Teacher’s Edition
Module 09
The Compound Workflow
Chain multiple Claude interactions into a pipeline: Gather, Analyze, Synthesize, Deliver. A competitive intelligence brief that takes a human analyst half a day, built in fifteen minutes of structured prompting.
Charter Oak Strategic Partners · Claude Mastery Program · Version 1.0 · Confidential · Not for distribution to participants
A compound workflow links multiple Claude interactions into a pipeline. Each step produces output that becomes input for the next. The pattern is always the same: gather, analyze, synthesize, deliver. Step 1 collects raw material (research, data, documents). Step 2 analyzes that material (compares, evaluates, categorizes). Step 3 synthesizes conclusions (decides, recommends, strategizes). Step 4 packages the result for the audience that needs it (formats, edits, polishes).
This four-step structure maps onto almost any complex business task. A competitive intelligence brief. A quarterly business review. A new-hire onboarding plan. A product launch strategy. The specifics change. The shape does not. Teaching this pattern gives participants a reusable framework they can apply to any task that currently takes them hours of copying and pasting between tools.
Live Demo: Competitive Intelligence Pipeline — 25 minutes
demo-data/module-09/compound-workflow-scenario.md— Four-step pipeline with prompts, mock press release, FloorWatch specs.Greenfield Manufacturing’s competitor, Apex Industrial, just announced a new product called SmartFloor. The demo file includes a mock press release from Apex and a spec sheet for Greenfield’s competing product, FloorWatch. The four-step pipeline builds a competitive response brief for the sales team.
Step 1 (Research): Feed Claude the press release and ask it to extract key claims, pricing, features, and target market. Step 2 (Analysis): Give Claude the extracted claims alongside FloorWatch’s specs. Ask it to compare: where does Greenfield win, where does Apex win, where is it a wash? Step 3 (Strategy): Based on the comparison, ask Claude to recommend three positioning strategies. Which features to lead with, which Apex claims to counter, which segments to defend. Step 4 (Deliverable): Take the strategy and ask Claude to format it as a one-page battlecard the sales team can use in calls.
Total writing time: about 15 minutes of prompt crafting. Output: a competitive response brief that would take an analyst half a day. The ROI math writes itself.
“Four steps. Watch how each one feeds the next.”
“Step 1 is research. I am giving Claude raw material and asking it to organize the facts.”
Paste the press release and the research prompt. Wait for output.
“Step 2 is analysis. I am taking the facts from Step 1 and comparing them against our product.”
Copy the relevant output from Step 1. Paste it with the FloorWatch specs and the analysis prompt. Wait.
“Step 3 is strategy. What do we do with this analysis?”
Copy the comparison. Send the strategy prompt. Wait.
“Step 4 is the deliverable. Same information. Different format. This is for the sales team, not the product team.”
Copy the strategy. Send the formatting prompt. Wait.
“Fifteen minutes of writing. A competitive response brief. This would have taken half a day.”
“Where in that pipeline would you want a human to review before continuing to the next step?”
The answer: between Step 2 and Step 3. The facts from research are verifiable. The analysis comparison is checkable. But the strategy recommendations involve judgment that a human should validate before they become a sales battlecard. This teaches the concept of “human-in-the-loop” at the point of highest leverage.
Framework: Designing a Workflow — 10 minutes
“Every compound workflow follows this pattern. Step 1: gather. Research, data collection, document review. Step 2: analyze. Compare, evaluate, categorize, calculate. Step 3: synthesize. Decide, recommend, strategize. Step 4: deliver. Format for the audience who needs it.”
“The specifics change. The shape does not. A quarterly review follows this pattern. A hiring plan follows this pattern. A market entry analysis follows this pattern. Once you see it, you see it everywhere.”
Group Exercise — 40 minutes
“Groups of three or four. Identify a real recurring task from your team that currently takes hours. Design a four-step workflow. Write all four prompts. Test the chain. Document it: what goes into each step, what comes out, where a human reviews.”
“What takes the most time? What involves the most copying and pasting between tools? What produces a deliverable your boss looks at for 30 seconds after you spent four hours creating it?”
Those are the tasks worth automating. The resentment in the question helps people identify the right targets.
Some groups will try to build a ten-step pipeline. Redirect: “Four steps. Gather, analyze, synthesize, deliver. If your task has more than four steps, you have two workflows, not one. Build the first four-step chain. Get it working. Then build the second.”
Presentations and Debrief — 15 minutes
“Each group presents: the task, the four steps, the output, and the time savings. Then do the math. If this workflow saves X hours per week, that is X times 52 hours per year. At a fully loaded cost of $Y per hour, the annual value is $Z.”
“This math matters. It is the language leadership understands. When you bring a workflow to your manager and say ‘this saves my team 200 hours a year, which is $15,000 in recovered capacity,’ that is a proposal, not a demo.”
| Segment | Activity | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Demo | Four-step competitive intelligence pipeline | 25 min |
| Framework | Workflow design pattern | 10 min |
| Group Exercise | Build and test a compound workflow | 40 min |
| Present | Group presentations with ROI math | 15 min |