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Workflow Integration and Solution Design — practice exercise

Workflow Integration and Solution Design — practice exercise

Difficulty: intermediate · Estimated duration: 55–70 minutes

You will do this exercise in the Claude app. No code is involved. Two stages ask you to write a plan rather than run it, and Stage 3 has a fallback, so every stage works on any plan. The scenario is invented for practice: you are an office manager at a small professional-services firm.

StageWhat you practiceMinutes
1Framing an analysis, success criteria, quotes before conclusions12
2Planning research, reviewing a process, planning the conversation14
3Building, iterating and reviewing a deliverable14
4Choosing connectors, scheduled tasks and skills10
5Briefing a stakeholder on value and limits10

Stage 1 — Analyze a requirement

Skills: CCAOF-U4.T1.LO1.S1, CCAOF-U4.T1.LO1.S2, CCAOF-U4.T1.LO1.S3 Minutes: 12

Your firm is deciding whether its cleaning contract meets three needs: weekly deep cleans, a four-hour response to urgent requests, and a named contact. Here is an excerpt of the contract:

3.1 The Contractor shall provide routine cleaning each working day. 3.2 A deep clean of all kitchen areas shall be carried out every fortnight. 4.1 Urgent requests shall be acknowledged within one working day. 5.1 The Contractor shall nominate an account manager as the Client’s point of contact.

  1. Write one message that states the question, the three needs as criteria, and the excerpt, wrapped in a tag such as <contract> … </contract>.
  2. In the same message, ask Claude first to quote the clause relevant to each need, or to say that none exists, and then to judge each need using only those quotes.
  3. Send it, and record which needs are met.

Stage 2 — Plan the research

Skills: CCAOF-U4.T1.LO2.S1, CCAOF-U4.T1.LO2.S2, CCAOF-U4.T1.LO2.S3, CCAOF-U4.T1.LO2.S4 Minutes: 14

The firm is considering a hybrid-working policy. Write, without running, the opening message you would send to research how similar firms handle hybrid-working policies. It should include:

  1. the question and its scope;
  2. the capabilities you would use, and why;
  3. what you would check in the report before sharing it;
  4. the related questions and background you would include in the same message.

Then run a process review. Paste the firm’s current steps for onboarding a new client, and ask Claude to mark duplication and waits and propose a leaner sequence. Write down who you would check the proposal with before adopting it.

  1. Partner emails the office manager (day 1). 2. Office manager emails the client for details (day 2). 3. Client replies with details (usually day 5). 4. Office manager forwards details to finance (day 6). 5. Finance emails the client for the same details in its own format (day 7). 6. Client replies to finance (usually day 10). 7. Office manager sets up the client file (day 11). 8. Partner approves the file (day 12).

Stage 3 — Build, iterate and review a deliverable

Skills: CCAOF-U4.T2.LO3.S1, CCAOF-U4.T2.LO3.S2, CCAOF-U4.T2.LO3.S3 Minutes: 14

  1. Ask Claude for a desk-booking tracker for 12 desks over one week, with a count of free desks per day. If file creation is available to you, ask for an Excel file with the count built in. If it is not, ask for the tracker as a table in the chat, with the counts written out.
  2. Write down three criteria before you look at the result, for example: all 12 desks, all five days, and a correct free-desk count.
  3. Iterate. Ask Claude to change one label. Then edit an earlier message to branch and try a version with busy days marked (color-coded in a spreadsheet, or flagged in a chat table), keeping the original.
  4. Ask Claude to review the tracker against your three criteria, list any gaps, and refine only those.

Stage 4 — Design the workflow

Skills: CCAOF-U4.T2.LO4.S1, CCAOF-U4.T2.LO4.S2, CCAOF-U4.T2.LO4.S3 Minutes: 10

For each need below, write which piece you would use (a connector, a scheduled task, a skill, or a combination) and one condition that must be true for it to work:

  1. Every Monday, a summary of last week’s client emails that need a reply.
  2. Every proposal drafted in the firm’s house format and checklist.
  3. Claude finding the latest version of a policy in the firm’s shared drive.

