Lesson 1: Watch the work before you build anything
18 min read·13 Oct 2026
Module 3 · Lesson 1 · About 50 minutes · Needs: Module 2, Lesson 1 (the Wednesday prototype); basic Python
The situation
Monday 16 March 2026, kickoff at Harbourline Freight. Rafael Dias sums up the project: "We want a chatbot the clerks can ask about a claim." The previous vendor heard much the same in 2024, built ClaimBot, and left. Nobody uses it.
You spend the day beside Joan Petrov, fourteen years in the claims team, polite and wary. "I can just tell you how it works, if that is quicker." It is quicker. It is also how the last vendor got it wrong. This lesson follows one exception through her day: HF-88190, a missing shipment for Greenway Garden Centre.