Blog Post

E-Learning Challenges
2 MIN READ

What do E-Learning Designers Need to Know About Working with SMEs? #474

DavidAnderson's avatar
4 months ago

Working with E-Learning SMEs #474: Challenge | Recap

When it comes to building courses, your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) hold the keys to your success—you can’t do much without them.

They’re the folks who not only bring their expertise to the table but also help you fine-tune those storyboards and quizzes and break down the intricate processes that make your training actually work. 

But here’s the catch: if they’re not fully on board or are dragging their feet, they can quickly become a major headache. The trick is figuring out how to turn those challenging SMEs into your biggest allies. And that's this week’s challenge is all about!

🏆 Challenge of the Week

This week’s challenge is to share a short demo or interaction that helps e-learning designers collaborate more effectively with their SMEs.

You can take it in any direction you like—whether it’s creating a slide with your favorite quote about working with SMEs, building a microlearning course, or even a whack-a-mole game (SME Edition).

✨ Share Your E-Learning Work

  • Comments: Use the comments section below to link your published example and blog post.
  • Forums: Start a new thread and share a link to your published example.
  • Personal blog: If you have a blog, please consider writing about your challenges. We'll link to your posts, so your great work gets even more exposure.
  • Social media: If you share your demos on Twitter or LinkedIn, try using #ELHChallenge so your tweeps can follow your e-learning coolness.

🙌 Last Week’s Challenge:

Before sharing your favorite tips for working with SMEs, take a look at the final examples from the e-learning game show series:

E-Learning Quiz Games RECAP #473: Challenge | Recap

👋 New to the E-Learning Challenges?

The weekly e-learning challenges are ongoing opportunities to learn, share, and build your e-learning portfolios. You can jump into any or all of the previous challenges anytime you want. I’ll update the recap posts to include your demos.

Learn more about the challenges in this Q&A post and why and how to participate in this helpful article

Published 4 months ago
Version 1.0
  • Samuel's avatar
    Samuel
    Community Member

    I'm new here!

    Working with SMEs: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/d0e69509-1575-4e17-9945-8582d14b0c5e/review

  • FredGood's avatar
    FredGood
    Community Member

    Jodi! That is EPIC! :D LOL I'm so inspired to make more cool stuff now. Thank you!

    At my company, we developers are Swiss Army knives, doing it all start-to-finish. And dealing with the SME's (or "course owners") can be fun, or it could be wretched! The worst ones are the ones who can't tell you what they want.... "I'll know it when I see it! Show me several different versions, and I'll pick one!" AAAARGH! Or how about, "It's finally done! Publish it!" (two minutes later:) "Oh wait our VP didn't see it, and has multiple changes (or) wants to go a different route, so this is all worthless". Makes me appreciate the ones who are a dream to work with!

    • MRWright's avatar
      MRWright
      Community Member

      The man who makes Swiss Army Knives is inspired to make more cool stuff. 

    • JiayiXu's avatar
      JiayiXu
      Community Member

      Very helpful! Thanks for the brilliant ideas :) 

    • ThierryEMMANUEL's avatar
      ThierryEMMANUEL
      Community Member
      Cleaver tips and really nice and neat realization on Rise, Kate.
  • Hello!

    Sometimes SMEs find it difficult to share their expertise in a pithy way. Back in the day, I used to set SMEs a 'Twitter Challenge' to give their advice in under 140 characters. Twitter may be functionally dead now, but character limits are still a great way to get SMEs to focus on what's important.

    TWITTER CHALLENGE
    https://bit.ly/elhc474
    • ScottCouchman-f's avatar
      ScottCouchman-f
      Community Member

      There's a writing technique that does something similar: Tell us about the topic in one page (short enough to be readable/usable, long enough for detail).  This focuses them on everything they know to an executive summary.

      Then, tell us about the topic in one paragraph no more than a quarter of a page (need both qualifiers because otherwise they'll make a page long paragraph). They now have the one pager to think about the topic to then chop away any clarifiers, etc.

