Managing Subject Matter Experts and Using Them as Learning Developers
I have a colleague who once created a presentation called “Herding Cats: Working with SMEs.” Needless to say, her viewpoint on the value of SMEs was influenced by some negative experiences.
Cats have often been used to describe SMEs - independent and impossible to control...but still lovable.
Can subject matter experts (aka SMEs) make good developers? How do you manage them and keep them focused? Can you shift them from a content (input) focus to an outcome focus? How do you keep them from derailing your project by overloading you with content? If a SME doesn’t know anything about instructional design, how can you involve them in designing a learning solution? What about deadlines…how do you hold them accountable?
In our experience, which spans a lot of years, subject matter experts are critical to most of our projects’ successes. Conversely, they can also become the Achilles’ heel that hinders success or makes a project take far longer than it should to complete. How to you ensure the former scenario and prevent the latter one?
That’s what our February blog posts are about. Over the next four weeks, we’ll share our tips and tricks for maximizing the relationship with SMEs. Specifically, we plan to talk about:
- Managing expectations between the SME and the designer/developers and techniques for clarifying roles/responsibilities.
- Tools that can make it easier for SMEs to function as developers - and designers.
- Techniques that make it easier to hold SMEs accountable for delivering what they say they will deliver.
- How to speak the language of the SME rather than trying to teach the language of learning design to the SME.
We welcome your thoughts and ideas as well. If you’ve identified a great strategy or technique for partnering with SMEs, share it! If you have a question or a challenge, let us know that too and we’ll try to address it here.
Also look for a couple interesting interviews with SMEs. While we view them in a particular light, it’s always good to view the world from their stance as well.
Tags: instructional design, learning developers, project management, Subject matter experts