I hadn’t locked the write copy task behind the designer finishing layouts I would have been uploading text to mockups that didn’t exist. Instead the chain kept everything in place and my writers got a bright red note saying “Waiting on design” instead of asking me where files were. That saved at least a day of back and forth.
The only catch is sometimes Asana notifications aren’t obvious. A blocked task just sits there silently until the blocker is complete. New users expect flashing alerts. What actually happens is the little dependency chain icon shows up beside the task name. If you miss it you think your list froze. So here’s what I ended up doing. I set custom fields with drop down statuses like “READY” “BLOCKED” and “IN REVIEW.” It feels redundant but the field changes are way louder than Asana’s own dependency cues.
Making them visible on boards and timelines
Boards view is where Asana’s dependencies can feel invisible. You attach a waiting task under the hood but on the Kanban board you don’t see strings connecting the cards. I have walked teammates through this so many times. On the timeline view though you can actually draw those diagonal lines between tasks like in old school Gantt charts. If you are more visual this is the only way it will click. I once had a designer tell me she never understood dependencies until we showed them on the timeline with lines weaving across. Her reaction was basically oh those arrows are saying don’t start this yet. Simple but it took weeks to get there.
You can even shift tasks forward automatically. Let’s say a review phase was supposed to happen Tuesday but the precursor task dragged three days late. The timeline lets you decide whether to leave review where it was or snap it forward in sync. My advice if you’re managing people who rely on strict dates use the auto shift. It avoids half the angry pings in Slack when due dates become impossible overnight. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Common bugs that drive me nuts
There are odd glitches. Sometimes a dependency line appears but doesn’t actually gate the blocked task. I saw this when I duplicated a whole project template. The lines copied but the dependencies were dead links. Click on them and nothing happened. Only fix I found was to reassign them manually. Another kicker is mobile. If you’re on the Asana mobile app there is no foolproof way to even see what a task is waiting on unless you drill into the details. I had a field reporter mark a blocked task done just because the dependency wasn’t obvious on her phone.
Also browser extensions can mess this up. I run an adblocker that once hid the dependency button while still letting me accidentally create ghost chains through keyboard shortcuts. Result was a grid of phantom wait states that no one could clear. If your Asana is misbehaving and you swear the buttons moved check your browser extensions first.
When to skip dependencies altogether
Sometimes it’s faster not to over engineer. If you’re running something light like a three step photo editing job creating dependencies just slows you down. I’ve learned to only use them when tasks genuinely cannot move without something else. For my small jobs I just keep a checklist in a single task. That avoids the problem of someone sitting on a blocked task they didn’t need to.
A rough test I use is Would this delay make the rest of the work pointless If yes create a dependency. Example you cannot proofread copy that hasn’t been written. If no skip it. Example you could probably start writing captions while the images are still processing.
Practical workaround I use daily
The best trick I found is adding rules on top of dependencies. Asana lets you automate a custom rule like When task marked complete change status of dependent task to READY. Dependencies alone don’t actually change custom fields. I stitched this together after one miserable week when my team thought everything was still blocked even after blockers cleared. With a rule the status flips loudly and people notice.
Here’s a small table of how I usually set them up
Task type Dependency Auto action
Design mockup None Starts in READY
Copywriting Blocked by design Switches to READY by rule
Review Blocked by copy Switches to READY by rule
Publish Blocked by review Switches to READY by rule
Once this structure was locked people stopped asking me “what do I do now” nearly as often. Which is basically the dream.
Tips for beginners who just got lost
If you’re brand new and staring at a blank Asana board here’s the quickest way in. Make one fake project just for practice. Create two tasks Write draft and Review draft. Set Review draft waiting on Write draft. Mark Write draft complete and watch Review draft unlock. Do this three or four times with made up tasks until the mental switch flips for you. That way when you go to set real dependencies you won’t get stuck wondering which way the arrow points. It really is just like training your brain with a little maze. Once you see it work even once it makes so much more sense 🙂
For real work remind yourself dependencies are not magic. They don’t assign people they don’t shift work across sprints automatically. They just make it harder to start until the prerequisite step is done. Which is sometimes the only guardrail between you and chaos when five people want to start on the same file at once.
Using external tools to patch the gaps
Even with all that Asana dependencies are not perfect. That’s why I run a second layer through Zapier. I made a zap that triggers whenever a blocker task is completed and posts a message in Slack tagging whoever owns the dependent. This covers the visibility gap Asana leaves. I stitched it together after my teammate missed an unlocked task for almost a week. The simple Slack ping fixed that. If you want to connect Asana with external tools without coding Zapier or Make are the obvious picks. If you want to research them further their main sites like zapier.com or make.com are good starts.
At the end of the day dependencies are like duct tape. They hold your process together just enough if you set them up properly but they aren’t flawless. Sometimes they just sit there quietly waiting for you to notice the little lock icon has finally gone away