Strategies for interviewing Subject Matter Experts

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are our number one resource for precise and relevant information. Here is a three-step guide to effective knowledge gathering.

Text by Nicoletta A. Bleiel

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When writing software documentation, we can learn a great deal about new features through our own research and testing, but sometimes that isn’t enough to get the answers we need. Enter SME interviewing. An SME interview is a three-step process: preparing, conducting, and following up. These steps are the same for both synchronous one-on-one interviews, and asynchronous question-and-answer exchanges in issue tracking tickets or messaging apps.

Preparing for an SME interview

Before the interview process begins, prepare your SME by sharing the information they need, such as your project plan and deadlines, final deliverable(s), and other useful details. Remember that some SMEs may need to be told what their responsibilities are – new SMEs in particular might honestly not know and might feel nervous about being interviewed. While being an SME is not their primary responsibility, most SMEs know how important their contribution is to the success of the product (and if they don’t, remind them). Always share the review process because SME responsibilities don’t end with the interview. They also need to review and approve content.

Identifying SMEs

First of all, it’s important to learn who the SMEs are and cultivate relationships with them. Often an SME will be assigned to you – and you should work with that person – but expanding your cohort of SMEs will often improve the final product, and make it easier to get quick answers to your questions in the future. SMEs are everywhere, and like a good journalist, you need to cultivate them as sources. Potential SMEs include (but are not limited to): software developers, business analysts, quality assurance testers, technical support, product managers, sales professionals, and even (though this can be a little challenging to arrange) customers.

Expanding your cohort of SMEs

These suggestions for expanding your SME cohort are a mix of short-term and long-term efforts:

  • During an SME interview, always ask, “Who might have more information?”
  • If you find useful content in an internal knowledge base or wiki, contact the author.
  • Volunteer to explain information development responsibilities (which include interviewing SMEs) at new hire orientation. It may be a year or two until those new hires become SMEs, but existing SMEs often attend orientation.
  • Schedule meetings with other teams (such as QA and customer support) to explain what the information development team is working on and let them know you are available to answer questions.
  • Post information development team updates on your company messaging channels.

Preparing interview questions

Now that you have prepared the SME, the next step is preparing your questions. Start by reading project documents such as issue tracking tickets, user stories, and design artifacts, as well as testing the software. Take notes while you are researching. Your notes will come in handy when writing questions, and if your SME asks why you are asking the question. These notes are also useful for your reference later when writing.

When writing questions, keep in mind one of the tenets of journalism: the five Ws and one H questions (Who, What, Why, Where, When, How). For example:

  • Who would use this feature? You know your audience, but you also will gain insights into the audience that the SME thinks this content is intended for.
  • What are the prerequisites? What are the feature prerequisites? Is there anything users need to configure before using the feature? (Not the software version, operating system, etc.; those should be in the project documents.)
  • When would users use this feature? When shouldn’t they use it?
  • Why should they use this feature? This is often conceptual information – the use case.
  • The How and the Where combined explain the steps to accomplish the task. You may already know the steps because you have tested the software but work through them together.

Write open-ended questions to avoid yes/no answers. And, since we are their representative, always consider the user perspective: What would they ask about the feature? What task would they be trying to accomplish? How will it make their job easier? If the interface has major changes, would it help the user if there was a chart explaining how to accomplish tasks in the old interface vs. the new one?

After you have all your questions written, your SME prepped, and the interview scheduled, you need to take the time to get your questions in order before the interview. The flow of questions is very important – the interview will go more smoothly if you aren’t jumping around from topic to topic. This step is especially useful if you promised to send the questions in advance.

Conducting one-on-one interview

As soon as you sit down (whether live or virtually), acknowledge your SME’s expertise. Share yours. People have different styles – brusque vs. talkative; formal vs. informal. Adjust to the SME’s style. Don’t be intimidated – the interview should be a dialog, not a monologue. If their body language is closed off (a little harder to determine virtually, but at the start, ask them to please turn on their camera), take a minute to make them more comfortable.

In order to keep the interview on track, ask the SME to take you down the “happy path” (the best-case scenario) for the feature first, followed by the exceptions. Many SMEs want to share the potential issues first, which is understandable, but this method will help you get answers faster (you can discuss those issues at the end of the interview if there is time.)

There is one question you should always ask SMEs – what I call the magic question: “How do you think this feature will help the user?” It helps to synchronize everyone on the goals, objectives, and thought processes behind the feature and clarifies these goals for everyone.

During the interview, pay very close attention to the answers: Does the SME reveal paths you hadn’t considered? Or a use case you didn’t know about? Follow up on all your questions during the interview – don’t assume another chance. One trick to confirm an answer is to summarize their statements back to them: “What I hear you saying is…”.

Encourage whiteboarding and take pictures for your records. Stick to the planned meeting time, as it shows respect for their schedule.

If the SME can’t answer a question, ask them if they know who or what can. As a bonus, this gives you the chance to find a new SME to add to your cohort.

Asynchronous interviews

It’s a reality that there are some SMEs you will never get one-on-one time with, or there are so many SMEs on a project that you can’t set up an interview with everyone. In that case, you need to get your questions answered in other ways. You can use a combination of issue-tracking tickets, messaging apps, wikis, and other remote collaboration tools. Questions answered outside of the issue tracking ticket should be retained in some way. Save emails as PDFs and attach them to the ticket. Link to messaging app conversations (or screen capture them) and attach those as well.

The questions you need to ask won’t vary too much between one-on-one and asynchronous interviews, but there are some things to keep in mind:

  • Write succinct, clear questions.
  • Avoid asking questions that have already been answered elsewhere (such as a comment in an issue tracking ticket or other document).
  • Include links to related issues and information, so the SME knows you’ve seen that content, and it doesn’t answer your question. If you don’t mention that, you might get those very same links back as answers.
  • Be specific! Add screencaps if they will help clarify your questions.
  • Keep it short. Long lists of questions can be overwhelming.
  • As always, ask who might have more information or where you could find it.

What if?

Sometimes you can’t get the answers you need. One suggestion to work around that issue is writing what you can with the information you have, then posting it to your internal wiki or in the issue tracking ticket for review. Point stakeholders to this content and share your sources and process. Include the SME (or SMEs) in all messages. This can help identify other possible SMEs and get the process moving.

Following up

The interview is over. Now we need to handle the follow-up, which is a quick but important task. First, thank the SME via email or messaging app, and copy in their manager (this verifies to the manager that the SME participated in the interview). In the message, make sure to mention that you look forward to working with the SME on the next phases of the project. This reminds everyone that we aren’t quite done yet, since there are additional steps in the process that the SME is responsible for. The next phase will, of course, be writing, followed by the review and approval by SMEs. In our follow-up article, we will dive deeper into the topic of working with SMEs.

Last but not least, celebrate the release with your entire team.  And if you uncover any previously unknown information during your SME interviews, add this content to your company knowledge base/wiki and publicize it.

Further reading and videos

This article was originally published in the July/August 2024 issue of Intercom by the Society for Technical Communication.

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