Stop 3 of 9 · Weekly
Cowork delegations
The five-part brief, three standing delegations, and the review step that decides whether each one keeps running.
What a delegation is and is not
Cowork is where you hand Claude a job with a brief and get work back, rather than sitting in a chat steering it turn by turn. That makes it right for the recurring work that has a shape: same inputs, same output, every week, and a person who checks it at the end.
It is wrong for anything where the shape changes each time. Nadia's supplier negotiation is a conversation. Her weekly quote backlog is a batch. Send batches.
The brief has five parts
Every delegation Nadia writes has the same five headings, in this order. Missing any one of them produces a specific failure.
| Part | What it prevents |
|---|---|
| The job and the inputs | Work done on last month's export |
| The output shape | A file nobody can review in ten minutes |
| The stop line | Something reaching a customer without a person |
| The review step | The batch getting rubber stamped |
Three standing delegations
Job: turn this week's inbound quote requests into ready-to-price quote drafts. Inputs: the folder quote-requests for this week, the SKU catalogue file, and the current stock and lead time file. Nothing else. Output: one file per request, named by customer. Each has the matched SKU list with quantity, current stock cover, lead time in days, the standard body text, and a price column left empty. End each file with the assumptions you made and the questions the customer has to answer. Stop line: never write a price, a discount or a total. Never send anything. Never commit a delivery date, give a lead time range instead. If a request is too vague to match to SKUs, say so and write the three questions instead of guessing. Review: Dana fills the price column from the pricing tool and checks the SKU match on every line, ten minutes for the batch.
Job: reconcile this week's inbound shipments. Inputs: the purchase orders, packing slips and supplier invoices in the folder shipments for this week. Do not use the master supplier agreements or any terms file. Output: one table, one row per line item where the PO, the slip and the invoice do not agree. Columns: PO number, item, what was ordered, what arrived, what was invoiced, and which of the three is the odd one out. Then a short list of anything invoiced with no matching PO, and anything received with no invoice yet. Stop line: never contact a supplier. Never approve, pay or dispute anything. Never open or refer to a terms document. If the invoice total and the line items do not add up, flag it and stop. Review: Marco walks the warehouse for the quantity mismatches, Nadia takes the money ones, fifteen minutes.
Job: draft replies to this week's public reviews and survey comments. Inputs: the export of reviews from the last seven days, the reply standards file, and the ticket log so you can tell whether we already fixed the thing they mention. Output: one file. Per review: the review, whether it is already resolved in the ticket log, a four sentence draft reply, and a flag if it needs Nadia rather than a standard reply. Stop line: draft only, never post anywhere. Never offer a refund, credit, discount or price. Never name a member of staff. Never state a cause we have not confirmed in writing. Review: Nadia reads all of them and posts them herself, ten minutes.
The review step is the product
Time the review. Ten minutes means the brief is right. Forty-five means the brief is vague and you are doing the work twice. Fix the brief, not the batch.