I had to chuckle when I read Tom Kuhlmann’s recent post on his Rapid E-learning blog.
Tom talks about the problems that can often occur when we try to manage subject matter experts (SMEs), saying:
“I’ve worked on projects where it was almost impossible to get the SME to concede anything… there were times I wished I had an elearning mediator who could talk to the SME in a way that I couldn’t”.
He then identifies three things he wishes he could say to SMEs:
- People don’t care about what you know as much as you do.
- New learners don’t need to know everything you know.
- Tell me what actions learners need to able to do, not what you think they should know.
This certainly resonates with me, but I hope that one of my core skills is to be this kind of mediator.
Learning information is a journey, and writing any learning materials involves story-telling along that path. Learners often need to know one step before the next can make sense. The problem is that whilst SMEs hold the vital information that is needed, they may have forgotten the route and order they used to get there.
Another issue is raised by the personality of many SMEs. Invariably, someone inside the organisation will decide who acts as the SME. Interestingly, I have often seen senior management choose someone who has been vocal (even possibly resistant to change) as some form of appeasement gesture. Those chosen are frequently relatively senior, male, with long-standing tenure in the organisation, a history of being relatively outspoken, and with a track record of wanting to be involved and partially in control of projects that relate to them.
There is no doubt that this person is an expert and has much to offer. However, the practicalities of working with this individual can sometimes cause problems during development of e-learning, even more so if several such SMEs then need to try to work together!
For these reasons I would always recommend that effort is spent forging a good working relationship with your SME. This means choosing the right person to shadow them, avoiding tech speak (unless they are interested) and instead focusing on:
- Asking them to remember the tricks and pathways they used to learn and retain vital information.
- Identifying ‘dark matter’ – those vital nuggets of information that somehow never make it into written source manuals.
- Challenging them to explain issues that just don’t make logical sense.
- Identifying the difference between what is supposed to happen in theory, and what usually happens in practice.
Alternatively, you can always consider also asking a newly qualified person to be your SME – they may well remember the much-needed order along the pathway, whilst your senior SME will be better able to identify the subtleties and caveats.