Real-work exercise
The final 45 minutes. You will pick one decision you actually own and run it with the systems you use every week still open. No demos. No sample data. Your accounts, your notes, your constraints.
The current cost on a real Car-Mart decision
A store manager at one of the 140 locations needs to decide whether to authorize repossession on a 2014 Silverado. The customer has missed the last three payments. The file contains activity in Dealertrack, RouteOne, and the store's shared Excel collector notes.
Current sequence:
- Open Dealertrack, locate the account, read the payment ledger, and note the broken promises to pay.
- Switch to RouteOne, pull the original contract terms and any prior extensions or modifications.
- Open the shared Excel titled "Collector Notes — [Store Number] — Week of [date]", search for the account, and read the field agent's entry from two days earlier.
- Re-enter key fields into the internal collections ticket system to create the repo request.
- Check the title status in the state portal because the outcome changes if the title is still with the customer.
This path takes 35–50 minutes when the manager wants to be sure before signing the authorization. The time is spent moving between windows, re-finding the same account number, and deciding what must be copied into the ticket so the regional collections team and any later audit have the same picture.
The same three data sources, when the systems are already open and the decision is fed through Claude Desktop, produces the authorization decision plus the required log entry in 4 minutes. The manager still reads the critical lines from each system. The difference is that the synthesis, the risk flags, and the ticket language are assembled in one pass instead of five.
The room exercise
You will now do this with one workflow you actually own. The goal is not to learn Claude Desktop. The goal is to see how much of the current information cost on a live Car-Mart decision can be removed when the real systems stay open.
Work in pairs or small groups from the same function. You have 18 minutes to complete the three steps below. Write directly on the page you were given or in the shared document John will project.
Step 1: Name the workflow
Choose one recurring decision that crosses at least two systems and produces a record that someone else will later rely on. Use the exact language you would use when describing the task to a new store manager.
Real examples from Car-Mart operations:
- Approve or reject a payment deferral request on a customer who already has two prior modifications in the last 14 months.
- Decide whether a repossessed 2012 F-150 goes to auction or back on the lot after the reconditioning estimate comes back higher than the wholesale value.
- Build the weekly assignment list for field collectors covering 11 stores, using current delinquency aging, last contact dates, and any active bankruptcy flags.
- Determine whether to charge off an account when the vehicle has been located but the title is held by a prior lienholder and the customer has made one payment in the last 90 days.
Step 2: List the systems and the exact information cost
Systems and information required:
• [System] – [specific data you must pull and consider]
• [System] – [specific data you must pull and consider]
• [System] – [specific data you must pull and consider]
Current friction: [The step that currently takes the most time or creates the highest risk of missing something]
Step 3: Run the first pass with systems open
Open the actual windows for one real instance (use a redacted account number if the group prefers). Copy or reference the necessary sections. Feed the decision and the required context into Claude Desktop. Do not clean the data first. Use it exactly as it appears in the systems.
John will move between groups. The only rule is that the systems you listed in Step 2 must remain open and visible during the run.
Pressure tests
Before you run the exercise, answer these four questions about the workflow you chose. These are the questions that determine whether the current information cost is real or just habit.
1. What is the smallest unit of work that must be completed before the next person can act?
Is it one account? One vehicle? One store's delinquency list? Name the exact unit that moves the work forward.
2. Which single piece of information, if it were 24–48 hours newer, would most often change the decision you make today?
Be specific. "Payment history" is too broad. "Whether the customer made the payment they promised on the 17th" is usable.
3. Where does the result of this work have to live so the next person does not repeat the same search?
Name the actual destination (ticket system, shared folder, email to regional, log entry in Dealertrack, etc.) and the format it must take.
4. If this decision were reviewed by regional or audit two weeks from now, what three facts would you need to have captured to avoid having to reopen all the same systems?
List them exactly as they would appear in a defensible record.
T3+ stretch goal
If your group finishes the first run in under 12 minutes, do a second pass on the same workflow with one additional constraint: you may not re-type any data that already exists in one of the open systems. You must reference it or copy it directly. The second pass is only useful if the first pass already produced a usable decision and record.
Groups that reach this point will be asked to show the before-and-after time on the actual account they used. John will record the times on the shared board.
What each person leaves with
By the end of the session every attendee must have one page that contains:
- The named workflow written in the exact format shown above.
- The three (or more) systems listed with the specific information each one holds for that decision.
- The current friction written in one sentence.
- Answers to the four pressure test questions.
- The time it took on the first live run with systems open.
- The exact text of the first prompt that produced a usable output for that workflow.
John will collect photos of the pages or the shared document before the session ends. These pages become the starting library for any follow-up work on the same workflows.
Run your workflow