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Contents
Introduction........................................................................................... v
1. The Case for Agile..........................................................................1
Part 1. Kicking Off the Project............................................................13
2. Plan the Kickoff............................................................................15
3. Define the Goal............................................................................33
4. Define the Learner........................................................................43
5. Define Scope With User Stories...................................................55
6. Define Scope Using Action Mapping...........................................65
Part 2. Managing the Project...............................................................75
7. Plan the Iterative Project...............................................................77
8. Define and Estimate Tasks...........................................................97
9. Design and Deliver in Iterations.................................................113
10. Create Planning and Working Rhythms.....................................129
11. Maintain Regular, Open Lines of Communication....................141
12. Facilitate Retrospectives..............................................................153
Part 3. Applying Agile in Your Organization....................................161
13. Scaling Agile...............................................................................163
14. The Organizational Mindset Shift to Agile................................173

Contents
Acknowledgments..............................................................................183
Appendix A.The Agile Manifesto and
12 Principles for L&D Teams............................................................189
Appendix B. Job Aids.........................................................................198
References..........................................................................................201
About the Author...............................................................................203
Index...................................................................................................205

v
Introduction
The first time the term Agile was used to describe an iterative develop-
ment process specific to software was with the Agile Manifesto written
in February 2001.The Agile process aimed to make it easier for software
engineers, their teams, and their business sponsors to work together and
be adaptive, resulting in a better product for the end user.
But the concepts underlying Agile have much earlier roots. Some argue
that Agile traces all the way back to the 1620s with the development of the
scientific method by Francis Bacon. A more commonly thought of start-
ing point is the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle developed by Walter
Shewhart in the 1930s. PDSA, like Agile, is an iterative and incremental
development methodology that was adapted and used to train hundreds of
managers at Toyota in the 1950s (Rigby, Sutherland, and Takeuchi 2016).
In the 1980s and 1990s, with the explosion of software development
as an industry, leaders continued their search for better processes. Studies
showed that teams who worked together and continued to refresh their
design and development processes created more successful innovations
much more quickly than their competitors. Two of the people at the fore-
front of this work were Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, who creat-
ed the Scrum method, named after a rugby move in which players pack
tightly together and move as one in an attempt to gain possession of the
ball. Scrum had the same goals that Agile ultimately would: finishing proj-
ects on time,under budget,and with fewer bugs.Sutherland and Schwaber
were then involved in the creation of the Manifesto for Agile Software
Development (the Agile Manifesto) in 2001.

vi
Introduction
The Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto shapes the work of Agile project management
teams.Unlike other manifestos,this one is quite short but no less power-
ful. A mere 68 words, the Agile Manifesto lays out these core values:
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by
doing it and helping others do it.Through this work we have
come to value:
•
• individuals and interactions over processes and tools
•
• working software over comprehensive documentation
•
• customer collaboration over contract negotiation
•
• responding to change over following a plan.
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value
the items on the left more.
The Agile Manifesto reflects collaborative, practical values and a desire
to approach project management in a way that focuses on people—both
the people who make up the project team and the end users of the product.
What it means for L&D in practice is:
• listening to team members and stakeholders and changing the
product’s look, feel, and features in response to feedback and
changing needs; being willing to revisit and repeat phases, such
as design and development, following iterative implementations
and feedback
• prioritizing delivery of a responsive app that performs the tasks
a learner needs over a complete, perfect, beautifully formatted
project scope, technical manual, and set of interface specs—or a
set of detailed wireframes or storyboards imagining the potential
(but nonexistent) app

vii
Introduction
• revisiting lists of deliverables as the project evolves rather than
holding to (and billing for) each item on the list whether it is
ultimately needed or not
• adjusting the schedule if a member of the team is reassigned or
unexpectedly absent
Thanks to these values,Agile has since become ubiquitous amid any team
or organization developing software. Beyond the four core values, Agile
teams follow a set of 12 principles, which turn a short and sweet statement
of intention into actionable directions.These 12 Agile principles are:
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and
continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.
Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive
advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a
couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job
done.
6. Face-to-face conversation is the most efficient and effective
method of conveying information to and within a development
team.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development.The sponsors,
developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace
indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
enhances agility.

viii
Introduction
10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not
done—is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from
self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more
effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
These 12 principles can easily apply to the L&D world too. In the
appendix, I’ve detailed how I adapted each one specifically for developing
learning projects; check it out now, or reference it as needed throughout
this book.
My History With Agile
My own career paralleled the emergence of Agile in the software industry.
In the 1990s, as a project manager at Andersen Consulting (now Accen-
ture) and Arthur Andersen, I followed their Method/1: Plan-Design-
Develop-Implement, with evaluation left for the next plan phase (Rifkin
1992). Glorious in its detail and rigid in its implementation, Method/1
and I had a rather stressful love/hate relationship. But brute force and long
hours could overcome any project management deficiency when you’re in
your 20s and don’t know any better!
After leaving the firm and starting my own consultancy around LMS
implementation and e-learning development in the early 2000s, I aban-
doned the rigid project planning ethos because my work in instructional
design was “so much more creative.”And so I spent just as much brute force
and long hours, just without a solid project plan.
As my company, TorranceLearning, grew and our client projects got
bigger, our loose approach to project management became unsustainable.
Our clients were still happy with the results, but our work-life balance was
out of control.Midway through a project,we had no idea if we would finish
on time, if we would have to write off hours we couldn’t possibly bill the

ix
Introduction
client, or if we’d be able to keep up with a constantly shifting set of needs
and requirements along the way.We needed to do something better.
By happenstance, my social and business networking circle included
a lot of software developers, and by this time Agile was becoming the
norm in our local tech scene. I spent time with Dianne Marsh of SRT
Solutions, Helene Gidley of HSG Consulting, Rich Sheridan of Menlo
Innovations, Marisa Smith of the Whole Brain Group, and Rob Houck
of LearnShare, soaking up what they were doing on their projects.This
was 2008. Each of these small businesses had their own approach to
Agile. Their similarities were helpful foundations, while their differ-
ences inspired us to make our own adaptations for the instructional
design space.
In late 2011, we realized these adaptations were quite extensive. Our
business model and way of engaging with our clients was fully wrapped
around our project management approach. We wondered if the extent of
our changes still qualified us as using Agile. We decided to call it the Lot
Like Agile Management Approach and named it LLAMA®.
LLAMA works for us. It works for clients. And we felt like we had
something to share with our peers.The TorranceLearning team and I have
been sharing this approach with fellow L&D professionals since 2012. By
now, thousands of people have learned about LLAMA and adopted it in
whole or in part to their work.
In the middle of writing this book, Susan Lord, a courseware developer
and project manager who attended a LLAMA workshop at a conference
wrote this to me:
Hi! I just wanted to tell you I did my first Agile chart with
Post-its and tape on my wall. . . . It is enormous but I am
no longer drowning. I got my team on board and they can
visualize what is needed.Thank you, thank you!

x
Introduction
It outlines our process flows, what milestone we are at, and
what needs to happen to complete this phase. And what is
wonderful is there was no bossing anyone around. Which I
love! Everyone was in it! Fantastic!
I also found out my manager was in your class last month. So
we are now speaking the same language.
This quick exchange over LinkedIn sums up many of the appealing
aspects of Agile and LLAMA: the clarity of visible project management,
team engagement, work-directed teams, and a shared vision with teams,
leaders, and their business sponsors. These aspects are within your reach
too.
Who This Book Is For
I’ve written this book for all the instructional designers, course develop-
ers, learning experience designers, and other professionals leading proj-
ects in the learning and development or training space who are looking
to find a better way to manage their projects and deliver better results, on
time and in budget. Essentially, a better way to work. Our industry is not
steeped in a project management culture, yet nearly all the work we do
is done as a project, with a defined start and end date and a deliverable
to be produced. The model we’ve followed for a half century or so—the
ADDIE model—no longer serves us in a do-more-with-less world of
constant change.
Whether you’re creating instructor-led facilitated experiences, virtual
classroom training, e-learning, performance support, mobile learning
apps, or advanced digital learning experiences, your work is somewhat
like the work of software developers. And the approach outlined in
this book borrows heavily from the Agile approach used the software
industry.

xi
Introduction
What’s in This Book
The book opens with chapter 1, which lays out the case for using Agile in
an L&D context.It highlights where the traditional waterfall approach to
project management (ADDIE) fails to respond to changing demands. It
also presents my Lot Like Agile Management Approach, which adjusts
Agile in ways to make it a better fit for instructional design.
Then, part 1 describes the project kickoff and setting a project up for
success with Agile. Chapter 2 guides you through planning the project
kickoff, including who needs to participate and what do you need to cover
during it.Chapter 3 covers how you should define the project’s goal,partic-
ularly whether it should be training or performance focused. Chapter 4
delves into how to craft personas from your learner base,then how to select
the primary learner on which your training will focus. Chapter 5 borrows
the concept of user stories from software development to help you define
scope. Chapter 6 takes a different approach to scope definition, one more
suitable to instructional projects,and offers the Action Mapping technique,
which you can use to identify key behaviors related to the goal, then map
activities and content to those behaviors.
Part 2 moves into the routine of actually managing the project. Here,
you’ll learn how to define tasks and deliver iterations of the product, as
well as establish a sustainable working rhythm with your Agile team.
Chapter 7 shows you how to plan for an iterative project, including
lining up the high-level arc of the project with your daily workflow while
anticipating the unexpected. Chapter 8 details the challenges in estimat-
ing tasks, and then presents four rules for dealing with said challenges.
Chapter 9 gets into the core component of an Agile project, the iteration;
it makes the case for why iterative design works and presents ways to get
it right. Chapter 10 digs into the rhythms that govern Agile projects as
well as how to work well with subject matter experts and Agile software

xii
Introduction
teams. Because open, regular communication is essential to Agile success,
chapter 11 focuses on how you can ensure you’re communicating in the
right fashion with the right people. Chapter 12 examines the transforma-
tive power of the retrospective,both during iterations in the middle of the
project and as debriefs once it’s wrapped up.
Throughout the first two parts,the book discusses Agile as implemented
on a single project. Finally, part 3 places Agile in a broader organizational
context where multiple projects compete for attention. Chapter 13 shows
you how to scale Agile beyond one project to manage and prioritize multi-
ple Agile projects at once. Chapter 14 wraps up the book with a call to
action for shifting the culture in your team, department, or organization to
lay the groundwork for Agile.The appendixes contain ready-to-use job aids
for applying the techniques in the book to your projects as well as a more
detailed look at how each of the 12 principles of Agile can be applied to
L&D. I recommend flipping back to it from time to time as you read and
each principle comes into play.
Welcome to the world of Agile and LLAMA. I hope this book offers
you the techniques and mindset for embracing a new way of working. Just
as our projects are iterative and incremental when we use Agile, this meth-
od is as well. I welcome your engagement and feedback any time!

1
CHAPTER 1
The Case for Agile
In This Chapter
• Where does ADDIE fall short?
• What is Agile project management?
•
How can Agile work for instructional
design?
A woman approached the TorranceLearning booth at a conference several
years ago.
She said,“Megan! I hear that you help people with their project manage-
ment problems. I need your help.”
I adjusted my cape, stood a little bit taller, and asked her about the
problem.
She said,“You have to help me stop the 11th-hour changes!”
That made me pause a little bit. I wasn’t sure how to respond.
She clearly didn’t know that my whole project management “thing”was
about accepting and expecting changes, even late in the project.
I asked her what she was making training about.
“Software.”

