Episode 006 · Working with SMEs
Your SME gave you 80 slides. Now what?
Turn an SME content dump into useful design insight. Ask about real situations, decision cues, plausible mistakes, and what people can look up.
The idea
Find the judgment inside the slide deck.
A subject matter expert sends eighty slides and a few policy documents. Before deciding which slides to keep, change the conversation: what should someone be able to handle after this that they cannot handle now?
Ask the expert to walk through a difficult situation. Listen for the decision, then ask what they noticed that told them what to do. Those details can be easy for an expert to overlook because they have become so familiar.
Take it into your work
Three things to consider.
- Ask for one real situation.
Find a task, decision, or exception that a new person would struggle with.
- Explore plausible mistakes.
Ask what beginners get wrong and why that choice makes sense to them.
- Separate memory from reference.
What must people remember, what can they look up, and when should they ask for help?
Try this
Ask for a walkthrough, not another deck.
First
Ask: “Walk me through one situation where someone needs your judgment. What do you notice?”
Then
Show the expert your interpretation. Check whether anything missing would change the answer.
Take the thinking further.
Read the related perspectiveKeep going
More conversations about learning for real work.
Find a useful question, a practical example, or an idea for your next project.