You don't need to be a campaigner or activist to be passionate about something. We can all feel our pulse quicken, our emotions rise when we get chance to talk or write about a topic that engages us totally.
And it’s usually because either we know lots about this topic or something we are directly involved with in our working or private lives. Whatever this topic is, we can talk about it for hours without getting bored. We can tell anyone willing to listen about every last detail. In that sense, we are all subject matter experts in something.
And as learning and development professionals it's worth remembering our own passion for a particular subject matter when analysing 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?
There are four areas it's worth considering when gathering content from SMEs. The greater the quantity of content you need to gather, the more you are likely to want to formalise the approaches below.
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.
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.
Connecting
Your initial research can pay dividends once you start interacting with your SME. 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.
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 the SME for review and feedback.
It's easy to dismiss some of the subject matter experts we deal with in our professional capacity as out of control windbags who want to bore us and our learners with every last detail of their knowledge.
That may be true. But let's not forget, given the right topic and the opportunity, many of us can happily do the same.
So with a bit empathy and some detailed preparation and worked before, during and after your content gathering, the analysis phase of your project need not be an out of control nightmare.
Before you start working on your next project, check out our Analysis and Planning modules for help on dealing with subject matter experts and their content.
