March 21, 2023
5 Questions to Ask Your SMEs – An Ounce of Prevention
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March 21, 2023
5 Questions to Ask Your SMEs – An Ounce of Prevention
Former classroom teacher (15 years) and current instructional designer (10 years)
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They don’t know what they don’t know. Although that applies to everyone, when working with a subject matter expert, certain questions should be asked before any design/development should occur.

Whether you use ADDIE, SAM, Agile, or any variation on the theme, all projects start with some form of analysis. When done properly, these initial meetings should provide those fundamental questions of what, who, how, why, and when.

It would seem cut and dry, but for those with a broad experience with several projects and, by default, a wide variety of SMEs, we know that getting to a shared vision can be challenging. So here are five specific initial questions I like to ask my SMEs at the beginning of a project that yields a clear picture moving forward.

What is Your Overall Message?       

What do you want your learners to gain from your training? Is your learning based on awareness, company policy, philosophy, or a specific skill? Coming up with an overall massage or impact statement will help narrow the project’s focus. This, of course, can and probably will change during the project’s lifecycle, but asking it up front can help you emphasize a specific set of objectives and avoid the dreaded….. creep!

What is essential for them to learn?

What do you want them to know, feel or do? Is this something that they can immediately apply to their job tasks? For adult learners especially, the expectation should always be, “how can this help make my work life better and more effective today!” In other words, if you could snap your fingers and have the learners know, do, or embody what you want, what would that look like?

What is your communication plan?

How will you communicate and roll out this training? It’s probably true that you will get an eye-roll or two when you start talking about new training, so your presentation is equally as crucial in many respects as the content itself. “Buy-in” is a bigger deal than most companies will want to admit, but if you want to move your culture from “I have to learn” to “I get to learn,” you need enthusiastic learners!

Who is your audience?

Who will take this training? This might even be the first question you may want to ask. Your SME may often not know or have a too-limited or too-broad scope. Drilling down the what and why will help define the learning pool. The more specific your audience is, the closer the range of experiences and skills they may have going into the training. This may help you get more granular with your training.

How will you measure success?

How will you know if your training is successful? Good training should always be measurable. Recording an LMS score or a complete/incomplete report is fine, but what is the REAL impact on the learner and the organization? This will take time and may require that we put the “E” back into ADDIE! Continuous improvement demands implementation and feedback, then acting on that feedback to improve the product. Thirty-day, 60-day, and six-month evaluations should become a part of your arsenal.

Of course, the key to building a successful training module – be it an instructional video, an eLearning course, a job aid, a facilitator’s guide, or anything else, is constant communication throughout the project. The one-and-done method of meeting at the top of a project and then not interacting until the final rollout is not only archaic but also dangerous. This, in many cases, is the cause of scope creep and endless delays that may cause a project to die on the vine. Always stay in the loop and check things off on the go, and you will likely avoid that worst-case scenario of having to perform a major overhaul of a project when you should be wrapping it up!

Finally, as a designer, find some common ground with your SME. They are the PhDs regarding the training content, but YOU are the Ph.D. when conveying that knowledge to the learner with maximum success! See there; you already have something in common!

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