Interviewing an SME: the script

Host: How do you go about getting really good from subject matter experts so that you can create whatever that effective intervention might be?
Guest: So we are basically glorified as learning and development, right? So we've got to take all the information and we've got to get it out of their genius and share it with people who do not understand what they're talking about most of the time, right? And so what I see is that we bring the L&D and they bring their product, solution, technology, whatever it is, the business expertise. And so we need to ways to braid those two things together to tell a and to flow into a learning funnel. It comes from asking good . And so I find, so one of my clients is an engineering client, and it's a company, so it's full of , okay? And so I have to do, we do, like, a new hire for them. And in order to create the new hire training, we are not experts in cybersecurity, we are experts in L&D. And so you meet before with the higher level groups and figure out what are the of the program. Then you create an based on what you think will be accomplished, in that, knowing that every new hire, for example, does not need to know the level of engineering expertise as the solutions engineering . They just need to know in the new hire week. So that's the goal. And so then when you're meeting with that SME, sometimes they can go off the , right? They are so in content and it's over everyone's head except theirs. And so it's them the goal.

Guest: So as you start talking to them, just like when we sat down to start talking for an interview, right? You're like: here's what we're going to do, here's how we're going to do it. It's the same when you're a subject matter expert. It's setting of: this is for new hires, this is the , this is what I'm hoping to . You're probably going to go deep a little bit and I'm going to you back, so be for that. And then you have questions assigned or already out that you're going to ask them, hopefully, that then they can uncover. You can get those little, like, nuggets of information that then you can use.
Host: I love that you're putting that forward, that, you know, you're going in and, but you're also, you're not just asking a of questions, but you're also them, because they know what they know and they don't know what you . Right.
Guest: I had a, uh, an engineering subject matter expert actually who I to create a video, um, on something. It was like a on the command line on a computer, running through something, and he was scraping a website, and I wanted him to show how this . And it's a very process, but I had told him so many times: the goal of this is this, the goal of this is this. And even when, on the voiceover, you can hear him saying: but that's not the goal of the training, the goal of the training is this. And he was like himself what we were trying to do and like bringing himself back on , which is just really… nobody else would that, you know? And so I think it really does always go back to the: why are we doing this? And we're not just doing it for the sake of doing it. So how do we make sure that we can the uptick?

What are the goals of the program? → Could you tell me ?
How does this process work? → Could you explain ?
Who is the audience? → Do you know ?
What do new hires need to know in their first week? → I'd like to know .
Why did you choose this tool? → Can you tell me ?
Do the learners use the command line? → I was wondering .
Where do new employees usually make mistakes? → Could you tell me ?
Is this step really necessary for beginners? → I'm not sure .
What happens if they skip this step? → Can you explain ?
How long did it take you to learn this? → I'm curious to know .