The Adoption Curve

Agile Learning Design

In this week's episode, we unveil agile learning design and change management tactics for digital adoption.

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Featuring

Megan Torrance

Founder & CEO @Torrance Learning

What you'll learn

Why L&D gets left out: Instead of waiting for the invite, L&D should be running an internal roadshow.
The LLAMA framework: Forget 6-month timelines and locked-in modules. Learn about Megan's LLAMA framework
Vanilla to hot fudge: Learn to build in levels, from “vanilla” (base rollout) to “chocolate sprinkles” (minor customizations) to “hot fudge” (full-featured experience).

Meet our guest

Megan is the Founder and CEO of TorranceLearning, where she leads a team of learning experience designers & engineers in reimagining workplace learning. Her firm has served Fortune 1000 companies, major research universities, global professional associations, and federal agencies for over two decades. Megan brings a strategic vision that helps TorranceLearning bridge vision with execution—delivering innovative, data-informed, and learner-centered solutions.

She is also the author of Agile for Instructional Designers, Data & Analytics for Instructional Designers, and Making Sense of xAPI and serves as a Facilitator for eCornell’s leadership programs and an adjunct instructor in Penn State’s Learning Design & Technology Master’s program.

Featuring

Megan Torrance

Founder & CEO @Torrance Learning

Connect

Designing Learning That Lasts

Background context: Before agile was cool in L&D, Megan Torrance was already adapting software dev practices for learning teams. With roots in Accenture and a background in processing operations, she saw first-hand the chaos of late-night deliverables and fragile timelines. That led to a question: what if L&D could anticipate change?

Today, as CEO of TorranceLearning, Megan leads a “full stack learning team” helping organizations build resilient, learner-focused experiences that survive rapid tech shifts, internal reorgs, and even AI adoption waves.

🎤 “All good projects change. If your project doesn’t change from start to finish, that might be because nobody cares about it.”— Megan Torrance

Why L&D Gets Left Out

One of Megan’s core observations? L&D isn’t brought in early enough during transformation projects — and that’s partly because we haven’t positioned ourselves as strategic players. To shift that, she teaches *internal power mapping* and relationship-building.

Instead of waiting for the invite, L&D should be running an internal roadshow.

🎤 "We built a deck and launched an internal marketing campaign. ‘Here’s what you can count on us for. Here’s how to engage us.’ It was like internal business development.”— Megan Torrance

Example: One client used this strategy post-training with Megan’s agile workshop — proactively setting meetings with business sponsors and communicating expectations, increasing early L&D involvement in key rollouts.

Agile Learning Starts with LLAMA

Forget 6-month timelines and locked-in modules. Megan’s LLAMA framework — “lot like agile management approach” — was born from adapting extreme programming to instructional design.

With user research, iterative content builds, and a bias toward fast feedback loops, LLAMA makes training adaptable. It also means saying no to overly polished builds that break the moment the UI updates.

🎤 “We didn’t force-fit agile. We started asking: what actually works for us in L&D? That became LLAMA.”— Megan Torrance

Example: In one rollout, her team was selected specifically because the client knew they’d “change their minds a lot” — and Megan’s process could handle it without pitching a fit.

Vanilla to Hot Fudge

While LLAMA governs process, Design for Change governs the product. Instead of scripting static lessons, Megan recommends identifying what's likely to change and building around it — sometimes even leaving it out of training altogether.

Her team builds in levels — from “vanilla” (base rollout) to “chocolate sprinkles” (minor customizations) to “hot fudge” (full-featured experience). This reduces overwork, lets teams launch sooner, and gives time to scale what works.

🎤 "Don’t bake UI buttons into video if you don’t have to. Link out to system documentation instead. It gets updated more often anyway — teach them how to find it.”— Megan Torrance

Example: One LMS course built with these principles has lasted eight years with minimal updates — a testament to designing with resilience.