More often than not, instructional designers create learning on topics that they are not experts in. This means they must rely on subject matter experts (SMEs) to provide the content, while they design the learning process. Trouble is, SMEs are not that easy to work with. It’s likely they have never had to fill this role before and don’t know why you are asking so many questions. Some of them can feel threatened and be purposefully uncooperative.  Only twice in my career have I had SMEs say “Hallelujah! You’re here!” 

Over my 25-year career designing custom training curriculum for all sorts of industries and topics, I’ve developed a few techniques for getting information out of SME’s heads. See if these work for you. 

1 - Do Your Homework

I once had an SME at an aerospace company make me read an entire textbook on Material Requirements Planning (#MRP)– “then you can talk to me,” he said. Let me tell you, if you are not an engineer, that is not fun reading. This SME taught me a very valuable lesson: don’t walk into your meeting expecting them to take you from the ground up. Learn all you can about the topic (and in today’s day and age, that is not hard to do) so that you can at least follow acronyms and ask semi-intelligent questions. And speaking of questions… 

2 - Ask At Least Three Questions 

Lots of SME’s like to tell you “special case” scenarios to demonstrate their extreme knowledge, but that information doesn’t help someone learning a new skill. No matter what the SME tells you, ask at least three questions to pull out more information or have them explain it in a different way. 

Some suggestions are: Is that true in all cases? When would someone do this (what is the trigger)? Why? How did you get from A to B? Is that a typical cause (or outcome)? Can you explain that in a different way? So, is that similar to (relate to a “real world” scenario)?

Example: When working with a casual clothing retailer I was assigned a “shoe guru” who was helping me to design training for the salespeople on the floor (interesting factoid:  Nike will not let you sell their shoes of $100 or more if you do not have a full-service footwear sales staff). He was adamant that we had to include the history of each of the 8 manufacturers they represented. Why? Because he was a guru. He loved athletic footwear. But knowing the history of each company was not going to help the salespeople do their jobs better. It was quite a tussle between the two of us,

He: Must be included

Me: People can sell shoes without knowing this

Finally, we compromised and included the eight manufacturers’ histories in an appendix of the “selling shoes bible” we created. 

3 - Make Best Guesses For Them To Correct 

Most SMEs are so smart and skilled that they don’t know what they know. I remember when I was learning to ride a motorcycle I thought, “This training is terrible, I’d change this, this, and this.” I had every intention of writing to the state entity that ran the school and telling them what they were doing wrong. Now, 15 years in, I have no recollection of why it was so hard to learn. 

At times, when I’ve had trouble getting intel out of an SME’s head, I’ve simply gone ahead and made stuff up. Based on observation or best guesses, I’ll document what I think is happening. I have found it is easier for an SME to see what is wrong and correct it, than to tell me out of the gate what is the right way to do something. This is where being an uninformed neophyte is helpful. Sometimes we shouldn’t be getting our direction from the most skilled individual but rather from the newbie.

4 - Give Them Deadlines, Then Move On! 

As an instructional designer, you have deadlines to meet (usually impossibly short deadlines, but that’s a different blog post). When you are dependent on an SME for the content (not the learning process, but the content) it can be difficult to stay on track because your deadlines are not the SMEs deadlines. It may seem punitive, but you must give the SME deadlines for reviewing the learning and giving you feedback and if you don’t get it – move on. I generally allow 4 – 10 working days. I have also found it helpful to set a meeting and actually be there in the room (or the Zoom) during the review.
This is helpful in two ways: 

• If it is an appointment on their calendar, it (almost always) ensures they do the review

• It can save me time by doing the edits during the meeting

The longest meeting of my life was a 6-hour review and working session, via phone, but we got it done! 

Bonus Tip: Thank Them Profusely! 

You couldn’t have gotten your job done without the help of the SME, so be sure to thank them profusely. Put a recommendation on their LinkedIn profile. Drop an email to their boss thanking them for allowing the SME to take the time to work with you and praising how easy they were to work with. You may even go so far as sending a small gift – once, a colleague and I so enjoyed working with an SME for the better part of a year that we had our picture taken with him and framed it to leave behind as a memento.