S1 E26 SME Management
Episode Audio
Jacob Broadhead shares what he’s been learning about SME Management.
Connect with Jacob on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain typos or spelling errors.
Amy Petricek
Welcome to the share whatcha learned Podcast. I'm Amy Petricek, a learning enthusiast and the host of the show. The share what you learn podcast is designed for learning professionals to share something they're learning in the field of instructional design. Today I'm talking to Jacob broadhead about SME management. Welcome to the show, Jacob. I'd love if you could take a minute and introduce yourself to my listeners.
Jacob Broadhead
Sure. Hello, everyone. I'm Jacob broadhead. And I am a training specialist at a biotech company in the Seattle area. Before that, I worked as a teacher actually. And so it's a recent change to get into learn development, particularly in biotech. I'm new that as well.
Amy Petricek
Biotech, break that down a little bit for maybe people who aren't familiar with that.
Jacob Broadhead
Yeah, so biotech, like your vaccines is probably the easiest way to recognize that as developed, produced manufactures, but we're in a cleanroom environment. And so I work in manufacturing training specifically. And so I'm helping the people that are pushing the buttons, and making the concentrations, the buffers, the different things that take cells, and they produce proteins. And those proteins eventually produce some amazing therapeutics that turn into medicine, like vaccines, or it can help cure cancer or different things like that as well. So biologics is what happens, what industry, I guess I'm trying to say that creates those medicines.
Amy Petricek
So you, you might know some people or be a part of the industry that has worked on this famous COVID vaccine of late.
Jacob Broadhead
Yeah, so there's one of our products is working on one of the COVID vaccines, but there's a lot of different products we take on whoever has a product in the pipeline, we help scale that up. That's what our company does.
Amy Petricek
Super cool. Very important. And I don't think I've met anyone that works in that space yet. So you're number one in my book. Well, today, we're going to talk about SME management, subject matter expert management. And this is something you've had the opportunity to learn about. And I'm excited to chat with you about this and then learn together with my listeners. So I'm going to start us off with what makes good SME management.
Jacob Broadhead
So the theme, the topic that always comes to my mind is trust. how fast and how well can you build trust, because you want the Smee to believe that you're going to do a good job that they that they can trust that what they share with you is going to be valued, and be packaged in a way that makes them look good as well as they've spent, in some cases a long time developing skills that they have. And so how do you treat that information and expertise that they've taken so much of their work and effort to? To get to that point to? Now you are the one who wants to get it from them and share it with others? And so you get them to trust you? How do you do that? There's a lot of ways to do that. I think first you start talking about something besides work, or you allow them to get right to the pain points. And then usually there's something that they will say as you get to know them that connects with a project that you're working on while you're talking to him. And so because of that, you then transition into the work done, but it all comes with trust and developing your relationships with your their subject matter experts,
Amy Petricek
I think have experiences in my life where I've had people maybe knock on my door or maybe just show up in my LinkedIn, DMS and are like, Hey, can I have this thing? I need this thing from you. And generally, it just rubs me the wrong way. And so it makes sense that the same would be true as we're talking about building training is it's good to start with a relationship and and building that trust and then kind of walking into the ask. So it was comparing that to other experiences in my life. That tracks Jacob, I think I get that. And I think that is really important. Especially as I'm even thinking of depending on what kind of training you do. But if you do any type of internal training, you're working with the same people over and over again on different projects. You want their buy in, you want their support, you want their feedback, you want them to respond on time. That's all factored into trust.
Jacob Broadhead
Exactly. Yeah. And so past projects will help you be successful in future projects. But also people that are new if especially the way that I see it, I mean I have a the privilege of only having a small subset of people that I take care of. There's approximately 150 people and I know all of them list their name if not on a more deeper level. I know something about them and connect with them and see them and try to you know I'll get to know them. Because I know in the future, there's a very good chance I'm going to need their help, I want to help them, I want to see them be successful, I see them as you know, my, my learners, my customers in a way. But they're also going to be the ones that will turn into pretty soon, subject matter experts. And so if I develop relationship early on, it makes the asks when I get to that point much faster, I can, I don't have to spend as much time on getting him to trust me on Saturday do and so if you have that ability to start laying, you know, I guess planting seeds of your future subject matter experts, or the ones that you may need to know in the future even better. And so getting early in on the process, if you can depends on the size organization and how possible it is, usually you're served the project and the people I didn't talk to, for the first time. But if you can get ahead of that you're so much in a better position.
