From classroom to production: Delivering real-world agile software development through employer-connected learning.

What happens when a capstone project moves beyond theory and simulation and into a live product environment? For National University students and a growing technology company, the result was an agile software development experience that delivered real learning outcomes, production-ready work, and shared value across the classroom and industry.

Capstone courses are designed to prepare students for professional practice by bringing together technical knowledge, collaboration, and problem-solving in a single, culminating experience. However, courses in software engineering programs often struggle to replicate the conditions students will encounter after graduation. Simulated scenarios and student-defined projects can limit exposure to real stakeholders, evolving requirements, and accountability for delivery.

This challenge reflects a broader shift across higher education, as educators increasingly turn to experiential learning to help students apply theory in real-world contexts and build professional confidence.

To address this gap, National University embedded an employer-sponsored agile software development project directly into its capstone course in Agile Software Development and Project Management. Sourced through Riipen and delivered in partnership with TiriVelo, a growing pet-care technology company, the experience placed students in a live product environment where their work contributed to real development goals rather than hypothetical outcomes.

The challenge: Aligning academic rigor with real-world relevance.

For faculty, one of the most time-consuming aspects of a capstone course is identifying and validating project ideas that will hold up over an entire term. As Dr. Jeffrey S. Appel, Part-Time Professor at National University, reflected from his experience teaching the course, “Trying to come up with a project idea is one of the most difficult and time-consuming things for a team to do in a capstone class.” When students define their own projects, outcomes can vary significantly, and the experience may not always align with professional expectations.

For TiriVelo, the challenge was different but equally pressing. As an early-stage technology company, the team needed to move quickly to establish a scalable, production-ready foundation for its platform. Limited internal capacity meant that progress depended on finding contributors who could translate concepts into functional components while working within a real product roadmap.

Both parties shared a common need: a structured, real-world project that would support student learning while delivering tangible value to an external organization.

The experience: Applying agile methods in a live product environment.

Students enrolled in the capstone were assigned to employer-defined projects and organized into small teams, working between 60 and 180 hours over the course of the experience. Rather than operating in a simulated environment, students engaged directly with a real sponsor, fundamental requirements, and real delivery expectations.

Guided by Dr. Appel, students applied agile Scrum methodologies to gather stakeholder requirements, develop UML use case diagrams, and produce software requirements and preliminary design documentation. They built responsive web components and core platform features using modern tools, including Next.js, Supabase, and TypeScript, while managing schedules, iterations, and retrospectives in accordance with professional agile practices.

From the employer’s perspective, the collaboration aligned seamlessly with business needs. As TiriVelo’s founder and CEO, Michael Navarro, explained, the project “aligned perfectly with TiriVelo’s product roadmap,” enabling the company to accelerate design and development while supporting emerging engineering talent. The students’ contributions were particularly crucial as they came at a key stage in TiriVelo’s development, just as TiriVelo was finalizing its MVP (minimum viable product). Their ability to deliver production-ready components genuinely accelerated the company’s launch timeline, and the stakes were very real, which made their ability to meet deadlines even more impressive.

Impact on student learning and professional readiness.

For students, the project delivered an experience that closely mirrored professional software engineering work. Students were required to interpret evolving requirements, collaborate remotely, communicate clearly with stakeholders, and adapt their technical decisions as the project progressed.

According to Dr. Appel, speaking from a faculty perspective, the project “achieved the goal of the capstone class to provide a classroom experience that closely mirrors what students will see in the real world.” He highlighted the quality of the final presentation and the sponsor’s response as particularly meaningful indicators of student growth and engagement.

Employer feedback reinforced this perspective. Navarro noted that the students demonstrated strong professionalism, collaboration, and adaptability throughout the engagement. Their willingness to ask clarifying questions, work effectively in distributed teams, and iterate based on feedback reflected behaviors expected in professional engineering environments. These experiences helped students build confidence in their ability to make meaningful contributions beyond the classroom. The students integrated seamlessly into TiriVelo’s development workflow, collaborating with TiriVelo’s engineering leads via tools such as GitHub, Supabase, and Netlify, which TiriVelo actively uses in-house. This wasn’t just theory; it was hands-on, tool-driven execution.

Value delivered to the employer.

The student teams’ work extended well beyond exploratory or theoretical exercises. Their contributions helped establish the foundational architecture of TiriVelo’s platform, including onboarding flows, provider interfaces, and early responsive web layouts.

Navarro emphasized that the students transformed early concepts into functional, scalable components, building clean and well-structured code that future engineering teams can continue to develop and enhance. He noted that their ability to learn new technologies quickly, break down complex requirements, and deliver working solutions accelerated development timelines “far beyond what we initially anticipated.”

For TiriVelo, the collaboration directly advanced product development while shaping a platform designed to serve thousands of pet owners and service providers. The experience demonstrated how employer-connected learning can support real business outcomes alongside student development.

Similar outcomes are increasingly reported by organizations that engage students through project-based learning, where well-scoped collaborations deliver meaningful progress while building future talent.

Faculty perspective: Instructional insights from course delivery.

From a teaching standpoint, the partnership addressed a persistent challenge in capstone delivery. By sourcing a clearly defined, employer-led project, the course eliminated the uncertainty and variability that often accompany student-generated ideas.

Dr. Appel described the project from a faculty standpoint as “an excellent project that meets all the requirements for a project capstone class.” He also noted that having a committed external sponsor willing to work closely with students and provide real-world requirements significantly strengthened the learning environment. Based on this experience, he expressed interest in continuing to use employer-sourced projects in future courses, citing more consistent outcomes and more substantial alignment with professional practice.

Why this approach delivered results.

The success of this experience was rooted in alignment and structure rather than novelty. Academic objectives, employer needs, and student capabilities were clearly connected from the outset, creating shared expectations and accountability.

Active employer engagement ensured that students worked with realistic constraints and received meaningful feedback, while ongoing faculty involvement supported interpretation, reflection, and learning throughout the project lifecycle. The use of an agile framework provided a common language for collaboration, iteration, and continuous improvement, reinforcing both technical and professional skills.

Together, these elements created an environment where learning and delivery reinforced one another, resulting in outcomes that were credible, practical, and mutually beneficial.

Looking ahead.

Encouraged by the results, both faculty and employer expressed strong interest in future collaborations. For National University, the experience demonstrates a scalable model for delivering high-quality, industry-connected capstone courses. For employers like TiriVelo, it highlights the value of engaging with students as contributors to real product development, rather than as observers or interns in name only.

This experience demonstrates how thoughtfully designed, employer-connected learning experiences can enhance academic delivery, support student readiness, and deliver real value to industry partners, all within a single, integrated project.

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About the author:

Jennifer Lussier is a Content Marketing Specialist at Riipen with a multidisciplinary background. Wishing to accomplish more for the benefit of society, she joined Riipen in 2019, and is committed to ensuring that postsecondary students gain relevant industry experience through their studies in order to be better prepared for the future of work.

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