A dependency map should show which work waits on which evidence, owner, interface, or decision and how that dependency affects the estimate range.
Map dependencies beyond code packages
Start with the end-to-end workflow and identify dependencies on people, approvals, data, source-system behavior, APIs, identity, environments, vendors, contracts, security review, migration windows, and operational ownership. Give each dependency an owner, required evidence, needed-by point, current state, and consequence. A package manifest captures only a small fraction of what can block a delivery plan.
Use directional relationships such as requires, produces, approves, migrates, or replaces. A payment workflow may require a vendor account before integration testing, an approved data policy before realistic fixtures, and operations ownership before launch acceptance. When several work packages depend on the same unresolved item, make that convergence visible rather than repeating the risk in separate notes.
Find the estimate-invalidating unknowns
Ask whether a different answer would change architecture, work breakdown, staffing, external cost, or acceptance. Examples include whether an API supports required writes, whether historical data can be exported with stable identifiers, whether identity can pass the needed roles, and whether the buyer expects zero-downtime migration. These are stronger discovery targets than a long list of low-impact questions.
For each material unknown, specify the smallest evidence-producing check: inspect a contract, run an authenticated API probe, sample a data export, trace one production-safe workflow, or obtain an accountable policy decision. Time-box the check and define what result would support, narrow, or invalidate the current option. Do not convert an unresolved dependency into optimistic implementation time.
Connect the map to sequence and range
Identify which dependencies lie on the likely critical path, which can proceed in parallel, and which remain outside buyer control. Show the date or event assumptions used for external responses. A dependency can affect the low end, high end, or both. Record whether contingency covers known variability or whether the estimate must remain held until evidence exists.
Scope Ground produces the map through Reality Contact, LLC and highlights three estimate-invalidating unknowns in the free output. The buyer supplies owners and resolves organizational decisions. The map is a dated planning artifact, not a guarantee that external vendors, systems, reviewers, or stakeholders will respond on the assumed schedule.
Where the service stops
Reality Contact, LLC performs bounded technical discovery and estimation but does not guarantee cost or delivery dates, provide legal or procurement advice, select vendors for the buyer, authorize a build, certify architecture or security, or control requirement and dependency changes after the dossier date. The accountable buyer resolves listed holds, selects or rejects an architecture option, approves assumptions and acceptance scenarios, and decides whether to authorize an internal plan, request a vendor statement of work, narrow the initiative, or stop. This technical discovery service does not replace the buyer's engineering, security, legal, procurement, finance, architecture, or production-readiness review. Estimate ranges remain conditional on the recorded option, assumptions, exclusions, access, dependencies, and acceptance scenarios.
Sources: GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide; GOV.UK guidance on discovery constraints and wider context.