2
Chapter 1
I asked what kept changing.
“The software.”
Was she really trying to stop the
development of a product so that
she could be on time and within
budget with her part of the project?
Even at the risk of delivering some-
thing that was wrong? Probably not. And yet the framing of her ques-
tion—stopping change so she can finish her work—is probably familiar
to many of us in LD.
This anecdote illustrates the biggest problems with how instructional
designers have managed projects for years. The focus has been on the
wrong things: It’s all about delivering something—anything—on sched-
ule and within budget. Not that those are bad goals, but they leave a
critical factor out of the equation: the learners. Your on-time, on-budget
piece of training might not work. It might not do what the learners need.
It might not meet the learning objectives.
Let’s put learners back in focus for our instructional design projects.
But first, we need to clarify precisely why traditional project management
methods are inadequate.
What’s Wrong With ADDIE?
The stalwart of learning and development project management is
ADDIE, a decades-old linear or “waterfall” approach to planning and
managing software and instructional design projects (Figure 1-1).
ADDIE describes the five phases of project planning: analysis, design,
development, implementation, and evaluation. While there’s nothing
inherently wrong with that formula, when applied literally ADDIE
assumes a linear progression from one phase to the next. Once one
phase is complete, the project team moves to the next phase. Generally,

3
The Case for Agile
there is no opportunity to revisit earlier phases; a developer can’t climb
back up the waterfall.
Figure 1-1. The ADDIE Workflow
In a model like this, if you go back to the drawing board it’s because
something went horribly wrong. Even more problematic, in a waterfall
model, evaluation occurs only at the end.This leaves the end users’ expe-
rience out of the design and development process. It also means that if
problems or flaws in the design or implementation are found,they cannot
easily be remedied. Problems wait to be fixed until the next product
update, which could be months (or years) away, or they entail extremely
costly changes, late delivery, and huge cost overruns.
One of my mentors used to say that the first day of a project is the worst
day to plan what the end product will be, how much it will cost, and how
long it will take to get there.ADDIE works fine ...if nothing in your proj-
ect changes from the day you draft the project plan to the day you deliver
the training. But how often does that happen? Right: almost never.
For example, what if the technology changes during development?
What if the target audience of trainees is assigned new or different goals,

4
Chapter 1
and the learning objectives for the training change dramatically? As any
instructional designer or developer knows, change is:
• scary
• frustrating
• inevitable
• happening faster than ever.
It’s also:
• exciting
• an opportunity
• another word for improvement.
It’s quite likely your project needs to change over time because the proj-
ect requestor’s or sponsor’s needs evolve in tandem with the underlying
business needs, as clients learn more about the learning experience or as
ideas are tried and tested. To assume otherwise is to set yourself up for
failure. It’s folly to assume that the project sponsors know everything they
want at the beginning of a project.
Rather than avoiding and fearing change or,like the desperate woman at
the conference, attempting to prevent it, why not embrace change? Accept
that it is inevitable, expect it in all your projects, and welcome changes as
opportunities to make better products.
The truth of it is that everyone—the development team and the spon-
sors—is learning more about the project as it unfolds. And, quite frankly,
it’s often the instructional designers on the team who are coming up with
new ideas as the project grows. (If you’re not, you may not be fully engaged
in the work you’re doing!)
ADDIE: A Relic of a Never-Existent Era
ADDIE hails from a bygone—and completely mythical—era when (if
you just planned your project carefully and thoroughly enough) design,
development, and implementation would progress smoothly, reaching

5
The Case for Agile
a scheduled, on-budget, happily-ever-after ending. Learners would get
what they needed from the training, and the project team would cheer-
fully move on to the next neat, plannable project.
LD professionals understand that to be just what it is: a fairy tale.
While models like ADDIE can work in product manufacturing or
construction, the linear waterfall model is inappropriate for product or
learning development—or any innovative process. Processes with high
variability simply cannot be pinned down in a plan written before design
has begun.
Real-life project planning for training is a little bumpier than planning
to manufacture countless identical products using a predictable process.
Planning,designing,and developing LD programs calls for the flexibility
not only to adapt to change but to anticipate and welcome change,whether
it’s changing demands of project sponsors,changing preferences of learners,
or changing business needs of organizations.
Only by testing incremental releases or partially complete products
can you catch errors, clumsy features, and potentially disastrous problems
early in the development cycle. By failing early, you can fix them rela-
tively easily compared with the consequences of discovering a fatal flaw
only when the final product is in the hands of hundreds or thousands of
learners.
The solution? An iterative model like Agile project management.
What Is Agile?
Agile is a team-based project management approach that emphasizes iter-
ation and openness to change.An Agile team experiments and observes—
and tests and gathers feedback on—a product as it is developed. Agile is
ideal for projects where business needs might change, where specifica-
tions are not well defined at the outset, and where decisions are complex
and require creativity. Agile builds in flexibility by:

6
Chapter 1
• building deliverables in small increments
• releasing usable (testable) products multiple times during the
development process
• applying feedback on the early releases to improve successive
iterations.
Before getting into how Agile translates to instructional design,let’s start
with my own concise definition: Agile is an iterative, incremental method
of guiding design and building projects in a highly flexible and interactive
manner, focusing on maximizing customer value and fostering high team
engagement.
The Lot Like Agile Management Approach
My definition of Agile fits in perfectly with my Agile approach adapted
specifically for instructional design:LLAMA,or Lot Like Agile Manage-
ment Approach. It is iterative and incremental (training to be tested,
evaluated, and revised during design and development, rather than at
the end). It guides design and build projects (remember Agile isn’t an
instructional design method itself and should not supplant best practices
in that area). It is highly flexible (you need to be willing and able to
respond to changes throughout the process). It is interactive (the team,
the sponsor, and the subject matter experts work together). It maximizes
customer value (your job is not to simply create training and move on
to the next thing—you have to ensure your process delivers value to the
customer, the end user). And it fosters high team engagement (whether
you are a department of one or part of a multi-person function, you will
need to engage a team of sponsors, stakeholders, subject matter experts,
and learners to succeed).
This doesn’t mean we need to throw away ADDIE entirely.The LLAMA
approach includes the phases of ADDIE, with a twist (Figure 1-2).

7
The Case for Agile
Figure 1-2. ADDIE Adapted for Agile
Rather than assuming that the initial analysis covered everything and
that no changes will be requested during design and development, Agile
continuously returns to the design and development phases after succes-
sive evaluations. Rather than creating a single final product, Agile teams
create multiple iterations. Projects are completed in small increments. In
each phase, a product is created that stakeholders and learners can see, test,
play with,and even break.This gives teams the chance to identify problems
they hadn’t anticipated or reevaluate features or functions that might not
work in practice as they had envisioned.
It’s also a way to accommodate changes that occur for reasons other than
design errors. Maybe the end users’ managers decided to buy tablets for all
their sales personnel, and now the performance support tool has to work
on mobile. Maybe a new product or a major upgrade demands additional
training. Newly discovered information could render training methods or
content obsolete.
The point is, the development team and the project management team
cannot prevent change. And it’s not possible to know everything about a

8
Chapter 1
project in the initial design phase; nor is it reasonable to expect to anticipate
all possible changes. What those teams can do is build in a way to respond
to the inevitable changes.
Agile project management offers that flexibility and keeps the focus on
the end user by emphasizing evaluation throughout.This phase, at the very
end of ADDIE, often gets neglected. Here’s how the evaluation discussion
typically plays out, whether you’re developing software or training: A proj-
ect is done; it’s been a long slog,but the team has delivered,finally! The last
thing anyone wants to hear is what’s wrong with the product. Any changes
needed won’t be implemented until the product is updated anyhow.So why
spend time or money evaluating it?
With Agile for software development, evaluation is an essential part of
each iteration.The feedback from the evaluation (the user testing or stake-
holder review) is applied to the next round of design, development, and
implementation. These cycles repeat until the product is done to every-
one’s satisfaction, until a hard deadline is reached, or until the budget is
exhausted.
But, you might be thinking, project planning for an instructional design
project is not exactly like project planning for a software product. That’s
true! It’s important to highlight some of the differences:
First, planning an instructional design project requires a focus on learn-
ing objectives and desired performance outcomes, not just on software
features and functions. An Agile team breaks up a development project
into “user stories”—small, manageable units of work. LD teams similarly
break big projects into smaller units, but these are based on learning objec-
tives. A unit of work might be a single learner activity or a content object.
Each story or “task”card includes information on who is doing the task and
how long it will take.
Second, unlike software development teams, which tend to be dedicated
to a single project at a time,many LD teams are working simultaneously on

9
The Case for Agile
multiple training and performance support products. This poses difficulties
in planning that a dedicated software team is unlikely to encounter; however,
the built-in flexibility of the Agile approach comes to the rescue here.
The Agile method involves breaking down large projects into very small
pieces called stories.Team members estimate the amount of time each story
will take. Thus a project schedule begins to emerge from these groups of
stories.
LLAMA,like Agile,builds in tolerance for error.The time estimates are,
after all, estimates. Schedules change; staff changes, gets sick, or goes on
vacation. A task might take longer than expected. A needed content expert
might be called away to deal with problems on another project.There’s no
way to plan for every contingency. But as long as clear, constant commu-
nication—an essential element of Agile and LLAMA—is the norm, this
approach allows teams to get a realistic picture of who is needed when and
for how long.
Third, LD teams tend to consist of specialists; those who craft the
learning objectives or provide the actual training content are often not
developers. Even for digital learning projects, team members with soft-
ware engineering and coding expertise might not have any instructional
design knowledge. This specialization might lead to another key differ-
ence: The developers might have to wait for input from instructional
designers or content experts at various stages in the development process.
That’s where LLAMA comes in. Rather than trying to force an incom-
patible process to fit the Agile formula, LLAMA adjusts Agile in ways
that make it a better fit for instructional design project management. In
this book, I will extend the case I’ve just made for Agile for instructional
designers by showing you how you can kick off the project the right way
(part 1), then manage it through multiple iterations (part 2). By the end,
I hope you will become your own advocate for why Agile makes sense in
your organization!

10
Chapter 1
An Interview With Emily Ricco, Learning
Development Manager, HubSpot
When and why did you decide to use Agile?
I’ve been with HubSpot’s Learning Development team since 2014. When I recognized
the opportunity for greater focus on learning design and content creation, I started an
instructional design group. A few months after that, I adopted Agile because we had a
long list of projects to tackle and very few people dedicated to tackling them. I wanted
to empower this new team to take ownership of their work and how they got that
work done. At the same time, I wanted to ensure we had strong communication and
collaboration and could keep up with the pace of the business areas we supported.
After doing some research, I discovered Scrum and related to the principles behind it:
transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Two out of three of those principles are part
of HubSpot’s culture code, so it seemed a natural fit.
What barriers did you have to overcome?
I had to find the right version of Agile that would work for our team and our business.
Everyone has their own opinions about Agile. Everything I read in articles and books
and everyone I spoke with at other companies only increased the number of opinions to
consider. Additionally, it was an entirely new way to work, and I had to strike the balance
of avoiding micromanagement while ensuring consistent communication and structure.
How does your organization’s culture support Agile (or not)?
Our organization’s culture supports Agile because it is fast-paced and transparent.
Agile allows us to set expectations and move quickly, which in turn allows us to be
better partners. Transparency and adaptability are part of HubSpot’s Culture Code, as
well as part of the principles behind Scrum.
Do you have a story to share about describing Agile to someone else?
Our LD team is mainly centralized but historically other teams have wanted to take
charge of their own learning and development in order to move at a quicker pace.
Last year, I used Agile as a way to build trust with one of those teams. I wanted to
convince them that we were the right partners to work with on their ongoing training.
When I described the opportunity they would have for providing feedback and the level
of communication and transparency, the stakeholders were excited and confident in
our ability to deliver. They even ended up providing headcount on our team from their
budget so we could continue to partner with them and support them in a greater way.

11
The Case for Agile
Key Takeaways
• A linear, waterfall-shaped approach to project management fails
to incorporate the inevitable changes a project will face and sets
up the project team for a struggle to manage those changes.
• An iterative, incremental approach like Agile accommodates
change and offers a framework for meeting project needs
while maintaining appropriate control of timeline and budget
considerations.
• The Lot Like Agile Management Approach, or LLAMA, is
an Agile approach adapted specifically for instructional design
projects.

