We can all feel our pulse quicken and our emotions rise when we get chance to talk or write about a topic that engages us totally. And we usually know lots about this topic. We can frequently talk about it for hours without getting bored. We can tell anyone willing to listen every last detail. In that sense, we are all a subject matter expert (SME) in something.
And as learning and development professionals it's worth remembering our own passion for a particular subject matter when analyzing and gathering someone else's subject matter expertise.
Aside from being more empathetic to a talkative SME sat in front of us, is there anything else we can do to make our time with them more productive? Conventional instructional design training doesn't always pay enough attention this aspect of an instructional designer's role. Yet it is not difficult to learn guidelines and strategies on how to manage and work effectively with subject matter experts when they are critical to you completing an instructional design development project successfully.
There are four key areas it's worth focusing on when gathering content from SMEs. The greater the quantity of content you need to gather, the more you are likely to want to formalize and codify the approaches below.
1. Ownership. Before any information gathering even happens, you need to take ownership of the process. This may involve becoming more assertive than normal: be quite specific about how you want the process to unfold, including the number of meetings you'll need, how long each meeting should be and how much time you'll need between meetings for reviewing and feedback.
2. Planning. Tempting as it might be to go into your early meetings knowing nothing, better to do research to familiarise yourself with the subject matter area. Spend time creating a basic project plan. Clearly define your and their roles in the whole process. Formally identify the risks of not getting the required information in a timely fashion and communicate this to the project sponsor.
3. Connecting. Your initial research can pay dividends once you start interacting with your. Exhibiting some knowledge of his/her topic can help build rapport and, more important, establish your credibility. Earn trust by emphasising the confidentiality of your information gathering sessions and the promise of a review of content before making it more widely available.
As the content gathering progresses, aim to establish points of shared interest both within the subject matter area and outside. Most people appreciate a little interest in their life outside work.
4. Focusing. Set an agenda in advance of the meeting clearly stating goals and expectations. During your content gathering sessions, regularly paraphrase, clarify and summarise what you have covered; use closed questioning techniques if your SME has a tendency to go off on tangents. After the session, collate the content into a structured document you can share with SME for review and feedback.
It's easy to dismiss some of the subject matter experts you might have to deal with in your professional capacity as out of control windbags who want to bore you and your learners with every last detail of their knowledge. In some cases, that may be true. But let's not forget, given the right topic and the opportunity, many of us can happily do the same.
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Andrew Jackson is co-founder of Pacific Blue, which provides a popular instructional design training programme for individuals and organisations. Learn more or receive regular instructional design hints and tips at:
http://www.pacificblue.co.uk/instructional-design-training-programme
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