What final deliverables are required when completing my Riipen Labs project?
You must upload your completed HeyMilo interview directly to the milestone on your project.
You can find the link to the interview within the milestone, and must add the completed interview as an attachment in order to complete the milestone.
You must, as a team, complete the Growth Strategy Report deck, which showcases your teams overall completed project. This should be completed as a team, and must be upload by each team member as an attachment for your final deliverable.
A general reflection about your time spent working on the project, and what you will take from this experience, directly into the reflection portion of your final deliverable.
Please note: All of three of these are required in order for your completed project to the considered eligible for payment.
How to create a strong final deliverable for Riipen Labs
Your final deliverable is more than a report. It is evidence of how you think, how you work with others, and how you make decisions when information is incomplete. Employers reviewing this work are less interested in perfect answers and more interested in understanding your process.
This guide explains what an effective final deliverable looks like, what is required, and how to ensure your work clearly represents the effort you put into the Lab.
What is the final deliverable meant to show?
The Growth Strategy Report is employer-facing and should clearly communicate three things:
What growth direction your team recommends.
Why your team chose that direction.
How your team arrived at that decision.
There is no single correct recommendation. The Lab is intentionally designed with ambiguity, similar to real-world business situations. A strong deliverable shows thoughtful reasoning, tradeoffs, and alignment across the team.
Students are also required to upload their HeyMilo interview, speaking to their experience throughout the project. This interview can be found linked in the milestone and in order to complete the milestone must be completed and uploaded.
What you are submitting?
Each team submits one shared Growth Strategy Report using the provided template. Each team can create one report, but this report must be uploaded by each student individually. This report should reflect the collective work of the team, with clear contributions from each role.
The emphasis is on:
Critical thinking
Decision-making
Clarity of reasoning
It is not about length, design polish, or using business jargon.
Required sections of the final report?
Executive summary
This section should briefly explain:
The growth area your team chose.
The core recommendation.
The potential impact for the company.
A reader should understand your direction in one to two short paragraphs.
Growth strategy SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis
This section shows the analysis behind your recommendation.
Your SWOT should be specific to the chosen growth area, not a generic overview of the company.
Strong SWOT sections:
Clearly connect strengths and weaknesses to the chosen focus.
Show realistic opportunities and risks.
Reflect research, discussion, and judgment, not just assumptions.
Key decisions and tradeoffs
This is one of the most important parts of the deliverable.
This section should explain:
What options your team considered.
What information was missing or unclear.
What tradeoffs were discussed.
Why one direction was chosen over others.
This is where you demonstrate how your thinking evolved over time. Employers want to see how you reasoned through uncertainty.
Showing your work: what this means in practice
Your final deliverable must make your work visible. A summary of conclusions alone is not enough.
You should show:
How ideas were generated.
How decisions were debated or refined.
How research, constraints, or risks influenced choices.
How roles contributed to the final outcome.
The Decision Log plays a key role here. It should reflect the progression of your thinking from kickoff to final submission.
If someone reviewed only your final report, they should still be able to understand how your team got there.
Role contributions and expectations
Each role contributes one clear input to the final deliverable. These contributions should be identifiable in the report, even though the final submission is a shared document.
Project lead: Shows how decisions were made and how thinking evolved.
Research lead: Provides relevant context, examples, or data that informed decisions.
Strategy lead: Clearly articulates the recommended growth direction and rationale.
Operations or technical lead: Highlights feasibility, risks, and execution considerations.
Communications lead: Ensures the report is clear, coherent, and employer-ready.
Balanced contributions across roles are essential.
What strong submissions do well?
Strong deliverables:
Answer the growth question directly.
Make reasoning explicit.
Connect analysis to recommendations.
Reflect collaboration and alignment.
Use clear, straightforward language.
Weak deliverables often:
Jump straight to conclusions.
Lack explanation of how decisions were made.
Include generic SWOT content.
Fail to reflect team discussion or iteration.
How this connects to evaluation and reflection?
Your final deliverable supports more than just the employer review.
It also informs:
Peer-to-peer feedback on contribution and collaboration.
Your HeyMilo AI reflection interview.
The clearer your work and decision-making are in the deliverable, the easier it will be to reflect on your role, describe challenges, and explain impact in your interview.
A final reminder
Riipen Labs is designed to mirror real work.
In real projects:
Information is incomplete.
Tradeoffs are unavoidable.
Decisions matter more than perfect answers.
Your final deliverable should reflect this reality. Focus on showing how you thought, how you worked with others, and how you arrived at your recommendation.
That is what makes your work meaningful, credible, and valuable to employers.