Part 1:
Kicking Off
the Project

15
CHAPTER 2
Plan the Kickoff
In This Chapter
• Why kick off an Agile project?
• Who do you invite to the kickoff session?
• What does a kickoff agenda look like?
“Megan,I know this isn’t the kind of project you want,but we could really
use some quick help,” a client, Jim, said over phone.
“Sure, how can we help?” I replied, because that’s what I’m in the busi-
ness of doing.
“I have three PowerPoint decks for
the same workshop, each created by
a different instructor. Can you just
combine the three into one that looks
good, and make us a facilitator guide
so they can be consistent going forward? There aren’t any changes to the
course itself. Seriously, I’m just asking you to put lipstick on my pig. We’re
rebuilding the entire workshop later, but this needs to be our stopgap.”

16
Chapter 2
Since this seemed like a relatively straightforward, practically adminis-
trative task, we didn’t insist on our regular project kickoff session. I asked
Jim to send over the three sets of files and we got to work.
After several iterations and two months of work, we weren’t getting
anywhere. Nothing we produced in this seemingly simple project was
what the client wanted,but we couldn’t figure out what the right answers
were. We were burning through our timeline—and the client’s patience.
“Jim,this just isn’t working.Let’s start all over.Can we schedule a project
kickoff meeting?”
“Two months into the project?”
“Exactly.”
And that’s what we did. We started back at the beginning, defining the
organization’s goal, the learners’ goals, who the learners actually were, and
the scope of the project.The four hours we spent kicking off the project—
even two months late—were incredibly valuable. We found out that what
Jim really wanted was a different course, not lipstick on his pig. It was the
project kickoff session that helped him discover that.
Now, every project gets a kickoff.
Kicking Off an Agile Project
We’re going to spend the next five chapters discussing the kickoff for an
Agile project.While this step is miniscule in terms of the overall time spent
on the project, it will likely result in the most valuable several hours you
spend. In the project kickoff session, you will work out the project’s goals,
measures, scope, risks, resource needs, cost estimates, high-level schedule,
and approaches to getting there, ideally with all the relevant parties in the
room and in agreement. Before you can actually meet a vision for success,
it’s critical for everyone to define and agree upon that vision together.
The agenda and time spent on each item in the kickoff can vary accord-
ing to the project’s size and need.The larger and more complex a project is,

17
Plan the Kickoff
the more important it is to thoroughly prepare and start with shared goals
and expectations. I have seen project kickoff sessions last from two hours
(for a half hour of instruction) to two days (for a multi-week curriculum).
Stepping back even further for a moment, it’s common for project
teams to prepare a great deal before the project kickoff session. Most
organizations spend weeks or months of planning, defining requirements,
conducting analysis, allocating resources, budgeting, and perhaps select-
ing vendors before the kickoff.The specifics of this preparation work also
depend on the organization and the project. In other cases, teams do very
little in advance short of identifying a working title for the product to be
developed.
Introducing Your Team to Agile
As important as it is to ensure that those on an extended project team (sponsor,
stakeholders, SMEs, and so on) are on board with an Agile approach, it’s absolutely
critical that your team be on the same page with respect to terminology, processes,
principles, and tools when implementing LLAMA. Depending on your team size and
approach, there are a few ways to get started:
If you’re a team of one, you can just get started. Read this book. Check out some of the
many resources available on the Internet or local Agile or professional groups, and get
started with a project that lends itself well to Agile.
If you’re on a larger team, getting organized and level-set may involve attending a
workshop together or working with a consultant, or simply identifying one person as
the Agile or LLAMA lead in your organization and having that person head the change
effort. Most of the time when I am called in to lead a workshop, it’s because a team
has recently reorganized or had some other catalyst for change. The workshop is the
introduction for the whole team, and then they decide how best to implement Agile in
their organization.
A go-slow-to-go-fast strategy would be to take an Agile approach to implementing
Agile. Choose a project and form a pilot team to get started, figure out some things
about how Agile adapts to your workflow, then get the whole team involved at a second
or third project iteration.

18
Chapter 2
Who Is Invited to the Kickoff?
The kickoff session—and the project itself—is most effective when the
right people are engaged in the process from the start.People are busy and
schedules are tight, but the organization’s ability to make a commitment
to getting all the players together for a project kickoff signals the high
priority placed on the project.There will be other times when you have to
make do without everyone in the room,and that’s OK.How many people
should be there? That varies greatly depending on the nature, complexity,
and size of the project, and the norms of the organization. Ideally, these
people are involved in the project kickoff:
The Project Sponsor
The project sponsor sets the goal for the project,has the authority to allo-
cate resources, decides priorities for scope and resources, and often gives
the final approval for project release and completion. The sponsor may
or may not be a subject matter expert in the content to be trained. This
person (known by software teams that use Agile as the product owner) is
typically a business owner of the project,and often the senior-most leader
involved in the project. If it’s unclear who the sponsor is, it’s often the
person whom the participants in the learning experience you are creating
report to, either directly or through the organization hierarchy.
In some cases, the project sponsor is not the final decision maker or is
not from the business. For example, the final decision maker might not
be able to commit the time required of project sponsor, so someone else
is selected to play that role.That person has most of the authority when it
comes to day-to-day or week-to-week decisions about the project but may
need to check in with the senior leader for bigger decisions.
Less often, the project sponsor is a senior member of the LD team.
This works when that person is very close to the business needs and has
direct access to decision makers.

19
Plan the Kickoff
The project sponsor,whomever it ends up being,is a required attendee at
the kickoff session. If this person is unavailable, you may need to schedule
around the sponsor’s calendar to ensure he or she can attend.
Project Stakeholders
Stakeholders are anyone or any group that will affect (or be affected by) the
project or the resulting training to be delivered. The distinction between
the sponsor and the stakeholders is that while stakeholders have influence
on the decision, the sponsor is the one who makes the final decision.
For an instructional design project, stakeholders may include:
• other representatives from the organization
• other organization units that may also use this training
• human resources
• recruiting
• instructors
• LMS administrators
• IT and helpdesk support
• internal communications
• marketing.
Project stakeholders are not required attendees at the kickoff session,
although they are certainly invited. As the facilitator of the kickoff session,
your role is to ensure that the stakeholders’ considerations are taken into
account while still leaving decision-making authority to the business spon-
sor, even in a consensus-based organization. If one or more project stake-
holders is not present at the kickoff session, you will need to identify how
best to communicate to them the results of the session and the project’s
plan going forward.
Subject Matter Experts
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are a special class of project stakeholders

20
Chapter 2
in that they are the keepers of the knowledge that is the content of the
training you are about to build. SMEs are critical resources for the project
once it gets started and may even be members of the project team. Keep
in mind that some SMEs, because of their expert status, may not actually
perform the tasks that your training project is addressing.
Most SMEs will have no formal instructional design experience or Agile
project management experience. Since they are key players in your project
going forward, you may want to take extra care to ensure that they are on
board with your approach and the difference between their role as an expert
in the content and your role as an expert in instructional design, as well as
your role as a project manager using Agile.
At least one SME is a required participant in the project kickoff session.
When a project has multiple SMEs, be sure to identify their respective or
overlapping areas of expertise.
Project Managers
It’s quite likely that this your role and why you’re reading this book. The
project manager is the team lead with the responsibility for getting the
work done. When working with an outside vendor, most organizations
have an internal project manager who directs the work of the vendor, and
the vendor has its own project manager assigned to lead the work of the
design and delivery team.
For obvious reasons, the project manager is required at the kickoff
session (both of them, when a vendor partner is used). Usually this person
facilitates the session.
Project Team Members
Most project managers will want to involve key members of the project
team in the kickoff session.This helps to build solid relationships with the
organizational leadership present and engage the team in the shared vision

21
Plan the Kickoff
for the project going forward.Depending on the nature of the project,these
team members may include people with the following roles or titles:
• instructional designer
• learning experience designer
• e-learning course developer
• software developer
• learning engineer
• graphic designer
• editor/quality assurance
• facilitator/trainer
• training operations specialist
• LMS administrator.
Learners
The people who are in the target learner population for the project have
an important voice in the training project, but they are often overlooked
as participants in the kickoff session. In instances where the SMEs and
business sponsor are removed from the day-to-day work skills your project
is addressing, this connection to the learner becomes even more import-
ant. Depending on the project, representatives of the learner population
could include someone who is:
• performing the work now
• currently in training
• doing the task in a different setting
• learning in a different modality than the one your project will
address
• recently learned this topic and is now applying it on the job.
It may simply not be feasible to include representatives of the learners
themselves in the kickoff session. In that case, you may grab someone from
this list of proxy learners:

22
Chapter 2
• Instructors, trainers, or facilitators who teach this topic to the
target audience currently have a good grasp of the content,
the learners, and the sticking points in training today. Note,
however, that some instructors may not actually perform the
work or they may be SMEs, either of which makes them
qualitatively different from the learners themselves.
• Immediate supervisors of the people who will be performing
this work have often been in the learners’ role in the past.Their
expertise stems from their role in evaluating good and bad
performance on the job and in the business.
• Help desk or customer service personnel who support the
learners in this particular topic or task have keen and detailed
insight into the struggles that learners face when implementing
new skills on the job. Like instructors and supervisors, however,
they may not perform the job itself. Further, help desk and
customer service teams often only hear about things when they
don’t work—and they make lack insight to all the successes that
occur and therefore don’t require a service inquiry.
Does the Project Kickoff Session Have to Be Done
Face-to-Face?
Ideally the project kickoff session is done face-to-face, as that is the greatest
bandwidth and highest resolution channel for people to communicate. However,
with good planning and solid technology tools, the kickoff session can be done
virtually. Here are some best practices for virtual kickoff sessions, which you may
find strikingly similar to effective virtual classroom instruction:
• Make heavy use of visuals. Share the official note-taking screen with the group
so everyone is aware of the details being recorded. And, since notes are taken
live during the session, post-meeting follow-up is made all that much easier.
• Separate the role of facilitator and producer. Just like delivering in a virtual
classroom, having a producer who can make sure that the right screens are

23
Plan the Kickoff
displayed at the right times and helping with participants’ technical issues
frees up the facilitator to guide the meeting. Often the producer is also a
notetaker.
• Have two notetakers. One notetaker screenshares for all to see and makes the
official set of notes for the meeting. The second notetaker is responsible for
noting things that may be helpful for the instructional design process later on,
but that might not make it into the official record.
• Be patient. Many things take longer when in the virtual meeting space. Check
to make sure that all the relevant voices are heard. Take breaks as needed.
• Record the meeting. (Ask for permission first.) This is one of the ways in
which a virtual kickoff session can be better than a face-to-face one; you have
an easy way to make a recording that you can refer to later on.
The Kickoff Session Agenda
What follows is a set of typical items covered in a project kickoff
session—for example, defining the learner, defining the scope, and
defining instructional and project parameters—and a suggestion of how
much time to spend on each. You can make additions or changes to
suit each new project at hand. In most cases, the entire team—business
sponsor and LD leaders included—learns more about their business
and needs as a result of this kickoff session, even if the project itself is
not pursued. The Project Kickoff Session Agenda job aid in appendix
B offers a sample kickoff session agenda, which we’ll cover in greater
depth in the next subsections.
Introductions and Approach (15 Minutes)
Provide the outline for the session,any necessary logistics (Wi-Fi password,
facilities, breaks, and so on), and an overview of roles for the meeting itself.
(Toward the end of the session, after you’ve defined scope and high-level
timelines, you can review roles for the project going forward.)