Amy Petricek
Proactive mindset versus reactive. I love the idea of like planting seeds. I was also thinking, if you don't have the opportunity to meet people or invest in that relationship prior to the ask, you use the words customer service. And that's what I would maybe say is important if you're if it's all packaged in one and you're meeting someone as the project is unfolding is to really see yourself as a customer service agent of sorts, who in the same way that if your computer breaks at work, you call it you don't want it to have an attitude with you or be short or not respond to your problem, their service to you. You're the customer. And I think that that is with training as well as that we as enablement partners are the customer service for our customers, and how can we whatever that means maybe sometimes it means giving a little bit more bending over backwards, but how is that going to build a brand for your internal team, which is really important and getting buy in. Because while enablement can be required, also, at the end of the day, it can be hard to get employees to do enablement.
Jacob Broadhead
Yeah. And what that speaks to as I'm listening as well is to trust but then you're also need to realize that this is not their job, your job is to work with them and get their help. And this is not really their job. And so it's depending on where you're entering in. So if you've been in this a long time, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But if you just were recently promoted or moved from like a subject matter expert, position yourself to now training or some other type of role, and now you're into training instructional design, you go into this process, the first thing is that the people that you need help from, that's not their top concern, you're always pretty far down the list. And so the easier you make it for them to share what they know, for them to help you on your project. So reminders, I think a lot of people depends on on your personality, but maybe different roles you have, they feel uncomfortable reminding your subject matter experts to help out or to check in. And so you got to do that. But you do that, in a sense of, they're gonna forget about you a lot. And so you're trying to set the right expectations, you're trying to plan things really well make them look good, and then get them if you can, excited enough that they see this as something that they can share either their cause or their motivation is like this is a good cause or their motivation might also be, maybe I want to be in training at some point. Or maybe this will help me on my resume, like they start to see what's in it for them besides just, here's another person from organization asking me to help them out when I have so many other things to do. And so when you have that perspective, and you treat that respectfully and appropriately, then that will help you get your job done as an instructional designer or whatever learning developer position you have. But if you don't, and you expect to them or you wait around and just hope they do things, then you're in a bad spot where they have, usually they have the luxury of just ignoring you or doing a bad job. And so you constantly have to be on your best game to get what you need from them.
Amy Petricek
That's the thing that I think isn't communicated a lot in instructional design programs, academies, those kinds of things is, while there's this picture painted of what instructional design looks like, some of the pain points of being an instructional designer as well, you know, you were just highlighting that your sneeze, this isn't their job, their this is like a side project for them. And some of them have a lot of buy in and so they're going to give the time and energy and some of them don't. And so I just really like your holistic approach to managing SMEs. It's about respect. It's about care. It's about trust. It's about empathy. And I think all of that goes a long way. So talk to me about how You identify SME and partnering with them long term? I know we kind of touched on that in terms of like partnership longer term, but how do you identify SME
Jacob Broadhead
the classic approach, especially if you're like served a project or served, you know, a problem like go fix this. The classic approach is here's the person who knows at all, they've been here 20 years they've been here however long. And so usually that's the person that you are given. However, depending on who this person is, they could be excellent for training. But a lot of times they're not, the reason why they're not is because they have gotten to a point where they're at like the unconscious competence, they can just do their jobs. So well, they don't know how they do it, so they can't explain it. And so they can't explain it, they're not gonna help you at all, other than you can go watch them, you could go watch what they're doing and try to, you know, extrapolate what it is that they're doing, there is some benefits to that. But generally, your best sneeze are going to be the ones that just learned, the ones that just passed whatever threshold you have of competency, because now they remember all of the points that they got stuck, and they can then serve that up to pretty easily. You're usually not given those people because they're not seeing maybe as trusted or they just don't think they're the best candidates, whereas the most recent learners, I think, are your best candidates. And you also want to have where possible multiple options. When we talked about how it's not your it's not their top priority to help you with your projects and help get the stuff done. They don't care about your deadlines. So much. Sometimes they do, sometimes they do have some good buy in. But generally they're just not concerned about that, or more. So a better way of putting it is they just have a lot of other things that are top priority, they can't worry about that. It's your job to worry about those things. And so if you have multiple options, you're in a really good spot as well. And so you can then decide at the timing, right. So you do have your project planned out, here comes the time, they need feedback from your subject matter experts. If you have more than one, you don't have to rely on just that 20 year veteran, you can also rely on the recent learner or the recent learner doesn't come through, they just got promoted, they're too busy now, or they give you maybe feedback or they give you the work that they do is not quite what you need. It's always good to have multiple perspectives. So when you're looking for it, recent learner, I think is your best spot. And then someone who's easier to work with versus others is also good. Your long term veterans aren't always but sometimes they are. But you want multiple options. In all cases, as best as you can do it, you can't, you don't always have that luxury. But if you can name a few, then you have those choices when it comes down to the timing and your deadlines because you're going to run into those challenges. And so looking for this means variety of experience levels, but also multiple people, I feel it's key to get a job done.