      NOW, tell us about it in one sentence (or 140 characters) or less.

       

      • JodiSansone's avatar
        JodiSansone
        Community Member

        Scott, thanks for offering that up. I recall a similar technique from advertising. Circle all the prepositions in your text and try eliminating half of them. It helps you get to the essential information. 

    • RonPrice's avatar
      RonPrice
      Partner

      Great thought, Jonathon.  It reminds me of one of the questions we have in our arsenal. "If this topic is a story, what's the moral of the story?"

      • CydWalker_mwhc's avatar
        CydWalker_mwhc
        Community Member

        That's a great way to drill down. Would love to hear any other SME questions you have in your arsenal Ron!

  • Bonjour Heroes.
    I wasn't sure about participating because it's hard to show something after Jodi's masterpiece. Also, I'm never in contact with SMEs as I'm a 100% storyliner and not an e-learning designer. But I have heard a few stories from IDs and project managers, and it seemed a bit labyrinthine at times.
    https://360.articulate.com/review/content/50778558-0aea-4c97-80ba-72cbfad32de0/review
    (And it was fun to build this from scratch: I'd never done it before, but I reused characters I'd created a few years ago, entirely on PPT).
    • YvonneUrra-B206's avatar
      YvonneUrra-B206
      Community Member
      This is an interesting maze interaction! I've never designed one before, so I am curious to find a use case to experiment. Thanks for attaching your .story file in the Review 360 comments! I agree with Jodi. You've captured the feeling of navigating with unknown timeline changes at each corner.
    • JodiSansone's avatar
      JodiSansone
      Community Member
      I feel like you captured the feelings and frustrations of working through a new project with SMEs, especially when I felt trapped in the maze! I have a client that that reminded me of your project manager--"Please don't call me!" :) Thank you for sharing your file and for your kind words!
    • JoseAGomes's avatar
      JoseAGomes
      Community Member

      Fun, Fun, Fun, and quite a reverse psychology exercise 😆... loved it.

    • AdamS-c268b86c-'s avatar
      AdamS-c268b86c-
      Community Member

      This would piss me off so badly if I were ever asked to view this at a job.  I'd probably quit just for being talked down to like this.   This type of effort is the exact reason why IDs have a terrible reputation in the real world. I'm disgusted by the content, though I admire the effort in trying to be better than everybody else. 

      You're incredibly talented, and I think you like to be reminded of it, so here's another stranger telling you how great you are at being a talented and experienced ID. 👍🏼

      • JodiSansone's avatar
        JodiSansone
        Community Member

        Thanks for the feedback Adam! Not everyone will vibe with the same approach. Still, appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. Best of luck on your own journey to greatness and I look forward to seeing your many contributions to this supportive, fantastic community. No strangers here! 

    • LauraComan-fdf6's avatar
      LauraComan-fdf6
      Community Member

      I love the audio! It sounds soooo natural and incredibly close to a human recording. Are these real people voices, or is it generated by an AI tool?

      • ShannonPage-27d's avatar
        ShannonPage-27d
        Community Member

        I would love to know this, too. This presentation is so much fun and so well done. What an interesting and fun way to present the topic!

        Thank you so much for sharing the file with us, too.

  • Hello David. Just finished, the Olympics already forgotten? I wonder why my demo from last week doesn't appear in the recap. Can you do something for the athletes, please?
  • JodiSansone's avatar
    JodiSansone
    Community Member
    Wow, the timing is great for this. I'm just on-boarding 3 new SMEs this month on a topic I know nothing about. I'm rusty on my team building skills.
    • DavidAnderson's avatar
      DavidAnderson
      Staff
      Hey, ‘Onboarding SMEs!’ Is it too late to squeeze in a second session for the user event? :-)

      But seriously, big thanks for your kind and thoughtful feedback on last month’s challenge series. Funny enough, most of the other feedback lined up with what you shared. Maybe it’s just my ‘glass is half empty’ personality, but I was bracing for more critical comments. We got some ideas and suggestions for improvements, but overall the feedback was way more positive than I was expecting.