RiverCity capstone
Course Design · Case study
A readiness check and rehearsal for the capstone’s live stakeholder defense: confirm the engagement is complete, then practice answering randomized questions on camera before the real thing.
Run the simulation
What this simulation is
The capstone is a single, defended, end-to-end consulting engagement for a recurring client, RiverCity, taking a genuine decision from a one-page brief through scoping, a leakage-safe build, an unannounced distribution-shift event that breaks earlier models, a detection-and-adaptation cycle, and a live stakeholder defense. It integrates every outcome in the course.
This tool is the preparation layer. The live meeting with the sponsor is still the graded defense. It is built on the reusable Defense practice engine.
What it helps you do
- Confirm the engagement deliverables are complete before the defense.
- Rehearse answering unscripted, randomized stakeholder questions on camera.
- Watch yourself back and self-assess against the defense rubric.
- Practice conceding real weaknesses and answering “what would change your mind?”
- Build fluency so the live defense is rehearsal, not improvisation.
The graded object is fifteen weeks of decisions on a private, messy, shifting engagement, defended live before people who push back. A model can draft text, but it cannot own the specific choices this student made or answer the sponsor’s follow-ups in real time.