24
Chapter 2
Define the Business Problem and
Business Goals (1 Hour)
This is where you and the kickoff group come to agreement about the
desired outcomes for the project. In most projects, by time you get to
the kickoff session, everyone feels plenty sure that they understand the
business goal—otherwise why kick off a training project? However, you
should still insist on doing it. In every new project you might uncover
some nuance about the project goals that make you all feel like it has been
an hour well spent.
If the project sponsor cannot attend the full kickoff session, this portion
of the meeting is an essential one for the sponsor to be involved in.This can
be a challenging part of the session for the project sponsor,stakeholders,and
facilitator,so it’s a good idea to take a break when you’re done here.This gives
the project team a chance to regroup and reflect briefly.
More details about this aspect of the project kickoff are to be found in
chapter 3, Define the Goal.
Define the Learner (1 Hour or More)
Next, you will create two to five learner personas and determine which
is the primary and which may be a close runner-up.The primary learner
persona will be the focus of the scoping activities to come and will be
useful again when defining reviewers for each iteration of the project.
More details about this aspect of the project kickoff are to be found in
chapter 4, Define the Learner.
Define the Scope (1 Hour or More)
With the business problem, business goal, and learners defined, it’s time
to address the scope of the project. To determine scope, you’ll need to
answer these questions and others:
• What performance objectives will this project meet?

25
Plan the Kickoff
• What are the expected measurable outcomes?
• What content will be needed (in terms of breadth and depth)?
• How richly will each piece of content be addressed?
• About how long should this learning experience be?
• Which learner audiences are included?
It is just as important to define what is within scope as it is to define
what is out of scope. You can employ several methods to do so. For larger
projects, it takes more time; for small projects this goes pretty quickly.
For projects where you are defining requirements for learning platforms,
apps, and physical spaces, scope is defined by writing user stories. These
projects create “doing”deliverables and are best scoped out using this tradi-
tional software-inspired method. You can find out more about writing user
stories in chapter 5, Define Scope With User Stories.
For projects where you are creating instructional or learning experi-
ences—“teaching” deliverables—you can define scope using a technique
derived from Cathy Moore’s popular Action Mapping process, instead of
the user stories.You can find out more about using this method of defining
scope in chapter 6, Define Scope Using Action Mapping.
If you haven’t already taken one, this is another good time for a break.
Define Key Instructional Parameters (1 Hour)
At this point in the session, the group has done a lot of the heavy lifting
that will be required during your time together. While everyone is think-
ing about the learners and the scope of the project, some quick topics can
be covered, making for a nice cognitive break:
• Change management.Is this part of a larger change
management effort? Will one be required to roll this training
out? While the details may best be left to another session, this
context is important to identifying the risks, resources, and
timelines for this project.

26
Chapter 2
• Cross-cutting concepts.What other messages need to be
conveyed as undercurrents or subtle suggestions throughout the
training? While these are often nice-to-have aspects of the final
deliverable, their contribution to broader organizational goals is
worth noting.
• Overall branding and tone.What branding, messaging, and
tone should the training take? Is there an internal or external
brand guide?
• Pre- and post-course support. How will you support the learner
before and after training?
• Assessment and evaluation.How will learners be assessed?
How will the program itself be evaluated?
Define Key Project Parameters (1 Hour)
Next, you’ll cover a few items that come up in nearly every project kickoff
session and are not unique to learning projects, such as:
• Risks and mitigation strategies. What known factors present
a risk for this project? What unknowns do we fear? How
will we mitigate them? How will we address them when they
come up?
• Technical specifications.Where will this be hosted? How will
people find the training? Will this need to use SCORM,AICC,
xAPI,or something else? What platform will be used? Are
there any development tools that must (or must not) be used?
Addressing these questions is particularly relevant to digitally
delivered training.
• Accessibility factors. What approach should be taken to
ensuring that the training is accessible to everyone who will
need it?

27
Plan the Kickoff
Defining Risks
Risk definition and management is a fairly common project management activity and
much has been written about it. I particularly like Lou Russell’s “quick and dirty risk
assessment” in her book Project Management for Trainers, 2nd edition, as it is sufficient
to handle the needs of most learning and development projects. In Lou’s approach, the
entire extended team at the kickoff individually answers these three questions on a
scale of 1-10, then the answers are shared and discussed:
1. How big is this project compared with others you have been a part of?
(1 = it’s the smallest; 10 = it’s the largest)
2. How stable are the requirements for this project compared with other projects
you have been a part of?
(1 = the needs are completely clear; 10 = the needs are undefined)
3. How large will the learning curve be for this project? For example, does new
software, hardware, or processes have to be learned?
(1 = no learning curve; 10 = a considerable learning curve)
I like to add a few additional questions to the consideration:
4. How much change do we expect will be needed over the course of the project?
5. How many other pieces of this project are already underway (and perhaps out
of our control)?
6. What has our history been with this project sponsor or part of the organization?
Specific risks are then documented, managed, mitigated, or simply observed through
out the project.
Keep in mind that the project’s overall risk is likely to change as the needs change,
as the team solves problems, and as new changes come to light. Teams that keep a
healthy eye on the specific risks as well as the overall risk profile of the project are
more likely to be successful than those who create a list at the beginning but don’t
come back and manage them regularly.
Overall Project Budget and Timeline (30 Minutes)
While the project budget is something that you might not review in the
kickoff session (it is often created after this session now that you know the

28
Chapter 2
scope and parameters for the project), the overall timeline for the effort
certainly is.
All projects are constrained by three factors, and in each project one of
the three is the primary constraint:
• time (deadline, due date, and so on)
• budget (for either cash or resources)
• scope (which can be defined as breadth of content or the depth
to which it is addressed or presented).
If you’re thinking all three of these are equally critical, you’re not alone. I
would encourage you to explore the constraints a bit more with your project
sponsor.You may use questions such as:
• “If we’re at the end of the project and something comes up that
absolutely needs to be included, can we extend the timeline? Or
do we save that scope for later?”
• “How likely is it that the timeline for this will shift?”
• “If one of our risk factors affects the project negatively,can we go
over budget to mitigate it or should we plan to change the scope?”
In some project kickoff sessions, you might simply ask which priority
is the most important if it isn’t already obvious.The project sponsor will
let you know which is the most constraining factor. Or, to survey the
broader kickoff session group, you can put time, budget, and scope on a
whiteboard or flipchart and ask participants to vote using a hashmark
or a sticker, then take a break. Some people might vote early while some
might wait until no one is in the room to put up their mark. And some
might wait to see how others voted before they weigh in. Whatever
the results, it’s an opportunity to open up a conversation about project
constraints that will help you determine an overall timeline and project
plan. (Note that the business team—sponsor, stakeholders, SMEs—
participate in this decision, not the instructional design and develop-
ment team.)

29
Plan the Kickoff
Finally, you should ask about any overall business cycles and timelines
that will affect the project, such as:
• busy and slow periods for the organization
• busy and slow periods for key SMEs and reviewers
• other ongoing projects that use the same people and resources,
particularly ones with higher priority than yours
• vacations and planned leaves.
The high-level timeline for the project will be covered more in chap-
ter 7, Plan the Project.
Iterations and Review Responsibilities (15-30 Minutes)
A key aspect of Agile and LLAMA is, of course, the iterative develop-
ment. Following along with the high-level timeline for the project are
the timing and roles for reviewing each of the iterations you will produce.
Chapter 9 covers iterations in more detail.
Here in the project kickoff session, you’ll establish reviewer groups and
roles and rough timelines for when the reviews will take place and how long
each review will take.Take into account reviews from each of these groups,
as appropriate:
• SMEs
• stakeholders
• sponsor
• learners
• legal, quality assurance, HR, and other organizational units.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Common issues with project kickoffs include:
The project sponsor is in the LD team. When the project sponsor
is from the organization—rather than from the LD team—he or she
directly defines what the organization needs in terms of performance.

30
Chapter 2
When the project sponsor doesn’t have that direct business connection,
the LD team risks creating training that is misaligned with organiza-
tional needs,is poorly defined in scope,and requires excessive reviews and
iterations to get right. LD teams that get this right seek out an organi-
zation sponsor or project champion to get that business insight.
The project sponsor won’t participate in the kickoff. The project
sponsor plays a key role in defining scope and priorities for the project.
When they cannot participate in the kickoff, the project may suffer from
the lack of those insights. The sponsor’s inability to schedule time for
the kickoff may signal this project’s relative priority to the organization,
which is very important information. It’s worth doing whatever you can
to work with the project sponsor’s schedule or seek a proxy.
Suitable learner representatives don’t attend the kickoff. While
sponsors and subject matter experts know the organization’s goals and
the content, the learner representatives have a deep connection with the
people who don’t know—and are the audience for this training. If they
can’t participate in the kickoff session, find ways to get their input early
in the project.
Scheduling over multiple dates. Sometimes to accommodate the
schedules of a variety of people, a project kickoff has to be scheduled in
smaller chunks over multiple dates. This risks not only losing continui-
ty, but also losing participants from session to session. Decisions made
in earlier sessions may not be fully understood by participants of later
sessions. If it has to be done this way, be sure to capture not only the
decisions made but the spirit of the conversation that got you there for a
healthy recap each time the kickoff session reconvenes.
Key Takeaways
• The Agile project kickoff session sets up the project for
success in creating a shared vision of scope in terms of the

31
Plan the Kickoff
learner definition, what is to be accomplished, and the desired
performance outcomes, as well as how the project will be run.
• Participants in a project kickoff session should include the
project sponsor, key stakeholders, subject matter experts, project
managers, project team members, and representatives of the
learner population.
• The project kickoff typically takes two to six hours depending on
the scope and size of the project, although it may be longer for
very large projects.

33
CHAPTER 3
Define the Goal
In This Chapter
• How do you define the project’s goal?
•
What should drive the goal, performance,
or training?
•
How precisely should the goal be
defined?
A client once asked me for input as they were planning to update a course
that was a considerable part of their new hire orientation. The company
was very focused on quality, and all new hires attended this one-day class
on quality.The course contained a wealth of information on the emergence
of the quality movement,its roots in Japanese manufacturing practices,and
the company’s commitment to quality.
It was unclear what the new hire was supposed to do with this informa-
tion, though, so I asked.
“Oh, that’s on the last slide in the deck. If you see a quality problem, fix
it if you can or notify your supervisor to find someone who can,”the client
replied.

34
Chapter 3
A course as comprehensive as that
took weeks (at least!) to develop. An
instructor spent several days a month
teaching that class. Hundreds of new
hires spent an entire day taking the
class as part of all the other things that they learned when starting a new job
with a new company. But in the end, the only performance-related take-
away was stashed on the last slide, well after new hires likely had tuned out
the course.
Later in the chapter, I’ll show how a more clearly defined goal around
performance may have avoided wasting the time of the instructional
designer, instructors, and new hires.
Define the Goal to Manage Scope
By time you get to the project kickoff meeting, most project sponsors will
assume that the goal of the project has been determined.That’s a logical-
sounding conclusion because at this point someone has decided that
learning and development needs to be involved, in some cases a lengthy
build-versus-buy or RFP and vendor selection process has been complet-
ed,the team members have been defined,time has been carved out for the
kickoff session, and everyone has shown up. Most people assume that the
kickoff session should therefore be focused on content.
Instead, you should start the kickoff session by defining the goal of the
project,generally spending an hour or more on this.It’s not unusual for this
to be a little surprising, maybe even off-putting for some (especially the
subject matter experts waiting to hand over their binders and slide decks
and manuals),but it’s one of the most impactful hours that will be spent on
the project. It should come as no surprise that without a solid and shared
definition of the goal, the project team’s ability to deliver the desired results
are limited at best.

