Learning to Pivot

Brian Donlin (mpd² '26) found mpd²’s newly industry-tied capstone course to be a beneficial builder of his professional toolkit.

When Brian Donlin (mpd² ’26) and his classmates began interviewing consumers for their capstone project, they expected to talk about the garage of the future—the challenge Newell Brands had originally handed them.

Instead, conversation after conversation veered somewhere else. People were worried about severe weather, emergency readiness, and how prepared their families would be when the next storm hit.

The students chose to pivot, a decision that ultimately defined their project. It also demonstrated why Northwestern Engineering’s Master of Product Design and Development Management (mpd²) program leadership revised the focus of the capstone course last year.

Rather than creating a theoretical greenfield product or service of their choosing, mpd² students now work directly with an industry sponsor. The goal: give students a realistic, end‑to‑end product‑development experience that mirrors the decisions, constraints, and discoveries they will face in their careers.

For Brian, that meant partnering with Newell Brands, the consumer‑goods conglomerate behind everything from Sharpie markers and Elmer’s glue to Coleman stoves and Yankee candles. He worked alongside classmates James Aiton (mpd² ’26), Ashish Kolli (mpd² ’26), Hitesh Varshney (mpd² ’26), and Nadim Zaroubi (mpd² ’26) 

“The teamwork, the research, the whole journey—it all felt very real,” Brian said. “Nearly all of our work on this project was driven by what we learned in class.”

One of those lessons? Stay flexible 

After hearing consumers repeatedly express anxiety about climate‑related emergencies, the team shifted its focus from EV‑era garages to a new, more urgent problem: How can families reduce fear and uncertainty during severe weather events?

Their answer became ReadyVault, a severe‑weather preparedness system combining a physical storage solution with a web app that helps families identify, organize, and purchase essential emergency supplies.

Even after landing on the new direction, the project continued evolving. Early prototypes and user feedback pushed the team to refine physical form factors, simplify features, and narrow in on what real customers valued most. On the digital side, they iterated on the app’s user experience and curated a more thoughtful set of emergency‑readiness products. 

The realism of the revamped capstone was reflected in the process, Brian said.

“Our biggest challenge was learning to efficiently make decisions as a team,” he said. “Every week, we were faced with dozens of decisions, and we all have opinions. We had to learn to keep healthy debate within a finite timeframe, just like in the real world.”

The students also met regularly with Newell leadership and alumni mentor Josh Buck (mpd² ’18), senior category innovation manager at Bissell Homecare. Those conversations helped the team navigate tough choices and apply classroom concepts to real industry constraints.

“Josh talked us through some difficult decisions and supplemented our classroom learnings with suggestions based on his industry experience,” Brian said. “Toward the end of the process, we were even able to validate that people actually want our product using quantitative methods. 

That final step—proving viability—was a major area of growth for Brian.

“Our project shifted my mindset from thinking about product opportunities to business opportunities,” he said. “We ended with a pretty well‑fleshed‑out solution. 

What was unquestionably successful was Brian’s experience with the new capstone format. He credited program leaders for rethinking the course structure and creating an experience that felt both relevant and forward‑looking.

“I loved how it was based on a broader societal trend,” he said. “My research skills improved big time, both qualitative and quantitative. These are valuable skills I now have in my toolkit.”

Newell Brands loved the end result as well.

"The mpd² project was structured and formulated exactly how we are creating front end innovation projects for Newell Brands," said Jim Caruso, senior principal for product development and planning at the company. "We craft an opportunity and create a learning plan, approach and research to discover the opportunity space and innovation. This team learned, listened, pivoted and the outcome was outstanding. We would love the opportunity to sponsor another team and continue a relationship with the mpd² program at Northwestern."