Amy Petricek
I would agree with that when you get a variety of experiences, you also get more holistic, comprehensive content as well, which is I've always found I end up with a better final deliverable when I've had a multitude of SMQs looking at it or giving input on the project. So kind of piggybacking off of that semis are, quote unquote, volunteers to the project, do you find that they always have bandwidth to support your work? And if not, how do you navigate that?
Jacob Broadhead
This is a good question, what starts to happen, as you become more seasoned, more familiar with the process is you may learn things to the point that you could call yourself a subject matter expert in some parts of the process. As that starts to get identified, I mean, you run a dangerous balancing act in that case, as well. So you don't want to cross the threshold and do multiple roles at once. That's where you do all roles kind of bad subject matter expert facilitator, Instructional Designer, if you're doing all of those at the same time, usually you're doing one or all of those poorly. And so but there is a definite benefit. And this is a reason why most subject matter experts become instructional designers is that if you know enough of the process or enough of the procedure, you can serve a lot of ways as one of those experts and make the job go faster. And so as you see that the bandwidth maybe becomes less and you're trying to get to the finish line. You can rely on some of your own knowledge depending on how complicated or not the thing is. You can you yourself can say this is good enough and pass it on, based off of your experience and familiarity with whatever it is and as more complicated and complex as the process begins the likelihood Have you serving as an expert or one of experts becomes less and less. And that's where the demands of the project, you need to demand more bandwidth. But as their bandwidth starts to drop off, and it crosses over, if you will, with like, the complexity, you start to take on a little bit more and say, Oh, I can, I can probably review this myself or, or you can review it with another instructional designer or training partner, that maybe isn't the number one expert, but could be someone that can help you out. And so, bandwidth is always a challenge. But you're going to get the most bang for your buck with clear expectations with a project outline that is clear and laid out well enough that you can determine the deliverables, work backwards from the deadlines, and then remind as well as give a fair enough time, to your subject matter experts to get the stuff done. Because oftentimes, they can find, you know, in a pinch some time to do what you need to do, especially if you've, you know, set expectations as well as shown their value to the project and how grateful you are that they're helping out, they usually can come through at short notice, when they're like, Oh, I promised that, okay, they just rearrange their schedule, and they make it happen. But you always gotta be mindful of the fact that this isn't their top priority.
Amy Petricek
I have found kind of piggybacking off of what you're saying, I have found kickoff calls to be incredibly important to my project. Because it's doing that expectation setting that you said, and is basically calling out, I will need you here, I will need you there. This is what that will look like here's when the final deliverable will roll out, and at least starts to put some seeds in their brain of when and how they'll be needed and used, at least personally, when I've when they're like I can't meet that deadline, or that doesn't work for me. Sometimes, if I am this me as well, I will say I'll take a pass at writing the content or designing this. And then I'm just going to ask for your seal of approval. So look over it and tell me if it looks good. And if I've missed anything or omitted anything, let me know. And I'd be happy to scope that instead of asking them to identify that content and send it over to me. So there's there ways in which you can kind of leverage that expertise to take something off of their plate.
Jacob Broadhead
You know, another thought that came to my mind as you're talking is the different like stages of like design process, you're getting closer to finalizing your deliverable, your course, whatever you're making, is that what always happens, even though you try to avoid it is that you don't get the quality and level of feedback that you want, until it's one step away from being done. So you've gone through the whole design process. And you're asking for good feedback. And it's just really hard for them to visualize what it's actually going to look like. But you're trying to do what you can and like the storyboarding or whatever, you're doing the beginning to get all that feedback. So you don't have to make a bunch of changes in one. Okay, good, we're done, you're gonna set yourself up and them up for failure if you don't have enough time after, you know, when your first or last proof of concepts are pretty close to the end, because that's really when they're like, Oh, this is not what I expected. There's different ways to to avoid that. But it's really difficult to get there like expect your most critical feedback from your subject matter experts to be at the almost completed Stage. So you've got to find a way to realize that that's not the almost completed Stage, even though you're acting like it is. And I also say that because the few times that I've been on the subject matter expert end, and various roles, someone else built something, and they're showing it to me, I do the same thing, whether I like it or not, I even know what's coming. And I'm trying my hardest to be critical in the design phase. And then they give me something where it's almost done. I'm like, Ah, this is not what I thought it was going to be. And so it's frustrating, as you know, the instructional designer to be in that spot. But it's just always the case, whether you like it or not. And so that's something to consider when you're going through that with the bandwidth is that they're going to do a lot towards the very end.
