FF/Etcetera

Brain Teaser

The Workflow Orchestration Riddle

Jan 15, 2026

Five AI agents must complete a project with dependencies:

  • Agent A and B can work simultaneously (2 hours each)
  • Agent C can only start after A finishes (3 hours)
  • Agent D can only start after B finishes (1 hour)
  • Agent E can only start after both C and D finish (2 hours)

What’s the minimum time to complete the project, and what’s the critical path?

Answer: 7 hours total. Critical path: A (2 hrs) → C (3 hrs) → E (2 hrs). Agent B and D can run in parallel with this sequence without affecting the total time.