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(Extracting information from SMEs
September 9th, 2007 | Posted in Technical Writing |
Sometimes I would like to change my job title from “technical writer” to investigative reporter, because so often this is the task that we have. Information we need is not online, not in any documents, not even available in the application itself. We have to pry it from the minds of subject matter experts (SMEs), the techies who talk in acronyms and dream in code.
Surely one of the worst mistakes tech writers can make is to just stay in their cubes and try to figure it all out themselves. Of course you can find out a lot through research, exploration, trial and error, and tech docs. Don’t discount that. But you must also get out of your cube and put on your investigative reporter hat. Call meetings, stick your head in doors, ask questions. You’ve got to extract information from the source.
I’m currently collecting information on the best way to get information from SMEs. If you have a technique that works well, please share it with me.
Here are some techniques I’ve found to work all right:
- Don’t send e-mails asking for technical explanations. Either call or go over to the SME’s cube and ask a few questions.
- Set up official meetings with SMEs where you ask all the questions you have. People may be busy, but they can rarely escape an official meeting if you set it up.
- If you can sit near SMEs, one technique that works well is to wait until you see them entering a dead state (where they’re waiting for something to install, or they can’t figure something out, or they’re finished with something). Timing is everything. Ask a question at that time, and then another. It might get them going on a longer bit than they planned.
- Ask to look over their shoulder and watch what they’re doing. I suspect many SMEs relish their techie knowledge, and this is one way to ingratiate their senses with indirect adulation.
- To get a SME to review a document, set a due date, and call a meeting where the SME is required to deliver his or her review. If you just send the document and ask for a critique/review, it may never come.
- You can always buy a SME lunch, but it’s sometimes hard to keep the focus on work during lunch. If you carpool, you can ask a SME questions in the car, where they don’t have access to a computer.
Overall, whatever technique works, it’s going to require learning to be bold and insistent. If you think of yourself as an investigative reporter rather than a writer, it may be easier to get the information.
Do you have any tips or advice on SME interaction?
Related Posts
- Location is everything when it comes to getting information from SMEs — Carcast
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- My TechCraft Article: Should You Sit Near SMEs?
- Five Skills Every Technical Writer Needs
- Podcast: Personalities of Technical Communicators — Interview with Deborah (Shapiro) Hemstreet
Tags: aggressiveness, skills, SMEs
September 10th, 2007 at 2:42 am
Thanks, Tom - excellent reminder!
I usually go by Jennifer Lambe’s excellent article of May 2005: Conducting Successful SME Interviews at http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0505-sme.html.
It covers basically the same ground as your advice.
Kai.
September 10th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
One of the first projects I did in my Technical Communications post-grad was interview a Tech Writer about their job. I sometimes strayed pretty far from my intended questions based on subsequent areas of interest I picked up on during our conversation.
Ever since, I’ve really enjoyed interviewing SMEs. People love talking about their work with someone who is genuinely interested.
September 10th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Great tips! Unfortunately, some just won’t work for me. The company I work for has offshored most of the development jobs. I’m based in the U.S. Most of the developers are in Uraguay, Poland, and India. So it’s a little difficult to get together over lunch.
Meetings work great for the most part. We meet over the phone and webex sessions. The different time zones are sometimes a challenge. However, they can work to our advantage also. I can work on a project all day and email it to my SME. They work on it while I’m sleeping and have it back to me first thing the next morning.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Perhaps it goes without saying, but one of the best ways to get SMEs to answer your questions is to meet them halfway, if possible. Don’t start with a blank slate. Look at the UI. Run the code. Read the specs (if there are any). In short, be prepared.
And don’t be afraid to ask what you might think are dumb questions. If you don’t want to appear ignorant about something, frame the question by saying that’s you’ve got your “naive user” hat on.
If you’re really not getting the hang of something, but know that whatever the SME just said is the answer you’re looking for (if only you knew what it meant), tell the SME that you like the way they phrased it, and could they please repeat it. They’ll be flattered and you can go back to your desk with the answer in hand, ready to decipher. (or just plain old use verbatim if you’re really pressed for time.)
September 10th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I usually start by asking them how they do a specific but common everyday task e.g. “what do you do when you read your email” - this seems to be a good way into a conversation that lets me dig behind generalities and allows me to ask some very ‘dumb’ questions like ‘what do you to open the program’ and what happens if you did ‘y’ instead. At first they think I’m stupid of course, but eventually they realise I am actually interested in hearing about every little step in sequence. I also tend to find out really quickly where the frustrations lie, using this approach.
The biggest difficulty is always finding out about the bits they gloss over, the things they assume you know. I find that asking about specific everyday tasks allows me to create flowcharts, which I often draw as I go and ask them if that’s right, and this invariably gets the response ‘yes, except…’ and then you get the missing bits.
September 11th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
[...] http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/09/09/extracting-information-from-smes/Sometimes I would like to change my job title from “technical writer” to investigative reporter, because so often this is the task that we have. Information we need is not online, not in any documents, not even available in the application itself. We have to pry it from the minds of subject matter experts (SMEs), the techies who talk in acronyms and dream in code. [...]
September 11th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Kai, thanks for the link. I wasn’t aware of the article — I’ll check it out. Rahul Prabhakar also wrote about the difficult of getting information from SMEs here.
Brian, you’re right — sometimes we forgot that people actually enjoy talking about what they do and know. Thanks for pointing that out.
Kim, sounds like an interesting situation. It really helps to be sitting right next to a SME.
anne, you’re definitely right about meeting the SME half way.
catherine — excellent tip. I agree that sometimes just getting a SME going in one direction, even if little, will lead to an avalanche of explanations.
Thanks for all your tips!
September 13th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I’ve been doing a series on Workflow Collaboration;
http://charlesjeter.com/category/workflow-collaboration/
Mainly I’d say that starting a DevBlog might help those overseas SMEs stay in touch.
This is a long link, it might get killed, but the DevBlog concept is listed within this post:
http://charlesjeter.com/2007/08/16/best-practices-devblogs-and-elearning-content-development-informal-rapid-elearning-tools/
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
[...] joined a WordPress … http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/11/12/worstthingssm... • Extracting information from SMEs | I’d Rather Be Writing - Tom Jo… Sep 9, 2007 … Ever since, Ive really enjoyed interviewing SMEs. People love talking about [...]