Claude Academy
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What a strong human-agent team looks like

Lesson 38 min
In this lessonBy the end, you’ll be able to
  • Apply the four principles of healthy human-agent teams: clear roles, a written north star, gradual release, and the right information access
  • Explain how work changes when your team moves from single-player AI to multiplayer AI

The best human-agent teams use very intentional team practices and norms.

A human-agent team in action

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The best human-agent teams have clear roles, a written north star, the right information access, and trust. While all of these things also support teams without agents, adding agents to the team makes them even more important. Because the rate of task completion on human-agent teams tends to be higher, the cost of misalignment and error is also higher. Setting the stage for success is critical.

Try it: run your own launch

The north star is set. Decide who does each job and see how the week goes.

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Key takeaways

  • Work in public and give agents broad context. For an agent, if it isn't written down and accessible, it doesn't exist.
  • Every human and agent gets a defined role with the right tools for the job. One roster, one set of artifacts, and one working space, with human judgment on the most important decisions.
  • Set a north star to make agents more proactive. Humans always set it. An agent that knows the goal can bring the team useful work toward it.
  • Build trust over time. Grant autonomy in proportion to demonstrated reliability, then expand it deliberately.

Exercises

Draft your roster

Why? Your own team has the same kinds of jobs.

  1. Name a project starting soon and the people on it.
  2. Open the prompt below and fill in the brackets.
  3. Mark one job you would not hand to an agent yet.

Here's my team and a project we're starting: [team members and what each is good at; the project and its deadline]. Propose a roster for a human-agent team that includes one shared AI agent like you. For each job, say who leads (a named person or the agent) and who drafts or prepares. Add how often it runs and how the work gets checked.

Keep every decision that needs judgment with a person and say which ones those are. Finish with the one-sentence north star you think this team is working toward, so I can correct it.

Lesson reflection

  • Which recurring job on your team has no clear owner today?
  • Who on your team would say yes or no to an agent's unrequested proposal?

What's next

Next: five questions that tell you whether your organization is ready for a team like this.