Questions to ask SMEs when developing e-Learning Objectives

Questions to ask SMEs when developing e-Learning Objectives

Do you have questions that you find help you get rid of the fluff and get into the real relevance of the learning you are providing?

·         What will students learn about as a result of taking this course?

·          First, determine who is the actual (paying) customer, and ask that person what they intend for you to accomplish with the eLearning. That determines not only the learning objectives, but what you need to cover and how

·          I would have the SME answer a basic question right from the beginning: "Why elearning?" Once they have answered that question, then I would ask two more from a learner's perspective:

o   How is this course relevent to me?

o   If I go through with this (take the course), what's the benefit to me?

·         What does success look like to you? What should the learner be able to do once they've completed this course?

·         What do you need learners/users to know and be able to do at the end of the learning event? I love checklists and job aids, so good idea on coming up with a checklist format for SMEs :)

·          I often find the subject matter experts find it hard to put what they want people to learn into words.

·         Focus on the business case, stellar performers (if any) and possible performance gap. The questions specifically for SMEs would be:

o   How will the company benefit from this learning?

o   Can you or anyone else show me how skills/ knowledge mastery looks like?

o   What's the baseline of the audience now? What do they know versus what they're expected to know?

·         A lot of SMEs tell me what they want their learner to know when we talk about learning objectives until I ask them - sometimes repeatedly - what their learner needs to DO after completing the course. I've found Cathy Moore's Action Mapping process very helpful. It helps link knowledge, action and business goals. And, it helps me to weed out some of the "nice to know" information when the SME thinks that everything they have is important to the learner.

·         I try to get around the issue of "know" vs. "do" by explaining that we only have time to make the learner *practice* the most important workflows (in the software) so I need to know what those are. After we agree on those, you can usually cut a lot of telling because it has now become doing. You are then left with things that truly are better told than done.

·         The best thing is find out who target audience is for the training (if it's training for a job skill, interview a person who already works on the job and who has the skillset needed for the end state of the trainee. It is best to develop training from the trainee's perspective rather than from an SME perspective. It's important to know what baseline skills the trainees already have, identify the skillsets (Tasks, Knowledges, Skills, Attitudes and Tools) they'll need to do the job effectively. The difference between the two will be your learning gap. That's what you design to. Unless there are new performance standards than currently exist.

·         I find a good question to ask of the client and/or the SME is "what problem are you trying to solve with training?", and if training still fits the response, follow with, "how will you know the training is effective?". Often the follow-up to training and it's effectiveness are not designed in. This pushes accountability back on the client organization to think about follow-on actions to training, and build more of a training plan.

·         First in planning and commissioning agreement (with sponsor and SME lead roles defined), clearly identify the business or personal development performance objectives. Then identify the skills needed (rather than reading job descriptions). Also identify how to measure that the skills have been learned and (more importantly) assessed and/or applied. The content that they author in whatever form will need to be 'transformed' into the online learning resource, but check that it maps to the learning outcomes. When content is selected, agree this with the SME lead, then Storyboard it and agree it before developing (but this can work with storyboarding in some tools e.g. Captivate). SMEs with advanced technical knowledge can confuse instructional design, so open the box and push the boundaries in media types if it gets complex, or if the module gets too long (e.g. more than thirty minutes). Reel in SMEs with too much knowledge by breaking down into shorter modules. Fab business process diagrams that do not meet learning outcomes should be avoided! (and will always change anyway). All this should be in the planning and commissioning document and signed off in the planning stage.

·         SPIN is a line of questioning and discussion to understand (in order):

o   Their general Situation

o   Their Problem

o   The Implications of the problem

o   The Needs that arise from those implications

·         Also, what I try to do whenever possible is to involve learners in the setting of learning objectives - it is a very powerful impetus to learning if I can get the learner to say, "yes, I am experiencing this problem here, in these contexts, and this is what I think we need to do to resolve it".

·         Questions

o   What does this learning event look like for you? ( I pose this as a round table, each person is required to answer, from the Client on down to even the IT staff) It helps to identify each persons different take on the event and highlights misalignments early on)

o   Who are the learners?

o   How does the learner benefit?

o   How do you see the learners accessing the information? (this is the opportunity to talk about mlearning, job aides, Intranet,classroom etc...)?

o   What does the learner need to be able to do when the event concludes?

o   How is this learning going to be put to use back at their worksite?

o   What does the follow-up of the learning look like?

o   How can we make sure it back on the jobsite?

o   Who will be responsible for this?

o   What is the budget available for the event?

o   What are the policies and/ or legislation, that drives the learning?

o   Is this compliance based and if so what are the recertification requirements?

o   if I was to watch someone who is successfully executing the task(s) that is/are to be trained what would I see them do"?

o   Ask the leadership what their concerns are about employee performance and what do they see as "perfect world".

o    How is this course relevant to me?

o   If I go through with this (take the course), what's the benefit to me?

o   What does success look like?

o   What do you need learners to be able to know and do at the end of the this learning unit?

o   How will the company benefit from this learning?

o   Can you or anyone else show me how skills/ knowledge mastery looks like?

o   What's the baseline of the audience now? What do they know versus what they're expected to know?

o   Use "How do I ____?" questions

o   Use a “talk aloud” approach with SME while performing tasks as a way to start and expand with SME. Using why questions.