Amy Petricek
I have found that to be true as well, especially I always call the storyboarding, like it's my brain dump as a designer, like what are all of the ideas sitting in my head, but I'm not going to build them yet. And so sometimes, we're doing as good a job as we possibly can of dumping our brain into a storyboard for someone else to kind of like peel back the curtain and see what's what our thinking is. But ultimately, when you put it in its final form. They're like, Oh, this feels so different now in its final form, and now the Have the verbiage doesn't work or the graphic doesn't work. And I always build in at the end of my projects, that very last review cycle after development, I give myself like two days or something like that. That's a part of my project plan to ensure that I have enough time to scope out all of the edits and feedback that will be required. Just as a result of something being in its final form that's natural.
Jacob Broadhead
There's a lot more than anyone wants to admit at that very, there's different ways to deal with that, of course, but when I think of bandwidth, that's when all of a sudden they have lots of availabilities. You're like, Wait, that's not the way I thought it was gonna be. Like, why did you tell me this earlier on?
Amy Petricek
Piggybacking off of that, what are some tools or resources maybe that you've identified to help support this partnership with learning designers and SM ease?
Jacob Broadhead
Yes, so a project management tool Trello, these Smartsheet I've used Excel before. But any sort of document where you can track the different phases of your project, and your expectations for when things need to be done, and about how long it takes to get done. A lot of people can find time when they're, it's clear about what and how much need to do. But if you're not clear on those dates, and about how long it's going to take them in order to meet like, say you tell them this can take about two hours reviews can take you about four hours review and you always overestimate as well, I always tell them, it's going to take longer than it probably should. And then when they find that it takes less time than they're happy the other way around. And never. It's it's always tough to figure out some of those those timings. But any of those tools, like I mentioned, will help you decide about how long everything's going to take and keep you on track. And you can also start to offload some of that stress and visualization. Once you have it put all together. That way you can show them where they're at, you can let them go and check off their tasks, I was nice to click a check mark somewhere and be done with the certain phases, you know that there's a certain level of closing that loop that gives some people some satisfaction and so software, like it's a you have to have that in order to manage things appropriately.
Amy Petricek
Well, let's transition over to a Rapid Round, Jacob, these are the questions I get asked all of my guests. So I'm going to start out with learning is and you get to fill in the rest.
Jacob Broadhead
Learning is never ending learning is forever, even if you're older, whatever that means. I'm certain feel like I'm older. I don't that's a good. That's fair. I'm not that old, but it never stops. I feel like I'm learning more now than I ever did before. And I'm learning faster. That's pretty cool. So it just never stops.
Amy Petricek
When you're mustering up the courage to learn something new. What song do you put on?
Jacob Broadhead
I put on outside in by Sherwood. It's my go to song right now. It's two years old. It's a good one. It's got a good guitar track. And yeah, inspiring. That's what I think when I was two,
Amy Petricek
You're asked to do a brand new task with the skill set you do not yet have Where do you turn to?
Jacob Broadhead
Google. Usually, other than Google, it would be like forum communities LinkedIn is good spot. Or if someone's near you that you know is familiar. I'll go ask a coworker but Google and then and then I'm thinking who knows answer to this that can help me that's what I think next
Amy Petricek
phone a friend. I like it.
Jacob Broadhead
Yeah, phone a friend. Yeah, that's a good one.
Amy Petricek
Without learning
Jacob Broadhead
Without learning, things are boring. Things are less exciting, like learning is exciting. It's a measure of success. If you say you can learn something, you're in the right spot. If you're not learning something without learning, you're not in the right place. That's what I think.
Amy Petricek
Well, what's the best way for my listeners to be in contact with you after the show Jacob if they have more questions about smi management or just want to I don't know follow up with you and connect.
Jacob Broadhead
Best way is connecting on LinkedIn. You don't even have to write a personal note. I'll just accept it and talk to you what a pal what I'll get that many right now. I'm not that popular, so it's pretty easy for me.
Amy Petricek
So let's everyone in indeed his LinkedIn with connection requests. Try it out. Thanks so much, Jacob for sharing all about smi management with us today. I also want to give a shout out to you my listeners for learning with us. Until next time, stay open, receptive and kind