35
Define the Goal
A solid definition of the goal isn’t unique to Agile or LLAMA. There
are many ways to do this, many levels at which a goal can be defined, and
many resources available for project managers to learn about this,including
the excellent book by Cathy Moore, Map It! (2017), in which she provides
a framework for defining a goal that will help the team determine whether
and when developing training is the right answer.
Rather than rehash all the ways you can define a goal (I’m trusting
that you don’t need yet another tutorial on SMART goals, and I’m also
trusting that you will run out and buy Cathy Moore’s book), I will share
the unique aspects of goal setting as they apply to scope definition for
LLAMA.
The Goal Is (Almost) Never to Build Training
Some in the kickoff session will see the goal of the project as simply
designing and developing some kind of training, with what happens after
beyond the project’s purview. That couldn’t be more mistaken. Instead,
the goal is usually to help people do their jobs better. Or to apply some
concepts in their lives. Or to move forward to a more advanced topic.
Building training is just the way that you meet that goal (maybe).
For example,consider two projects,one with a training design goal and
another with a performance goal:
Training goal: Train forklift drivers about safety.
Result: The project team creates and rolls out a course to everyone
about forklift safety.
Performance goal: Forklift drivers will follow safety precautions
and reduce accidents and near-misses.
Result: The project team creates better warning signage, works
with the warehouse to install mirrors and update the walkway

36
Chapter 3
striping, and creates a course about forklift safety for new hires
plus a quick “what’s new” video for existing employees who
know the old rules but not the updated ones.
By defining the goal around performance outcomes,you set the project
team up for success. Instructional designers know that it’s often not suffi-
cient to simply design and deliver a course. A performance-based goal
opens up that conversation and makes it more likely that your resulting
training will be effective.
Performance-Based Goals Help Contain
Project Scope
Recall one of the Agile principles: Simplicity—the art of maximizing the
amount of work not done—is essential.
The client in the beginning of this chapter was building a course about
quality for new hires, but scope creep—the addition of new things to a
project that potentially delay delivery and risk the quality of the course
itself—became a real problem in a content-centric course. In this case
(I’m assuming), a goal more focused on performance would have led to a
shorter course to develop, deliver, and attend.
Therefore, a solid and shared definition of a performance-based goal
becomes the first screening criterion for the inevitable new requests that
come in during a project. When someone pokes their head over the cube
wall and asks,“Can we mention XYZ in your course?”or sends you an email
that suggests, “Let’s include a whiteboard video explaining how we got to
this point,”your first question should be “How does this help meet the goal?”
“Why Aren’t They Doing It Now?”
Set yourself and your project up for success by closing out the goal-defi-
nition process with this simple question: Why aren’t they doing it now?

37
Define the Goal
Or, why aren’t the participants doing what it is that you want them to do
after the training?
Expect to hear a wide variety of interesting answers to this question:
• “The system requires 18 clicks to get there—and the path isn’t
clear.”
• “They don’t have the data to know they need to do it.”
• “Their managers don’t give them time to do it.”
• “They are measured (or even compensated) for doing something
contrary to this.”
This question helps you out in a few ways. First, it identifies the
aspects of performance that are not related to training, providing context
for how much performance improvement can be expected from training.
For example,a forklift safety training course won’t improve safety much if
there aren’t clearly marked drive paths.
Second, the answers to this question provide insight into other initia-
tives that can be pursued to improve performance. Some of these ideas
may involve additional deliverables for your team or may require getting
other functions and departments involved. For example, you may have
been brought on to create a one-time forklift safety e-learning course
for new hires, but in your analysis of why operators aren’t working safely
right now, you discover that posting short job aids as signs throughout
the facility and improving the positioning of corner mirrors would also
contribute to the performance goal of improving safety. You may need to
bring in other departments to address these things.
And third,you will learn how the goal is measured.Throughout the iter-
ative development process you’re about to embark on, you’ll be measuring
whether the deliverables you create have an impact on the performance.
The kickoff meeting is an excellent time to gain an understanding about
how the organization measures the performance,and in some cases,wheth-
er or not this performance is even being measured. If it turns out that this

38
Chapter 3
particular goal and its performance are not being measured, you should
begin that measurement process. That will give you a benchmark against
which to determine whether training deliverables that you create have
provided any measurable benefit. It’s hard to demonstrate you’ve improved
forklift safety unless you have data on previous accidents.
Defining an 80 Percent Goal
It is entirely likely that your discussion in the meeting will not result in a
perfectly articulated goal.In fact,I find that that level of detail is not neces-
sarily meaningful for the project team at the kickoff session. The purpose
for the kickoff session is to arrive at a defined and shared goal, which the
business can continue to refine after the session is done. This makes for
efficient use of time because it is often the case that the final adjustments
to the goal need to be made with people who may not be in the room for
the kickoff.
But to not come away entirely empty handed, you need to ensure your
goal hits a few key concepts. You will use your best judgement or defer
to the project sponsor to make the call about whether a particular idea is
worth diving into at very granular level or declaring it good enough and
moving on. By defining a goal at about 80 percent readiness and telling the
assembled kickoff team members that you are doing so,you relieve some of
the inherent anxiety about perfectly defining something. You also commu-
nicate that the project team will be open to change and refinement over
time and that you understand this is a normal process as the project unfolds.
What’s the Difference Between Scope Creep and
Embracing Change?
Admittedly, there’s a continuum between “scope creep” and “embracing change.”
Scope creep is generally considered a bad thing—the result of additional content and
requirements added after the team and the sponsor have agreed to a scope of

39
Define the Goal
deliverables or constant requests for changes and refinements at the “end” of a
project. Scope creep is frustrating to the project team because it’s incredibly difficult
to deliver on time and in budget if additional things are added without commensurate
flexibility in delivery time and resources.
On the other hand, we’ve established that the underlying needs for most projects are
evolving throughout the project and the team is learning from each iteration what
works and what doesn’t work, so the project scope should be changing. Embracing
this kind of thing is good and often necessary, although it may also require a
commensurate flexibility in delivery time and resources.
When faced with a request (internally or externally sourced) to change the project’s
scope in some way, we look at the source and nature of the request.
It might be scope creep (and “bad”) if:
• You’re adding content without any additional performance outcomes or
related activities.
• You’re making adjustments that do not materially affect the learner’s ability to
perform the desired behavioral outcomes.
• The change in scope comes from a stakeholder or SME.
It might indicate a mindset of embracing change (and therefore “good”) if:
• The underlying nature of or need for the project is changing.
• The content or subject being taught is changing (for example, you’re teaching
about software and it’s the software that’s changing).
• The change is the result of an iteration review with learners.
Just because you deem something to be scope creep doesn’t automat-
ically mean you don’t do it! Sometimes you need to accept this sort of
change and do it to satisfy a sponsor or SME’s organizational political
needs. And that’s just fine. As a project manager your role is to keep the
team’s morale positive throughout because this sort of scope creep can be
particularly frustrating.

40
Chapter 3
This May Be the End of Your Project
Recall that earlier in this chapter I said that this may be the most import-
ant hour spent of the entire project. In nearly every instance, the process
of defining the goal provides great value to the organization simply by
allowing them to understand their needs and their people better. I have
found that everyone walks out of this session feeling they have received
value from the training team before they even got started creating any
deliverables. It can be incredibly uplifting.
It also means that sometimes this discussion uncovers the fact that this
project should not proceed. It may be that the goal cannot be met through
better training,period,or it may be that the organization cannot even define
a goal for this and therefore should put the project on pause.
For example, I was kicking off a project once with a client who wanted
training for their salespeople on how to create a value proposition.The kick-
off meeting involved the senior vice president for marketing, the senior vice
president for sales,and the sales leaders of each of the business units.Around
the table were eight people.To start the process of defining this goal,I asked,
“What does it mean for a salesperson to create a value proposition?”
As they went around the table, there were seven different definitions of
value proposition, and the eighth person said that they did not think that
value proposition was something the salesperson should define.We stopped
the training project right then and there,saving the business a ton of money,
saving all their salespeople from taking training that wasn’t aligned with
their (clearly nonexistent) business goal, and saving our project team from
what would have been a difficult project to complete to anyone’s satisfaction.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Common issues with goal definition include:
The group spends too much attention on wordsmithing the goal. If
you realize that everyone is spending way too much time arguing about

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Now I'll tell 'ee, guv'nor. It's a great pleasure to me to find I can tell
a story so well.
There you are—off again, no mortal man can tell to where. You
ain't told me no story yet.
Ain't I? How came it then, guv'nor, that I ha' made you forget your
usual 'ospitable manners? If I hadn't ha' been telling you a story,
you'd ha'—I know you'd ha' asked me to put a name upon
something long ago.
Mr. Potts laughed, and saying, I beg yer pardon, Mr. Salter, though
I'm sure I don't remember ever meetin' of you afore, only that's no
consequence; the best o' friends must meet some time for the first
time, turned his face to the shelf as he had done before, and, after
a little hesitation, seemed to conclude that it would be politic to take
down the same bottle. Jim tossed off the half of his glassful, and,
setting the rest on the counter, began his story. Whether he wished
to represent himself as Thomas's confidant, or, having come to his
conclusions to the best of his ability, believed himself justified in
representing them as the facts of the case, it is not necessary to
inquire; the account he gave of Thomas's position was this: That
when Thomas went overboard after little Bessie, he had in the
breast of his coat a pocket-book, with a hundred pounds of his
master's in it; that he dared not go home without it; that the police
were after him; and, in short, that he was in a terrible fix. Mr. Potts
listened with a general stare, and made no reply.
You'll give him a bed to-night, won't you, guv'nor? I'll come back in
the morning and see what can be done.
Jim finished his glass of brandy as if it had been only the last drops,
and set it on the counter with a world of suggestion in the motion,
to which Mr. Potts mechanically replied by filling it again, saying as
he did so, in a voice a little huskier than usual, All right. Jim tossed
off the brandy, smacked his lips, said Thank you, and good-night,
and went out of the beer-shop. Mr. Potts stood for five minutes
motionless, then went slowly to the door of the back parlor, and

called his wife. Leaving Thomas to finish his meal by himself, Mrs.
Potts joined her husband and they had a talk together. He told her
what Jim had just communicated to him, and they held a
consultation, the first result of which was that Mrs. Potts proceeded
to get a room—the best she could offer—ready for Thomas. He
accepted her hospitality with gratitude, and was glad to go to bed.
Meantime, leaving his wife to attend to the thirst of the public, Mr.
Potts set out to find his brother-in-law, the captain of a collier
trading between Newcastle and London, who was at the moment in
the neighborhood, but whose vessel was taking in ballast
somewhere down the river. He came upon him where he had
expected to find him, and told him the whole story.
The next morning, when Thomas, more miserable than ever, after
rather a sleepless night, came down stairs early, he found his
breakfast waiting for him, but not his breakfast only: a huge
seafaring man, with short neck and square shoulders, dressed in a
blue pilot-coat, was seated in the room. He rose when Thomas
entered, and greeted him with a bow made up of kindness and
patronage. Mrs. Potts came in the same moment.
This is my brother, Captain Smith, of the Raven, she said, come to
thank you, sir, for what you did for his little pet, Bessie.
Well, I donnow, said the captain, with a gruff breeziness of
manner. I came to ask the gentleman if, bein' on the loose, he
wouldn't like a trip to Newcastle, and share my little cabin with me.
It was the first glimmer of gladness that had lightened Thomas's
horizon for what seemed to him an age.
Thank you, thank you! he said; it is the very thing for me.
And, as he spoke, the awful London wilderness vanished, and open
sea and sky filled the world of his imaginings.
When do you sail? he asked.
To-night, I hope, with the ebb, said the captain; but you had
better come with me as soon as you've had your breakfast, and we'll

