Field guide
How to run your team's first Claude session, around work they already do.
Pick one workflow your team complains about, invite the people who do it, and have them bring real material from this week. Do the task the old way, hand Claude the same material, compare the two, and improve the instructions together. People should leave with Claude doing part of a task they own.
Plan it
Fill this in before anyone books a room.
Four answers make a session worth the time. The planner turns them into a one-page plan you can print or share.
Free tool · Session planner
The task people complain about most.
The people who do it, not only manage it.
From this week. Nothing you would not share outside the team.
One sentence, for example: a first draft that needs only a check.
Your one-page plan
- The workflow
- Not filled in yet
- Who is in the room
- Not filled in yet
- Real material to bring
- Not filled in yet
- What done looks like
- Not filled in yet
- The session
- Do it the old way. Give Claude the same material. Compare out loud. Improve the instructions together. Write down the final version and name its owner.
Why a session beats a demo
People believe what they see on their own work.
A demo shows what Claude can do with material chosen to look good. A working session shows what it does with yours: a report nobody enjoys, a customer email that gets rewritten four times, a spreadsheet that has to be reconciled by hand. The difference matters, because the people in the room are deciding whether this is worth changing how they work.
Teams that have watched Claude handle one of their own tasks tend to arrive at the next conversation with a list of others. That list is the most useful thing a first session produces. It tells you where the hours are going, in the words of the people spending them.
Before the session
Four choices that decide whether it works.
- 01
Pick one workflow
The one people complain about.
Choose a task that repeats, takes real time and ends in something you can check: a document, a reply, a reconciled sheet. Avoid anything that needs a decision only a senior person can make.
- 02
Invite the people who do it
Not only the people who manage it.
The person who does the task knows where it goes wrong. Keep the group small enough that everyone gets their hands on the keyboard.
- 03
Bring real material
From this week, not a sample.
Real inputs show real problems: the messy file, the odd format, the exception. Remove anything you would not share outside the team, and check your plan's terms on data first.
The fourth choice is what done looks like. Write it down in one sentence before the session starts, for example a first draft of the weekly report that needs only a check, not a rewrite. Without that sentence, a session drifts into a tour of features.
During the session
Side by side, then improve it together.
- Do the task the old way first, quickly, so everyone sees the starting point.
- Give Claude the same material and the same instructions a new hire would get.
- Compare the two results out loud. Name what is better, what is wrong and what is missing.
- Improve the instructions together, and run it again until the result is useful.
- Write down the final instructions, so the task can be repeated tomorrow without the session.
Mistakes to avoid
Most first sessions fail in the same few ways.
Too many tasks.
One workflow done well beats five touched once. The rest can go on the list for next time.
No real material.
Invented examples hide the exceptions that make a task hard, so the result looks better than it will be.
No owner afterward.
If nobody owns the task once the session ends, nobody keeps using what was built. Name the owner before people leave.
After the session
One session is a start. The list it produces is the plan.
Keep the list of other tasks people raised, in their own words, with a rough sense of how much time each one takes. That list is where the next workflow comes from. If the team wants Claude across all of its everyday work, that is what Launch is for. If one process is eating more hours than the rest, Build is the better fit.
If you are not sure which, the free Operating Diagnostic looks at how your team works today and says where Claude would move your numbers first. It is also the right step if you would rather someone else ran the first session.
Questions
Asked before every first call.
What should people bring to a Claude working session?
The workflow they complain about most, with real material from this week: a recurring report, a document that always needs rewriting, a spreadsheet reconciled by hand. Real material shows the exceptions that make a task hard, and it shows which tasks are worth building into the way the team works.
How many people should be in the room?
Few enough that everyone works on the task, not only watches it. The people who do the workflow every day matter more than the people who manage it, because they know where it goes wrong and they are the ones who will keep using what is built.
Is a working session the same as the Operating Diagnostic?
No. The Operating Diagnostic is a free look at how your business runs and where Claude would move your numbers first. A working session is hands-on practice on one task your team brings. Many teams do the Diagnostic first, then put Claude to work with Launch or Build.
Can Setanta run the session for us?
Yes. A first working session with your team is part of how Launch begins, remotely or on site across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama. Setanta is based in Wilmington, NC. Tell us about your group and we will say what fits.
What is the free Operating Diagnostic?
A free call (book a time) that looks at how your team works today. It finds where Claude would move your numbers first and the process worth fixing first, and says which package fits. If it is not the right time, we say so.
Want someone to run the first one? Tell us about your team.
We will say what we would run, or whether another step fits better.