Hand Off a Whole Job with Cowork · Lesson 4 of 6

Job two: a deck or document from notes

15 minutes, plus the time Cowork works on its own. Turn rough notes into slides or a polished document, without inventing anything along the way.

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Ray, the owner of our fictional Comfort Zone Heating & Cooling, writes notes the way most owners do. Half a page. Arrows. "Fall tune-ups!!" circled twice. "Truck 4?" with no context. Every quarter, Marisol turns that page into a 10-slide deck for the team meeting. It takes her an afternoon.

Today it takes her fifteen minutes of her own time.

Why this job is different from the report

A report has right answers you can check against a spreadsheet. A deck or document has judgment: what to put first, what to leave out, how to say it. That means two new risks.

  • Filling gaps with guesses. Ray's notes say "Truck 4?" Cowork doesn't know if Truck 4 is being sold, repaired or replaced. A confident slide that says "Truck 4 replacement scheduled for November" is worse than no slide.
  • Sounding like nobody. Polished but generic. "Driving operational excellence." Your team will tune out by slide three.

The brief handles both.

Step 1: Gather the inputs into a folder of copies (3 minutes)
  • In your Cowork jobs folder, make a new folder: Q4 team meeting deck.
  • Put in copies of:
  • The notes. A typed page works best. If the notes are handwritten, type them up, or add a clear photo and plan to check every line it read.
  • An example of a past deck or document you liked. This is the most useful file in the folder.
  • Your company template, if you have one (a .pptx or .docx with your colors and logo). Ask Cowork to match it, then check in review that it did.
  • Any facts the deck needs: the dates of the fall tune-up promotion, the new holiday schedule.
  • Leave out anything private: pay rates, performance reviews, a customer dispute.
Step 2: Write the brief (5 minutes)

Open the deck's Hand-Off Brief. Here's Marisol's, shortened:

> Goal: A 10-slide PowerPoint for Thursday's team meeting, for 20 techs and office staff. Ray presents it. It should take 20 minutes, with time for questions. > > Inputs: ray-notes.jpg (the source of truth for topics), Q3-meeting.pptx (the style and length Ray likes), CZ-template.pptx (use this template), tuneup-dates.docx (promotion dates). > > Format: One file, "Q4 team meeting.pptx," in this folder. Title slide, then one slide per topic in Ray's notes, in the same order, then a "Questions" slide. No more than five bullets per slide and no more than eight words per bullet. Speaker notes under each slide, two or three sentences, written so Ray can read them out loud. > > Limits: > - Only cover topics in Ray's notes. Don't add new topics. > - Don't invent dates, numbers, names or decisions. If a note is unclear, make a slide with the topic as the title and put [CHECK: what Ray meant] in the speaker notes. > - Don't change the template's colors or logo. > - Don't change or delete any file in this folder. Save the new deck only. > > Ask me about: any note you can't read, and any note that sounds like a decision about a person. > > How I'll check it: I'll hold Ray's notes beside the deck and tick off each topic, then read every number and date against tuneup-dates.docx.

Look at the line about decisions about a person. If Ray's notes say "Dave → lead tech?", that's not something to announce on a slide until Ray has talked to Dave. The brief makes Cowork ask instead of guess.

A document instead of a deck

The same brief works for a document. Swap the format section. For example, for an employee handbook update:

> One Word document, "Handbook updates, Oct 2026.docx." Use the headings from handbook-2025.docx. Write each change as: the old rule, the new rule, the date it starts. Plain language, short sentences. Mark anything legal-sounding with [CHECK: HR or lawyer review].

Anything that reads like policy, legal terms or pay goes past a person with the authority to approve it. Cowork drafts. A person decides.

Step 3: Hand it off and read the plan (2 minutes)
  • In the Claude Desktop app, start a Cowork job.
  • Select Work in a folder and choose Q4 team meeting deck.
  • Type: "Read BRIEF.md and the files in this folder. Show me a slide-by-slide outline and any questions before you build anything."
  • Check the outline against Ray's notes. One slide per topic? In his order? Nothing added?
  • Answer the questions. Marisol answered "Truck 4 is being repaired, back in service Oct 20." That one line saved a wrong slide.
  • Say "Build it." Then go do something else.
Step 4: Review it (5 minutes)

Open the deck. Use the deck section of the Review and Release Checklist. The essential checks:

  • Topic tick-off. Hold the notes beside the deck. Every topic present? Nothing extra?
  • Every number and date. Check each against its source file. Dates are where decks go wrong most often.
  • Every name. Spelled right? Should this person be named on a slide at all?
  • Speaker notes. Read them out loud. Would Ray say these words? Cut anything stiff or salesy.
  • [CHECK] notes. Zero left before the deck goes to Ray.
  • Opens and looks right. Open it in PowerPoint (or Keynote, or Google Slides if that's what you use). Check that fonts, colors and the logo came through, and nothing runs off the slide.

Then hand it to the person who owns it. Marisol sent it to Ray with one line: "Draft deck for Thursday. Please check slide 6, I wasn't sure how much to say about the new hire." Ray presents it. Ray is responsible for what's on it.

Step 5: Save the brief for next quarter

Copy the brief into a "Briefs" folder in Cowork jobs. Name it "Quarterly team deck brief." Next quarter, Marisol makes a new folder, drops in Ray's new notes, updates two dates in the brief, and hands it off again.

Do this now
  • Make the job folder with copies of the notes, an example you liked, your template and any facts it needs.
  • Write the brief with the five parts plus "How I'll check it."
  • Start the Cowork job in Manual mode, pointed at that folder only.
  • Approve the outline before it builds.
  • Run the deck or document checks on the Review and Release Checklist.
  • Hand the result to the person who owns it, and save the brief for next time.

Check it worked

  • The deck or document covers exactly the topics in your notes, in order, with nothing invented.
  • Every number, date and name matches a source file or a person's answer.
  • No [CHECK] notes remain, and the file opens cleanly in the app your team uses.
  • The person who presents or signs it has seen it before anyone else.
  • Your brief is saved where you'll find it next time.

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Next: the job where limits matter most. Letting Cowork move and rename files.

→ Lesson 5: Job three: a cleanup or batch job

Previous: Job one: a monthly report from spreadsheets · Next: Job three: a cleanup or batch job