go on board at once. You needn't mind about your chest. You can
rough it a little, I dare say. I can lend you a jersey that'll do better
than your 'longshore togs.
Thomas applied himself to his breakfast with vigor. Hope even made
him hungry. How true it is that we live by hope! Before he had
swallowed his last mouthful, he started from his seat.
You needn't be in such a hurry, said the captain. There's plenty of
time. Stow your prog.
I have quite done. But I must see Mr. Potts for a minute.
He went to the bar, and, finding that Jim had not yet made his
appearance, asked the landlord to change him a sovereign, and give
half to Jim.
It's too much, said Mr. Potts.
I promised him a day's wages.
Five shillings is over enough, besides the brandy I gave him last
night. He don't make five shillings every day.
Thomas, however, to the list of whose faults stinginess could not be
added, insisted on Jim having the half sovereign, for he felt that he
owed him far more than that.
In pulling out the small remains of his money, wondering if he could
manage to buy a jersey for himself before starting, he brought out
with it two bits of pasteboard, the sight of which shot a pang to his
heart: they were the pawn-tickets for his watch and Lucy's ring,
which he had bought back from the holder on that same terrible
night on which he had lost almost everything worth having. It was
well he had only thrust them into the pocket of his trousers, instead
of putting them into his pocket-book. They had stuck to the pocket,
and been dried with it, had got loose during the next day, and now
came to light, reminding him of his utter meanness, not to say
dishonesty, in parting with the girl's ring that he might follow his
cursed play. The gleam of gladness which the hope of escaping from
London gave him had awaked his conscience more fully; and he felt

the despicableness of his conduct as he had never felt it before. How
could he have done it? The ring, to wear which he had been proud
because it was not his own, but Lucy's, he had actually exposed to
the contamination of vile hands—had actually sent from her pure,
lovely person into the pocket of a foul talker, and thence to a
pawnbroker's shop. He could have torn himself to pieces at the
thought. And now that she was lost to him forever, was he to rob
her of her mother's jewel as well? He must get it again. But if he
went after it now, even if he had the money to redeem it, he might
run into the arms of the searching Law, and he and it too would be
gone. But he had not the money. The cold dew broke out on his
face, as he stood beside the pump-handles of the beer-shop. But Mr.
Potts had been watching him for some time. He knew the look of
those tickets, and dull as his brain was, with a dullness that was
cousin to his red nose, he divined at once that Thomas's painful
contemplation had to do with some effects of which those tickets
were the representatives. He laid his hand on Thomas's shoulder
from behind. Thomas gave a great start.
I beg your pardon for frightening of you, sir, said Mr. Potts; but I
believe a long experience in them things makes me able to give you
good advice.
What things? asked Thomas.
Them things, repeated Potts, putting a fat forefinger first on the
one and then on the other pawn-ticket. 'Twasn't me, nor yet Bessie.
'Tis long since I was in my uncle's. All I had to do there was a-
getting of 'em down the spout. I never sent much up it; my first
wife, Joan—not Bessie, bless her! Now I ain't no witch, but I can see
with 'alf a heye that you've got summat at your uncle's you don't like
to leave there, when you're a-goin' a voyagin' to the ends o' the
earth. Have you got the money as well as the tickets?
Oh dear, no! answered Thomas, almost crying.
Come now, said Potts, kindly, sweep out the chimley. It's no use
missing the crooks and corners, and having to send a boy up after

all. Sweep it out. Tell me all about it, and I'll see what I can do—or
can't do, it may be.
Thomas told him that the tickets were for a watch—a gold watch,
with a compensation balance—and a diamond ring. He didn't care
about the watch; but he would give his life to get the ring again.
Let me look at the tickets. How much did you get on 'em separate?
Thomas said he did not know, but gave him the tickets to examine.
Potts looked at them. You don't care so much for the watch? he
said.
No, I don't, answered Thomas; though my mother did give it to
me, he added, ruefully.
Why don't you offer 'em both of the tickets for the ring, then? said
Potts.
What? said Thomas. I don't see—
You give 'em to me, returned Potts. Here, Bess! you go in and
have a chat with the captain—I'm going out, Bessie, for an hour. Tell
the captain not to go till I come back.
So saying, Potts removed his white apron, put on a black frock coat
and hat, and went out, taking the tickets with him.
Mrs. Potts brought a tumbler of grog for her brother, and he sat
sipping it. Thomas refused to join him; for he reaped this good from
his sensitive organization, that since the night on which it had
helped to ruin him, he could scarcely endure even the smell of
strong drink. It was rather more than an hour before Mr. Potts
returned, during which time Thomas had been very restless and
anxious. But at last his host walked into the back room, laid a small
screw of paper before him, and said:
There's your ring, sir. You won't want your watch this voyage. I've
got it, though; but I'm forced to keep it, in case I should be behind
with my rent. Any time you look in, I shall have it, or know where it
is.

Thomas did what he could to express his gratitude, and took the
ring with a wonderful feeling of relief. It seemed like a pledge of
farther deliverance. He begged Mr. Potts to do what he pleased with
the watch; he didn't care if he never saw it again; and hoped it
would be worth more to him than what it had cost him to redeem
them both. Then, after many kind farewells, he took his leave with
the captain of the Raven. As they walked along, he could not help
looking round every few yards; but after his new friend had taken
him to a shop where he bought a blue jersey and a glazed hat, and
tied his coat up in a handkerchief—his sole bundle of luggage—he
felt more comfortable. In a couple of hours he was on board of the
Raven, a collier brig of a couple of hundred tons. They set sail the
same evening, but not till they reached the Nore did Thomas begin
to feel safe from pursuit.
The captain seemed a good deal occupied with his own thoughts,
and there were few things they understood in common, so that
Thomas was left mostly to his own company; which, though far from
agreeable, was no doubt the very best for him under the
circumstances. For it was his real self that he looked in the face—the
self that told him what he was, showed him whence he had fallen,
what he had lost, how he had hitherto been wasting his life, and
how his carelessness had at length thrown him over a precipice up
which he could not climb—there was no foothold upon it. But this
was not all: he began to see not only his faults, but the weakness of
his character, the refusal to combat which had brought him to this
pass. His behavior to Lucy was the bitterest thought of all. She
looked ten times more lovely to him now that he had lost her. That
she should despise him was terrible—even more terrible the
likelihood that she would turn the rich love of her strong heart upon
some one else. How she had entreated him to do her justice! and he
saw now that she had done so even more for his sake than for her
own. He had not yet any true idea of what Lucy was worth. He did
not know how she had grown since the time when, with all a girl's
inexperience, she had first listened to his protestations. While he had
been going down the hill, she had been going up. Long before they

had been thus parted, he would not have had a chance of winning
her affections had he had then to make the attempt. But he did see
that she was infinitely beyond him, infinitely better than—to use a
common phrase—he could have deserved if he had been as worthy
as he fancied himself. I say a common phrase, because no man can
ever deserve a woman. Gradually—by what gradations he could not
have told—the truth, working along with his self-despising, showed
him something of all this; and it was the first necessity of a nature
like his to be taught to look down on himself. As long as he thought
himself more than somebody, no good was to be expected of him.
Therefore, it was well for him that the worthlessness of his character
should break out and show itself in some plainly worthless deed,
that he might no longer be able to hide himself from the conviction
and condemnation of his own conscience. Hell had come at last; and
he burned in its fire.
He was very weary, and went to bed in a berth in the cabin. But he
was awaked while it was yet quite dark by the violent rolling and
pitching of the vessel, and the running to and fro overhead. He got
up at once, dressed in haste, and clambered up the companion-
ladder. It was a wild scene. It had come on to blow hard. The brig
was under reefed topsails and jib: but Thomas knew nothing of sea
affairs. She was a good boat, and rode the seas well. There was just
light enough for him to see the water by the white rents in its
darkness. Fortunately, he was one of those few favored individuals in
whose nerves the motion of a vessel finds no response—I mean he
did not know what sea-sickness was. And that storm came to him a
wonderful gift from the Father who had not forgotten his erring child
—so strangely did it harmonize with his troubled mind. New
strength, even hope, invaded his weary heart from the hiss of the
wind through the cordage as it bellied out from the masts; his soul
rejoiced in the heave of the wave under the bows and its swift rush
astern; and though he had to hold hard by the weather shrouds, not
a shadow of fear crossed his mind. This may have partly come from
life being to him now a worthless thing, save as he had some chance
of—he did not know what; for although he saw no way of recovering

his lost honor, and therefore considered that eternal disgrace was
his, even if God and man forgave him, there was yet a genuine ray
of an unknown hope borne into him, as I say, from the crests of
those broken waves. But I think it was natural to Thomas to fear
nothing that merely involved danger to himself. In this respect he
possessed a fine physical courage. It was in moral courage—the
power of looking human anger and contempt in the face, and
holding on his own way—that he was deficient. I believe that this
came in a great measure from a delicate, sensitive organization. He
could look a storm in the face; but a storm in a face he could not
endure; he quailed before it. He would sail over a smooth human
sea, if he might; when a wind rose there, he would be under bare
poles in a moment. Of course this sensitiveness was not in itself an
evil, being closely associated with his poetic tendencies, which ought
to have been the center from which all the manlier qualities were
influenced for culture and development; but he had been spoiled in
every way, not least by the utterly conflicting discords of nature,
objects, and character in his father and mother. But although a man
may be physically brave and morally a coward—a fact too well
known to be insisted upon—a facing of physical danger will help the
better courage in the man whose will is at all awake to cherish it; for
the highest moral courage is born of the will, and not of the
organization. The storm wrought thus along with all that was best in
him. In the fiercest of it that night, he found himself often kissing
Lucy's ring, which, as soon as he began to know that they were in
some danger, and not till then, he had, though with a strong feeling
of the sacrilege of the act, ventured to draw once more upon his
unworthy hand.
The wind increased as the sun rose. If he could only have helped the
men staggering to and fro, as they did on the great sea in the days
of old! But he did not know one rope from another. Two men were at
the tiller. One was called away on some emergency aloft. Thomas
sprang to his place.
I will do whatever you tell me, he said to the steersman; only let
me set a man free.

Then he saw it was the captain himself. He gave a nod, and a squirt
of tobacco-juice, as cool as if he had been steering with a light gale
over a rippling sea. Thomas did his best, and in five minutes had
learned to obey the word the captain gave him as he watched the
binnacle. About an hour after the sun rose the wind began to
moderate; and before long the captain gave up the helm to the
mate, saying to Thomas:
We'll go and have some breakfast. You've earned your rations,
anyhow. Your father ought to have sent you to sea. It would have
made a man of you.
This was not very complimentary. But Thomas had only a
suppressed sigh to return for answer. He did not feel himself worth
defending any more.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THOMAS RETURNS TO LONDON.
After this Thomas made rapid progress in the favor of Captain Smith.
He had looked upon him as a landlubber before, with the contempt
of his profession; but when he saw that, clerk as he was, he was yet
capable at sea, he began to respect him. And as Thomas wakened
up more and more to an interest in what was going on around him,
he did not indulge in giving him fool's answers to the questions he
asked, as so many sea-farers would have been ready to do; and he
soon found that Thomas's education, though it was by no means a
first-rate one, enabled him to ask more questions with regard to the
laws of wind and water and the combination of forces than he was
quite able to solve. Before they reached the end of the voyage,
Thomas knew the rigging pretty well, and could make himself useful
on board. Anxious to ingratiate himself with the captain—longing
almost unconsciously for the support of some human approbation,
the more that he had none to give himself—he laid himself out to
please him. Having a tolerably steady head, he soon found himself

able to bear a hand in taking in a reef in the foretop-sail, and he
could steer by the course with tolerable steadiness. The sailors were
a not unsociable set of men, and as he presumed upon nothing,
they too gave him what help they could, not without letting off a few
jokes at his expense, in the laughter following on which he did his
best to join. The captain soon began to order him about like the
rest, which was the best kindness he could have shown him; and
Thomas's obedience was more than prompt—it was as pleasant as
possible. He had on his part some information to give the captain;
and their meals in the cabin together were often merry enough.
Do you think you could ever make a sailor of me? asked Tom, one
day.
Not a doubt of it, my boy, the captain answered. A few voyages
more, and you'll go aloft like a monkey.
Where do you think of making your next voyage, sir? asked Tom.
Well, I'm part owner of the brig, and can do pretty much as I like. I
did think of Dundee.
I should have thought they have coal enough of their own
thereabouts.
A cargo of English coal never comes amiss. It's better than theirs by
a long way.
Would you take me with you?
To be sure, if you can't do better.
I can't. I don't want anything but my rations, you know.
You'll soon be worth your wages. I can't say you are yet, you
know.
Of course not. You must have your full crew besides.
We're one hand short this voyage; and you've done something to fill
the gap.

