Delegating in rounds

In this lesson we delegate one piece of a split task and check the result line by line. Then we change the brief with what the check showed, send the piece again, and delegate the next piece with the change in its brief. We keep a short log of every round. The task is the bike pilot report from the previous lesson, so the sources are already familiar.

You need any chat-capable agent you already have access to. Start each piece in a fresh conversation. The next piece then sees only what you write into its brief, and the lesson is about what goes into it. Every exchange on this page is illustrative. The author wrote it to show the pattern, and your agent’s text will differ.

The first piece and its criteria

The previous lesson split the report into three pieces, ran the usage piece, and left the riders piece and the cost piece as the exercise. The brief below is a model answer to that exercise for the riders piece. If you wrote your own brief for it, use yours with the criteria below next to it.

Prompt (illustrative, not a recorded transcript)

Write the “Riders” section of a report from the survey note below. Format: the heading “Riders”, then four bullets, one per finding, each count written as “n of 41 replies”.

Use only the survey note as your source. Use the 41 replies as the base for every count, and don’t turn counts into percentages. Don’t add commentary or recommendations.

Done when: there are four bullets, each count is written as “n of 41 replies”, every count is in the note, no percentage appears, and there is no commentary or recommendation.

[survey note follows]

The criteria for this piece are the done-criteria of the brief, written as four lines you can tick:

1. A heading and four bullets, each count written as “n of 41 replies”.
2. Every count is in the note.
3. The section has no percentages.
4. No commentary or recommendation.

For reference, here is the survey note again.

All 120 pilot participants got the survey and 41 replied. 33 said they would keep using the bikes if the scheme continues. 29 named “no bike available in the morning” as the biggest problem. 12 asked for helmets at the docking station. 6 wrote in the free-text box that the docking station is too far from the east entrance. I haven’t turned any of this into percentages.

Round one: delegate and check

Send the brief with only the survey note pasted underneath. Here is the kind of result that comes back.

Response

Riders

- 33 of 41 replies would keep using the bikes if the scheme continues,
  and 8 of 41 replies would not.
- 29 of 41 replies named "no bike available in the morning" as the
  biggest problem.
- 12 of 41 replies asked for helmets at the docking station.
- 6 of 41 replies said in the free-text box that the docking station is
  too far from the east entrance.

It reads well, and it looks like what you asked for. Check it before you read on. Take the four lines one at a time, with the note next to the result, and mark each one pass or fail.

Checkpoint · match

Pass or fail, line by line

Check the round one result against the four criteria. Which lines pass and which fail?

A heading and four bullets, each count written as "n of 41 replies"Choose…PassFail

Every count is in the noteChoose…PassFail

The section has no percentagesChoose…PassFail

No commentary or recommendationChoose…PassFail

CheckHintSkip

The failing line is the second one. The note has no 8 in it. The agent took 41 replies, subtracted the 33 who said they would keep using the bikes, and wrote the difference as a finding. It is also a claim the note doesn’t make. The other 8 replies didn’t say they would keep using the bikes, and that isn’t the same as saying they would stop. Some of them may not have answered that question at all.

Notice how the check found it. A read of the whole section gives a feeling that it is fine. A walk down the four lines gives three passes and one fail, and the fail names the exact bullet to look at.

Reading the miss as feedback on the brief

The easy reading of the miss is that the agent made a mistake. The more useful reading is that the limit in the brief was looser than its check. The check says every count is in the note, and the brief states that rule only at the end, as something to tick. Its limit, “Use only the survey note as your source”, allows more, because a number computed from the note still uses only the note. When two lines of a brief can be read two ways, the agent may take either reading.

So the fix goes in the brief, as a limit that says what the check tests. Add this line to the limits of the riders brief:

Copy each count as the note gives it. Don't add, subtract or combine
counts.

Then re-send the riders brief with the new line, in a fresh conversation, and tick the four lines again. This is round two. The first bullet now ends after “if the scheme continues”. All four lines pass. The riders section is done.

Working this way, one piece at a time with the brief changed after each check, is iteration. Each result is feedback on the brief, and the next brief includes what the result showed. The AI Fluency course from Claude Academy describes the same back and forth between describing a task and judging what comes back, and it treats the judging as the source of the next description [1].

The cost piece needs the change too, because it has the same gap. The vendor email has two monthly prices and a twelve-month term, and an agent with no limit on computed numbers may add a yearly total or the difference between the two options. Neither number is in the email, and the manager reads it as if the vendor had quoted it. Put the change into the cost brief before you send it.

Checkpoint · choice

Where does the fix go?

The riders section came back with a count the note never gives. The agent worked it out by subtracting two numbers in the note. You are about to delegate the cost piece. Where does the fix go?

Reply in this conversation that counts are copied, never worked out, and ask for the riders section again.Send the riders brief again, unchanged, in a fresh conversation, since the next result may be different.Delete the computed count from the bullet by hand, and send the cost brief as you had written it.Add a limit on computed numbers to the riders brief, and put the same limit in the cost brief before sending it.

CheckHintSkip

The cost piece with the change

Here is the cost brief, a model answer to the other half of the previous exercise, with the new limit. Open a fresh conversation, send it with only the vendor email pasted underneath, and check what comes back.