Stage 5 — Brief a stakeholder

Skills: CCAOF-U4.T3.LO5.S1, CCAOF-U4.T3.LO5.S2, CCAOF-U4.T3.LO5.S3 Minutes: 10

With Claude’s help, write a four-line briefing for the firm’s partners on using Claude for client-facing work. It needs:

  • one line of value as an outcome;
  • one plain limitation;
  • one sentence on what safeguards do and do not do;
  • one rule for when a person checks the work.

Acceptance checks

  • Stage 1: your message states the question, the criteria and the tagged excerpt, and asks for quotes before judgements.
  • Stage 2: your research message has a scope, the capabilities with reasons, checks on the report, and grouped questions; your process review names who checks the proposal.
  • Stage 3: you have a tracker, a record of a targeted change and a branch, and a review against your criteria.
  • Stage 4: each need names a piece and a condition.
  • Stage 5: all four lines are present, and none of them overstates what Claude can do.

Reference solution

Stage 1. A strong message asks: Does our cleaning contract meet these three needs? 1. weekly deep cleans 2. four-hour response to urgent requests 3. a named contact. The excerpt follows between <contract> tags, then: For each need, first quote the clause that addresses it, or say none does. Then judge each need using only those quotes.

The expected result, from the excerpt alone:

  • Deep cleans: not met. Clause 3.2 gives a fortnightly deep clean of kitchens, not a weekly one.
  • Urgent requests: not met. Clause 4.1 gives acknowledgement within one working day, which is not a four-hour response.
  • Named contact: met or partly met. Clause 5.1 nominates an account manager as the point of contact, but does not name them. Either answer is right if it quotes 5.1 and says why.

If Claude claims a clause that is not in the excerpt, the quote-first step makes that easy to spot.

Stage 2. A good plan:

  • Question and scope: how firms of a similar size structure hybrid-working policies, covering attendance expectations, equipment and review periods, with sources.
  • Capabilities: research, because many sources are needed and it returns citations. Make sure thinking is on; as a house fallback, ask Claude to set out its plan before gathering. Research needs web search on, and depends on your plan.
  • Checks before sharing: open two or three key sources and confirm they say what the report claims.
  • One message: the firm’s size, sector and current policy go in the same message as the related questions.
  • Process review: Claude should spot that steps 2 and 5 both ask the client for the same details, so the client’s wait of about three days happens twice, and propose collecting the details once in a format finance can use. Check the proposal with the partner and finance before adopting it: Claude sees the steps, not the reasons for them.

Stage 3. The tracker should show 12 desks and five days, with a correct free-desk count for each day. In a spreadsheet the count should update with the grid; in the chat-table fallback, check that each written count matches the table. Your record should show one targeted change and a branched version with busy days marked, with the original intact. The review should check each of your three criteria; a count that ignores a day, for example, is a gap to refine. If the first draft already met all three, record that the review found nothing, rather than inventing a change.

Stage 4.

  1. A scheduled task that uses an email connector. Conditions: an owner has enabled the connector, and you have signed in to it yourself (or the organization uses Enterprise-managed auth); scheduled tasks need a paid plan, in Cowork or the new Claude experience. An email summary needs no local files or apps, so the task runs remotely. You review each week’s summary.
  2. A skill that captures the house format and checklist. Condition: skills require code execution to be enabled.
  3. A connector to the shared drive. Conditions: an owner has enabled it and you have signed in to it (or Enterprise-managed auth covers you), and it can only reach files you can already open.

Stage 5. For example:

  • Claude drafts client summaries and trackers from a description, for us to review.
  • It can be wrong, and confident-looking detail can be invented.
  • Asking for quotes and citations reduces errors but does not remove them.
  • A partner checks anything that goes to a client.

Sources

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