I'm very glad, I'm sure. But what would you advise me to do when
we reach Newcastle? It will be some time before you get off again.
Not long. If you like to take your share in getting the cargo on
board, you can make wages by that.
With all my heart, said Thomas, whom this announcement greatly
relieved.
It's dirty work, said the captain.
There's plenty of water about, answered Thomas.
When they came to Newcastle, Thomas worked as hard as any of
them, getting the ballast out and the new cargo in. He had never
known what it was to work before; and though it tired him dreadfully
at first, it did him good.
THOMAS WORKED AS HARD AS ANY OF THEM.
Among the men was one whom he liked more than the rest. He had
been in the merchant service, and had sailed to India and other
places. He knew more than his shipmates, and had only taken to the
coasting for a time for family reasons. With him Thomas chiefly
consorted when their day's work was over. With a growing hope that
by some means he might rise at last into another kind of company,
he made the best he could of what he had, knowing well that it was
far better than he deserved, and far better than what of late he had
been voluntarily choosing. His hope, however, alternated with such

fits of misery and despair, that if it had not been for the bodily work
he had to do, he thought he would have lost his reason. I believe
not a few keep hold of their senses in virtue of doing hard work. I
knew an earl's son, an heir, who did so. And I think that not a few,
especially women, lose their senses just from having nothing to do.
Many more, who are not in danger of this, lose their health, and
more still lose their purity and rectitude. In other words, health—
physical, mental, moral, and spiritual—requires, for its existence and
continuance, work, often hard and bodily labor.
This man lived in Newcastle, and got Thomas a decent room near
his own dwelling, where he slept. One evening they had been
walking together about the place till they were tired. It was growing
late, and as they were some distance from home, they went into a
little public house which Robins knew, to get a bit of bread and
cheese and some ale. Robins was a very sober man, and Thomas
felt no scruple in accompanying him thus, although one of the best
things to be said for Thomas was, that ever since he went on board
the Raven he had steadily refused to touch spirits. Perhaps, as I
have hinted before, there was less merit in this than may appear, for
the very smell was associated with such painful memories of misery
that it made him shudder. Sometimes a man's physical nature comes
in to help him to be good. For such a dislike may grow into a
principle which will last after the dislike has vanished.
They sat down in a little room with colored prints of ships in full sail
upon the walls, a sanded floor, in the once new fashion which
superseded rushes, and an ostrich egg hanging from the ceiling. The
landlady was a friend of Robins, and showed them this attention. On
the other side of a thin partition was the ordinary room, where the
ordinary run of customers sat and drank their grog. There were only
two or three in there when our party entered. Presently, while
Thomas and Robins were sitting at their supper, they heard two or
three more come in. A hearty recognition took place, and fresh
orders were given. Thomas started and listened. He thought he
heard the name Ningpo.

Now, from Thomas's having so suddenly broken off all connection
with his friends, he knew nothing of what had been going on with
regard to the property Mr. Boxall had left behind him. He thought, of
course, that Mrs. Boxall would inherit it. It would not be fair to
suppose, however, that this added to his regret at having lost Lucy,
for he was humbled enough to be past that. The man who is turned
out of Paradise does not grieve over the loss of its tulips, or, if he
does, how came he ever to be within its gates? But the very fact
that the name of Boxall was painful to him, made the name of that
vessel attract and startle him at once.
What's the matter? said Robins.
Didn't you hear some one in the next room mention the Ningpo?
returned Thomas.
Yes. She was a bark in the China trade.
Lost last summer on the Cape Verdes. I knew the captain—at least,
I didn't know him, but I knew his brother and his family. They were
all on board and all lost.
Ah! said Robins, that's the way of it, you see. People oughtn't to
go to sea but them as has business there. Did you say the crew was
lost as well?
So the papers said.
Robins rose, and went into the next room. He had a suspicion that
he knew the voice. Almost the same moment a rough burst of
greeting came to Thomas's ears: and a few minutes after, Robins
entered, bringing with him a sailor so rough, so hairy, so brown, that
he looked as if he must be proof against any attack of the elements
—case-hardened against wind and water.
Here's the gentleman, said Robins, as knew your captain, Jack.
Do, sir? said Jack, touching an imaginary sou'wester.
What'll you have? asked Tom.

This important point settled, they had a talk together, in which Jack
opened up more freely in the presence of Robins than he would
have felt interest enough to do with a stranger alone who was only a
would-be sailor at best—a fact which could not be kept a secret from
an eye used to read all sorts of signals. I will not attempt to give the
story in Jack's lingo. But the certainty was that he had been on
board the Ningpo when she went to pieces—that he had got ashore
on a spar, after sitting through the night on the stern, and seeing
every soul lost, as far as he believed, but himself. He had no great
power of description, and did not volunteer much; but he returned
very direct answers to all the questions Thomas put to him. Had
Thomas only read some of the proceedings in the Court of Probate
during the last few months, he would have known better what sort
of questions to put to him. Almost the only remark Jack volunteered
was:
Poor little July! how she did stick to me, to be sure! But she was as
dead as a marlin-spike long afore the starn broke up.
Were you long on the island? asked Tom.
No, not long, answered the sailor. I always was one of the lucky
ones. I was picked up the same day by a brigantine bound from
Portingale to the Sambusy.
Little did Tom think how much might be involved in what Jack said.
They parted, and the friends went home together. They made a
good voyage, notwithstanding some rough weather, to Dundee,
failed in getting a return cargo, and went back to Newcastle in
ballast. From Newcastle their next voyage was to London again.
If you would rather not go to London, said the master to Tom,
there's a friend of mine here who is just ready to start for
Aberdeen. I dare say if I were to speak to him he would take you on
board.
But Tom's heart was burning to see Lucy once more—if only to see
her and restore her ring. If, he thought, he might but once humble
himself to the dust before her—if he might but let her see that,

worthless as he was, he worshiped her, his heart would be easier. He
thought, likewise, that what with razoring and tanning, and the
change of his clothes, he was not likely to be recognized. And
besides, by this time the power must be out of Mr. Stopper's hands;
at least Lucy must have come to exert her influence over the affairs
of the business, and she would not allow them to drive things to
extremity with him, worthless as he was. He would venture, come of
it what might. So he told the captain that he would much prefer to
work his passage to London again. It was a long passage this time,
and very rough weather.
It was with strange feelings that Thomas saw once more the turrets
of the Tower of London. Danger—exposure, it might be—lay before
him, but he thought only of Lucy, not of the shame now. It was yet
early morning when Captain Smith and he went on shore at
Shadwell. The captain was going to see an old friend in the
neighborhood, and after that to Limehouse, to the Mermaid, to see
his sister. Thomas wanted to be alone, for he had not yet succeeded
in making up his mind what he was going to do. So he sent a
grateful message by the captain, with the addition that he would
look in upon them in the evening.
Left alone, without immediate end or aim, he wandered on, not
caring whither he went, but, notwithstanding his heavy thoughts,
with something of the enjoyment the sailor feels in getting on shore
even after only a fortnight at sea. It was a bright, cold, frosty
morning, in the month of March. Without knowing his course,
Thomas was wandering northward; and after he had gone into a
coffee-shop and had some breakfast, he carelessly resumed his
course in the same direction. He found that he was in the Cambridge
Road, but whither that led he had no idea. Nor did he know, so
absorbed was he in his own thoughts, even after he came into a
region he knew, till, lifting up his head, he saw the gray, time-worn
tower, that looks so strong and is so shaky, of the old church of
Hackney, now solitary, its ancient nave and chancel and all having
vanished, leaving it to follow at its leisure, wearied out with disgust
at the church which has taken its place, and is probably the ugliest

building in Christendom, except the parish-church of a certain little
town in the north of Aberdeenshire. This sent a strange pang to his
heart, for close by, that family used to live whose bones were now
whitening among those rocky islands of the Atlantic. He went into
the church-yard, sat down on a grave-stone, and thought. Now that
the fiction of his own worth had vanished like an image in the clouds
of yesterday, he was able to see clearly into his past life and
conduct; and he could not conceal from himself that his behavior to
Mary Boxall might have had something to do with the loss of the
whole family. He saw more and more the mischief that had come of
his own weakness, lack of courage, and principle. If he could but
have defended his own conduct where it was blameless, or at least
allowed it to be open to the daylight and the anger of those whom it
might not please, he would thus have furnished his own steps with a
strong barrier against sliding down that slope down which he had
first slidden before falling headlong from the precipice at its foot. In
self-abasement he rose from the grave-stone, and walked slowly
past the house. Merry faces of children looked from upper windows,
who knew nothing of those who had been there before them. Then
he went away westward toward Highbury. He would just pass his
father's door. There was no fear of his father seeing him at this time
of the day, for he would be at his office, and his mother could not
leave her room. Ah, his mother! How had he behaved to her? A new
torrent of self-reproach rushed over his soul as he walked along the
downs toward Islington. Some day, if he could only do something
first to distinguish himself in any way, he would go and beg her
forgiveness. But what chance was there of his ever doing any thing
now? He had cut all the ground of action from under his own feet.
Not yet did Thomas see that his duty was to confess his sin, waiting
for no means of covering its enormity. He walked on. He passed the
door, casting but a cursory glance across the windows. There was no
one to be seen. He went down the long walk with the lime-trees on
one side, which he knew so well, and just as he reached the gates
there were his sister Amy and Mr. Simon coming from the other side.
They were talking and laughing merrily, and looking in each others
face. He had never seen Mr. Simon look so pleasant before. He

almost felt as if he could speak to him. But no sooner did Mr. Simon
see that this sailor-looking fellow was regarding them, than the
clerical mask was on his face, and Thomas turned away with
involuntary dislike.
It is clear, he said to himself, that they don't care much what is
become of me. He turned then, westward again, toward Highgate,
and then went over to Hampstead, paused at the pines, and looked
along the valley beneath; then descended into it, and went across
the heath till he came out on the road by Wildwood. This was nearly
the way he had wandered on that stormy Christmas Day with Mary
Boxall. He had this day, almost without conscious choice, traversed
the scenes of his former folly. Had he not been brooding repentantly
over his faults, I doubt if he could have done so, even unconsciously.
He turned into the Bull and Bush, and had some dinner; then, as
night was falling, started for London, having made up his mind at
last what he would do. At the Bull and Bush he wrote a note to Lucy,
to the following effect. He did not dare to call her by her name, still
less to use any term of endearment.
I am not worthy to speak or write your name, he said; but my
heart is dying to see you once more. I have likewise to return you
your mother's ring, which, though it has comforted me often in my
despair, I have no longer any right to retain. But I should just like to
tell you that I am working honestly for my bread. I am a sailor now.
I am quite clear of all my bad companions, and hope to remain so.
Dare I ask you to meet me once—to-morrow night, say, or any night
soon, for I am not safe in London? I will tell you all when I see you.
Send me one line by the bearer of this to say where you will meet
me. Do not, for the sake of your love to me once, refuse me this. I
want to beg your forgiveness, that I may go away less miserable
than I am. Then I will go to Australia, or somewhere out of the
country, and you will never hear of me more. God bless you.
He cried a good deal over this note. Then came the question how he
was to send it. He could, no doubt, find a messenger at the
Mermaid, but he was very unwilling to make any line of

communication between that part of London and Guild Court, or,
more properly, to connect himself, whose story was there known,
with Lucy's name. He would go to the neighborhood of Guild Court
and there look out for a messenger, whom he could then watch.
CHAPTER XLV.
THOMAS IS CAPTURED.
As soon as he had resolved upon this he set out. There was plenty
of time. He would walk. Tired as he was beginning to be, motion
was his only solace. He walked through Hampstead, and by
Haverstock Hill, Tottenham Court Road, and Holborn to the City. By
this time the moon was up. Going by Ludgate Hill, he saw her
shining over St. Paul's right through the spire of St. Martin's, where
the little circle of pillars lays it open to the sky and the wind; she
seemed to have melted the spire in two. Then he turned off to the
left, now looking out for a messenger. In his mind he chose and
rejected several, dallying with his own eagerness, and yielding to
one doubt after another about each in succession. At last he reached
the farther end of Bagot Street. There stood Poppie with her
murphy-buster. Had it been daylight, when her dress and growth
would have had due effect upon her appearance, probably Thomas
would not have known her; but seeing her face only by the street-
lamp, he just recollected that he had seen the girl about Guild Court.
He had no suspicion that she would know him. But Poppie was as
sharp as a needle; she did know him.
Do you know Guild Court, my girl? he asked.
I believe you, answered Poppie.
Would you take this letter for me, and give it to Miss Burton, who
lives there, and wait for an answer? If she's not at home, bring it
back to me. I will take care of your potatoes, and give you a shilling
when you come back.