Prompt (illustrative, not a recorded transcript)

Write the “Cost” section of a report from the vendor email below. Format: the heading “Cost”, then one bullet per option with its monthly price and what it includes, then one line with the minimum term.

Use only the email as your source. Include both options. Copy each amount as the email gives it. Don’t add, subtract or multiply amounts. Don’t add commentary or recommendations.

Done when: both prices appear once and match the email, each option says what it includes, the twelve-month term is stated, and every amount is in the email.

[vendor email follows]

Response

Cost

- Option A: 1,800 per month for the bikes and the docking station. Your
  facilities team does the maintenance.
- Option B: 2,400 per month, including maintenance and replacement of
  damaged bikes.

Both options have a minimum term of twelve months. Both prices exclude
tax.

Walk the four lines again. Both prices appear once, and they match the email. Each option says what it includes. The term is stated. Every amount in the section is in the email, and there is no yearly total and no difference between the two prices. All four pass. The section has no computed numbers, and the log records the change that went in before it ran.

A two-line log per round

Keep a log while you work, two lines per round: what changed in the brief, and what the result showed. After the three rounds above it reads like this.

Round 1, riders piece
  Changed: nothing, this is the first brief from the split.
  Showed: "8 of 41 replies would not" is a count the note never
    gives. The limit was looser than the check, and allowed a
    worked-out count.

Round 2, riders piece again
  Changed: added "Copy each count as the note gives it. Don't add,
    subtract or combine counts."
  Showed: all four lines pass. The first bullet ends after "continues".

Round 3, cost piece
  Changed: added "Copy each amount as the email gives it. Don't add,
    subtract or multiply amounts."
  Showed: all four lines pass. No yearly total or price difference.

Read the log and look at what the miss cost. It cost one section of four bullets, a minute of checking and one re-send. The fix was in the next brief before the next piece ran. Now picture the same gap in the one-prompt report from the previous lesson. The computed 8 would sit in a paragraph next to a yearly total, and both would read as findings. You would find them after the manager had asked about them, if at all. A short round keeps each mistake small because it is found in one piece, while the piece is still the only thing that depends on it.

The log is also the lightest record of what you checked. It has one line for what changed, and one for what the check found. A record that is light enough gets kept on a busy day, and the log is light enough for that. The safety course makes the same point about a checked-by line in a team template (Marking what a person checked).

Pitfall: Sending the same brief again

A learner sees the computed count in the riders section, opens a fresh conversation and sends the same brief again, expecting a better result. The new result has “and 8 of 41 replies did not say so” in the first bullet, which is the same computed count with new wording. The brief is the same, so the loose limit that allowed the miss is still there, and the agent reads it the same way. A second run of an unchanged brief only asks for another guess. When a round misses, change the brief first, and write the change in the log.

The round as the unit of work

A round is one brief, one result, one check, and one change to the brief. The previous lesson made the pieces small enough to check. In this lesson you worked in rounds, and each round ended with a log entry. A piece often takes one or two rounds. The next lesson is about the piece that keeps needing more, and how to see from the log when it is time to do the step yourself.

Improving work step by step from its failures is also how DeepLearning.AI teaches builders to improve an agent workflow. They look at where the output goes wrong, and they fix that step first [2]. You do the same at a smaller size, one piece and one brief at a time.

Exercise

Delegate the riders piece with the brief above, or with the first piece of your own split and its criteria. Check the result against the criteria, one line at a time, and write pass or fail next to each line. Change the brief with what the result showed, re-send the riders piece with the change in a fresh conversation, and tick its lines again. Then put the same change into the brief for the cost piece, and delegate the cost piece in a fresh conversation. Keep a two-line log per round, in the format above. It takes about ten minutes. A good result is a log with a pass or fail for every criterion in each round, and a cost brief that holds the new limit. If your first round passed every line, skip the re-send, write “Changed: nothing” for the cost piece and say what the result showed anyway. Which line of your log would you want to read before you start the next report of this kind?

Stretch: Run the usage piece from the previous lesson again with the new limit in its brief, and word the limit so it still allows the one total the brief asks for. Add the round to your log. Did your wording hold?

Recap

1. Delegate one piece at a time, and check each result line by line against its criteria, pass or fail per line. A read of the whole result gives a feeling, and the lines give you the failing bullet.
2. Read a miss as feedback on the brief. A miss often shows a limit that was looser than the check, such as a limit that allowed a count worked out from other counts. Change the description of the task with what the judging of the result showed [1].
3. The fix goes into the brief as a limit, and into the brief of every later piece with the same gap. A reply in the chat stays in that conversation.
4. Keep a log of two lines per round: what changed in the brief, and what the result showed. It is light enough to keep on a busy day.
5. Short rounds keep mistakes cheap, because a miss is found in one small piece before anything else depends on it.

You can now

• Adjusts the brief when the work reveals new information
• Reviews the result against the brief, not against a feeling

Mark lesson finishedI know this, skip it

Habit

The next time a delegated result misses one of its criteria, write the change into the brief before you send anything else to the agent.

References

1. Anthropic. AI Fluency: Framework and foundations. Claude Academy. Course. Academy ai-fluency-framework-foundations
2. DeepLearning.AI. Agentic AI: M1 workflows and autonomy, M2 reflection, M4 evals and error analysis, M5 autonomous agents. DeepLearning.AI. Course. DLAI-11