eLearning Design WITHOUT a Subject Matter Expert (SME)

What to do if you have no access to a Subject Matter Expert (SME) and you have to design and deliver an eLearning program? Many of us would hate to admit it, but this situation happens.

There is a way out of this predicament.

Obtain answers from other sources; I call “quasi-SMEs” – other sources of expertise:
What “must learners” learn to perform immediately? What real-life stories and examples can help learners understand and apply the ideas quickly?

Some ideas to try:

1. Ask operations people who are experienced with the subject.
2. Ask past participants of the course or related course.
3. Ask managers and leaders who lead the target participants.
4. Check feedback and comments from past related courses.
5. Run a contest and ask people to share their best stories and learning.
6. Conduct a relevancy survey on what people feel they need the most learning.
7. Publish the detailed outline and get sampling of what the topics they find most valuable.
8. Check records of safety logs, service calls, customer call recordings, productivity reports, and other indicators of problems.
9. Implement “Reverse eLearning Design” – publish micro-lessons, in increments. Ask participants which micro-lesson they want more follow-up. Expand the lessons as you see more popular demand.
10. Develop the skill of a business consultant - the ability to discover what truly matters so you can adjust your design.

Please share your ideas and experiences.

Ray Jimenez, PhD
Join us at 3MinuteWorlds Micro-Learning Community
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"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

The Master SME: How to become one? How to work with it?

If you are in a shipwreck and are stranded in a desolate island with an SME (Subject Matter Expert), what would be your conversation like?

Ask yourselves, “What do we do?”

Both of your concerns become how to get off the island and go back to civilization.

In order of priority you will probably agree to:

• Make a BIG HELP sign on the ground for the search pilots to see
• Prepare a pile of wood and set fire
• Find food and ensure your safety while you wait
• Explore the island

Now you may never find yourself in a shipwreck and in an isolated island (heaven forbids) with the SME, but you are constantly in conversations with an SME, or you might be an SME yourself. If you have this conversation in the office, the dynamics change from having the sense of urgency in an isolated island to the usual behaviors we are all accustomed to, in corporate settings.

“What is important to teach?” You ask.

“Everything,” the SME answers.

“What is important for you to teach?” the SME asks you.

“I need to write the learning objectives first,” you reply.

What is the difference between the office conversation and the conversation in the desolate island?

“What do we do?” versus “What do we need to teach?”



Whatever we do, whether a trainer, instructional designer, eLearning designer or developer, or an SME, we often fail to focus on what truly matters. Instead, we focus on the content, process and the technique of training, design or delivery; we miss the mark in helping learners. Our training and eLearning programs become dull, without focus and fail to impact the learners’ work performance.

What would the Master SME do?

We can learn from the masters in Karate – the ancient martial arts.

Experts say Karate masters focus on the center of balance, speed and power. Whatever their body position is they need to find the balance otherwise they’d fall. Thus, Speed and power are crucial to execute the moves.

In working with the SME or being an SME, we need to organize our content so learners can learn how to find their balance all the time. Balance to me means the key important performance actions the learner must perform at work at all times. Speed and power are the content that helps the learners execute and apply the key important skill and knowledge swiftly and consistently.

In the movie Karate Kid (1984), Miyagi teaches the bullied kid Daniel to defend himself and win the championship by emphasizing the few key moves Daniel can master in a few weeks, against his well trained opponents, the Cobras. Miyagi did not teach Daniel all the techniques. He focused Daniel’s energies and training on the basics that delivered the right blow at the right time.

The Master SME asks these questions:

1. What must the learners learn that are so critical to their success on the job, without which they would fail?

2. What should learners do consistently and swiftly to deliver the critical skills?
In the first questions, ask the SME or yourself using Pareto’s Law - “what is the 20% content that must be learned to deliver 80% of the results?”

In the second question, ask “what are the fatal errors that the learner needs to master and overcome in order to learn and apply the 20%” and “what are the most difficult tasks the learner must learn and execute to master the 20%?”


Where would SMEs find the answers to these questions?

1. SMEs’ personal experience.

2. Customer support logs often show valuable insights. Check chat support logs and audio support recordings.

3. Feedback from operations people who have to deliver and maintain products and services often times see the problems first-hand.

4. Leaders and managers who are watching out on how their products and services impact revenues and costs to the company.

5. Exception reports of accidents.

6. Case files documenting services rendered and provided.

7. Focus groups consisting of customers are good sources.

8. Product or software requirements specifications.

9. Product testing results often show persistent problems.

10. Lost, terminated or cancelled customers are good sources for information.

11. Financial records of returns, damages, and other related costs.

12. Success stories by everyone in your company who touché the products and services.

13. Attendees to past training sessions who have experience with the content.

Today’s business conditions oftentimes make us feel to be in desolate island. There are always urgencies and People need training now and quickly. But we have no total access and could not know all the content so we rely heavily on SMEs. This is also true if we are the SMEs ourselves. To become a Master SME, with excellence in the craft, we need to help them and ourselves by asking the key questions too. `


Ray Jimenez, PhD
http://www.vignettestraining.com/
http://www.simplifyelearning.com/

"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Managing SMEs for Rapid e-Learning

Based on a study on Rapid e-Learning published by the e-Learning Guild, one cause of delays in e-learning development is the difficulty in working with subject matter experts (SMEs). I have interviewed and worked with hundreds of SMEs and one thing is clear to me: e-Learning developers don’t provide SMEs enough tools and guidance in producing the content efficiently and at the fastest time possible. Here are some tips I used and which have worked for me.

1. Most SMEs are focused on the completeness and accuracy of content. They are not necessarily concerned with what the learner needs to know to perform. Your role therefore is to convert the content into useful learning tools. Try to get an agreement with your SMEs on your respective roles.
2. Your focus is to convert content that allows learners to perform their jobs as quickly as possible. To achieve this, you need to introduce a process that will allow SMEs to provide you content to get your end results – learner performance.
3. The process needs to cover:

a. Agreement of principles on why the process meets the best learning results, reduces cost, and speeds up delivery of the program.

b. A set of questionnaire that you can use to interview SMEs with, or that SMEs can use as guide to write their content.

c. Please see details of the SME Interview Guide (click here), SME Lesson Flow (click here), and SME Worksheet (click here).

Ray Jimenez, PhD www.vignettestraining.com
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"