Whether Poppie would have accepted the office if she had not
recognized Thomas, I do not know. She might, for she had so often
forsaken her machine and found it all right when she returned that I
think the promise of the shilling would have enabled her to run the
risk. As it was, she scudded. While she was gone he sold three or
four of her potatoes. He knew how to deliver them; but he didn't
know the price, and just took what they gave him. He stood
trembling with hope.
Suddenly he was seized by the arm from behind, and a gruff voice
he thought he knew, said:
Here he is. Come along, Mr. Worboise. You're wanted.
Thomas had turned in great alarm. There were four men, he saw,
but they were not policemen. That was a comfort. Two of them were
little men. None of them spoke but the one who seized him. He
twisted his arm from the man's grasp, and was just throwing his fist
at his head, when he was pinioned by two arms thrown round him
from behind.
Don't strike, said the first man, or it'll be the worse for you. I'll call
the police. Come along, and I swear nothing but good will come of it
—to you as well as to other people. I'm not the man to get you into
trouble, I can tell you. Don't you know me?—Kitely, the bookseller.
Come along. I've been in a fix myself before now.
Thomas yielded, and they led him away.
But there's that child's potatoes! he said. The whole affair will be
stolen. Just wait till she comes back.
Oh! she's all right, said Kitely. There she is, buttering a ha'p'orth.
Come along.
They led him through streets and lanes, every one of which Thomas
knew better than his catechism a good deal. All at once they hustled
him in at a church door. In the vestibule Thomas saw that there
were but two with him—Mr. Kitely, whom he now recognized, and a
little man with his hair standing erect over his pale face, like corn on

the top of a chalk-cliff. Him too he recognized, for Mr. Spelt had done
many repairs for him. The other two had disappeared. Neither Mr.
Salter nor Mr. Dolman cared to tempt Providence by coming farther.
It was Jim who had secured his arms, and saved Kitely's head. Mr.
Kitely made way for Thomas to enter first. Fearful of any
commotion, he yielded still, and went into a pew near the door. The
two men followed him. It is time I should account for the whole of
this strange proceeding.
Jim Salter did not fail to revisit the Mermaid on the day of Tom's
departure, but he was rather late, and Tom was gone. As to what
had become of him, Mr. Potts thought it more prudent to profess
ignorance. He likewise took another procedure upon him, which,
although well-meant, was not honest. Regardless of Thomas's desire
that Jim should have a half-sovereign for the trouble of the
preceding day, Mr. Potts, weighing the value of Jim's time, and the
obligation he was himself under to Tom, resolved to take Tom's
interests in his own hands, and therefore very solemnly handed a
half-crown and a florin, as what Thomas had left for him, across the
counter to Jim. Jim took the amount in severe dudgeon. The odd
sixpence was especially obnoxious. It was grievous to his soul.
Four and sixpence! Four bob and one tanner, said Jim, in a tone of
injury, in which there certainly was no pretense—after a-riskin' of
my life, not to mention a-wastin' of my precious time for the
ungrateful young snob. Four and sixpence!
Mr. Potts told him with equal solemnity, a righteous indignation
looking over the top of his red nose, to hold his jaw, or go out of his
tavern. Whereupon Jim gave a final snuff, and was silent, for where
there was so much liquor on the premises it was prudent not to
anger the Mermaid's master. Thereupon the said master, probably to
ease his own conscience Jim-ward, handed him a glass of old Tom,
which Jim, not without suspicion of false play, emptied and
deposited. From that day, although he continued to call occasionally
at the Mermaid, he lost all interest in his late client, never referred to

him, and always talked of Bessy Potts as if he himself had taken her
out of the water.
The acquaintance between Dolman and him began about this time
to grow a little more intimate; and after the meeting which I have
described above, they met pretty frequently, when Mr. Dolman
communicated to him such little facts as transpired about them
lawyers, namely, Mr. Worboise's proceedings. Among the rest was
the suspicious disappearance of the son, whom Mr. Dolman knew,
not to speak to, but by sight, as well as his own lap-stone. Mr. Salter,
already suspicious of his man, requested a description of the missing
youth, and concluded that it was the same in whom he had been so
grievously disappointed, for the odd sixpence represented any
conceivable amount of meanness, not to say wickedness. This
increased intimacy with Jim did Dolman no good, and although he
would not yet forsake his work during work-hours, he would
occasionally permit Jim to fetch a jug of beer from a neighboring
tavern, and consume it with him in his shop. On these occasions
they had to use great circumspection with regard to Dolly's landlord,
who sat over his head. But in the winter nights, Mr. Spelt would put
up the outside shutter over his window to keep the cold out, only
occasionally opening his door to let a little air in. This made it
possible to get the beer introduced below without discovery, when
Dolman, snail-like, closed the mouth of his shell also, in which there
was barely room for two, and stitched away while Jim did the chief
part of the drinking and talking—in an undertone—for him—not so
low, however, but that Spelt could hear not a little that set him
thinking. It was pretty clear that young Worboise was afraid to show
himself, and this and other points he communicated to his friend
Kitely. This same evening they were together thus when they heard
a hurried step come up and stop before the window, and the voice
of Mr. Kitely, well known to Dolman, call to the tailor overhead.
Spelt, I say. Spelt!
Mr. Spelt looked out at his door.
Yes, Mr. Kitely. What's the matter?

Here's that young devil's lamb, Worboise, been and sent a letter to
Miss Burton by your Poppie, and he's a-waitin' an answer. Come
along, and we'll take him alive.
But what do you want to do with him? asked Spelt.
Take him to Mr. Fuller.
But what if he won't come?
We can threaten him with the police, as if we knew all about it.
Come along, there's no time to be lost.
But what would you take him to Mr. Fuller for?
My reader may well be inclined to ask the same question. I will
explain. Mr. Kitely was an original man in thinking, and a rarely
practical man in following it up, for he had confidence in his own
conclusions. Ever since he had made the acquaintance of Mr. Fuller,
through Mattie's illness, he had been feeling his influence more and
more, and was gradually reforming his ways in many little things
that no one knew of but himself. No one in London knew him as any
thing but an honest man, but I presume there are few men so
honest that if they were to set about it seriously, they could not be
honester still. I suspect that the most honest man of my
acquaintance will be the readiest to acknowledge this; for honesty
has wonderful offshoots from its great tap-root. Having this
experience in himself, he had faith in the moral power of Mr. Fuller.
Again, since Lucy had come to live in the house, he had grown to
admire her yet more, and the attention and kindness she continued
to show to his princess, caused an equal growth in his gratitude.
Hence it became more and more monstrous in his eyes that she
should be deprived of her rights in such a villainous manner by the
wickedness of them Worboises. For the elder, he was afraid that he
was beyond redemption; but if he could get hold of the younger, and
put him under Mr. Fuller's pump, for that was how he represented
the possible process of cleansing to himself, something might come
of it. He did not know that Thomas was entirely ignorant of his
father's relation to the property of the late Richard Boxall, and that

no man in London would have less influence with Worboise, senior,
than Worboise, junior. He had had several communications with Mr.
Fuller on the subject, and had told him all he knew. Mr. Fuller
likewise had made out that this must be the same young man of
whom Lucy had spoken in such trouble. But as he had disappeared,
nothing could be done—even if he had had the same hope of good
results from the interview as Mr. Kitely, whose simplicity and
eagerness amused as well as pleased him. When Mr. Kitely,
therefore, received from Poppie Thomas's letter to give to Lucy, who
happened to be out, he sped at once, with his natural promptitude,
to secure Mr. Spelt's assistance in carrying out his conspiracy against
Thomas.
As soon as the two below heard Mr. Spelt scramble down and depart
with Mr. Kitely, they issued from their station; Mr. Dolman anxious to
assist in the capture, Mr. Salter wishing to enjoy his disgrace, for the
odd sixpence rankled. As soon as they saw him within the inner door
of the church they turned and departed. They knew nothing about
churches, and were unwilling to enter. They did not know what they
might be in for, if they went in. Neither had they any idea for what
object Thomas was taken there. Dolman went away with some
vague notion about the Ecclesiastical Court; for he tried to read the
papers sometimes. This notion he imparted with equal vagueness to
the brain of Jim Salter, already muddled with the beer he had drunk.
Dolman went back to his work, hoping to hear about it when Spelt
came home. Jim wandered eastward to convey a somewhat
incorrect idea of what had happened to the inhabitants of the
Mermaid. Having his usual design on the Mermaid's resources, his
story lost nothing in the telling, and, in great perplexity, and greater
uneasiness, Captain Smith and Mr. Potts started to find out the truth
of the matter. Jim conducted them to the church door, which was
still open, and retired round the corner.
Meantime the captors and the culprit waited till the service was over.
As soon as Mr. Fuller had retired to the vestry, and the congregation
had dispersed, Mr. Kitely intimated to Thomas that he must follow
him, and led the way up the church. With the fear of the police still

before his eyes, Thomas did follow, and the little tailor brought up
the rear. Hardly waiting, in his impatience, to knock at the door, Mr.
Kitely popped his head in as Mr. Fuller was standing in his shirt-
sleeves, and said with ill-suppressed triumph:
Here he is, sir! I've got him!
Whom do you mean? said Mr. Fuller, arrested by surprise with one
arm in his coat and the other hand searching for the other sleeve.
Young Worboise. The lawyer-chap, you know sir, he added, seeing
that the name conveyed no idea.
Oh! said Mr. Fuller, prolongedly. Show him in, then. And on went
his coat.
Thomas entered, staring in bewilderment. Nor was Mr. Fuller quite at
his ease at first, when the handsome, brown sailor-lad stepped into
the vestry. But he shook hands with him, and asked him to take a
chair. Thomas obeyed. Seeing his conductors lingered, Mr. Fuller
then said:
You must leave us alone now, Mr. Kitely. How do you do, Mr. Spelt?
They retired, and, after a short consultation together in the church,
agreed that they had done their part and could do no more, and
went home.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE CONFESSION.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Mr. Fuller turned to Tom,
saying, as he took a chair near him, I'm very glad to see you, Mr.
Worboise. I have long wanted to have a little talk with you.
Will you tell me, said Tom, with considerable uneasiness,
notwithstanding the pacific appearance of everything about him,
why those people have made me come to you? I was afraid of

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