Conducting an Sme Interview

8/3/2019 Conducting an Sme Interview

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Conducting an SME Interview

Why this skill is an asset:A technical writer needs to document information for others to use. Thewriter learns the information through subject matter expert (SME) interviews

and designs and teaches the information so others can understand and applyto their own purposes.

For example:ABC Cupcakes wants their production employees to learn a new recipefor cake-pops (cake on a lollipop stick). However, the employees onlyknow how to make cupcakes. An ABC technical writer will then talk to acake-pop SME and document how to make a cake-pop for others tolearn. For the purpose of this example, the SME will be the cake-popinventor.

Goals of an SME Interview

Primary Goal: Find out how something works. This is accomplished bygetting information from a subject matter expert that others will know howto use. People know how to use information when:

They know the context in which it is valued

They learn the information by connecting it with what they alreadyknow

Example questions to ask a SME:1. Why is ABC Cupcakes switching to cake pops?2. What part of cake-pop production will each employee be responsible

for learning?3. What equipment is used to make a cake-pop?4. What is a cake-pop?5. What are the steps to making a cake-pop?6. What are the signs that indicate a step has successfully been

completed?7. How is making cake-pops different than making cupcakes?8. How is making cake-pops similar to making cupcakes?9. What can we use from creating cupcakes to make cake-popproduction easier to learn and remember?

How the example questions illustrate the primary goal:Questions 1-6:

Each of these questions establishes the context of the system of information.Context is important because it provides the reason why an action should beaccomplished. It creates the environment that influences a persons actions.


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It helps people understand how their actions will affect others. Context ishow people understand where they fit within a system/community.

Questions 7-9:

When people are trying to learn a new context of information, they willoften run into terminology they are unfamiliar with. They might also

have a problem understanding the processs details. Learning newinformation can be difficult to remember or memorize. Questions 7-9help make new information easier to understand by relating it toinformation the production employees already know. The answers toQuestions 7-9 are the links that bring cupcake and cake-pop makingtogether. Creating cupcake and cake-pop are separate nodes that areunrelated at first glance. By finding out what these nodes have incommon, the production employees will have a better timeunderstanding how to make a cake-pop.

Secondary Goal: Conduct an interview that enriches the relationshipbetween the interviewer and the SME. Be the type of person with whomothers want to share information.

Example questions to ask an SME:1. Is it more mentally challenging for you to make cake-pops than

cupcakes?2. How did you come up with the idea to make cake-pops?3. When making cake-pops, how can the production employees

decrease the inconvenience they cause others in the company?4. Where you tired of cupcakes?5. How did you apply frosting on the cake-pop without getting messy?

How the example questions illustrate the secondary goal:A successful SME interview enriches the relationship between an interviewerand the SME when the interview turns into an engaging conversation. Atechnical writer turns an interview into a conversation by asking open-endedquestions about the SMEs experience. It shows the SME that the technicalwriter values the SME as a person and not a machine with answers.

A conversation is a dialogue in which two people receive new and beneficialinformation. An interview means only one person is receiving information.Conversations help the technical writer because the SME is now voluntarilydisclosing information. The interview is no longer limited by the technicalwriters pre-written questions. The conversation benefits the SME becausethey are getting feedback on their work, as well as appreciation. It also givesthem an opportunity to have their concerns heard and acted upon.


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Real Life Application of an SME Interview:Primary Goal

Context in which the interview took place:I interviewed Dr. Angela Hwang, an accounting professor at Eastern MichiganUniversity for my ENGL 427 class at EMU. The goal of the assignment was toconduct an SME interview, find out how an SME shared information withothers outside of their knowledge community, and analyze how I got an SMEto give me the information I needed. My goal was to find out how Dr. Hwanghow she taught accounting to others who knew less than her.

How I established the context in which Dr. Hwangs workis valued:I established the definition of accounting and why people value it. Then I

established how Dr. Hwang is involved in the accounting community. Sheeducates others on financial reporting, which helps others in a communitymake educated decisions on which businesses to invest, partner with, or sell.

Janis: What is accounting?Hwang: Accounting can be very broad: financial reporting, managerialreporting, accounting information system, taxation and auditing. I specializein financial reporting.

Janis: What makes financial reporting stand out?Hwang: The purpose of financial reporting is to establish communication by

publishing financial statements to be used by external users- people whodont work for the company or have direct access to the company; therefore,how would the company compile the information in a fair and objective way.

Janis: What is financial reportings purpose?Hwang:To communicate what is going on in a businesss underlyingsituation through a set of accounting principles. Financial reporting isimportant to investors because they need to know how to allocate resources.For example, which stocks I want to buy, want to sell. Its important tosuppliers because they base how much they give on financial reports. Forexample, will they give me their share of the bargain like they promised?

Janis: Are the external user considered knowledgeable ofaccounting?Hwang: We are trying to communicate with educated users. They need tohave a basic understanding of how accounting works. They need to know theunderlying assumptions and limitations to understand the financialstatements. We published extensive footnote disclosures to explain what isgoing on. Footnotes and financial reporting are very important parts of


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annual reports, which is how publically traded companies communicate tothe IRS, SEC and potential investors.

Janis: What are the assumptions the educated users share?Hwang: Financial statements can only capture monetary units. But if

information is very important, but it cant be captured in numbers, it must bedisclosed in footnotes.

Janis: Have you ever had to deal with a disparity in knowledge level?Where you had to talk to someone outside of your community aboutsomething that is very inside of your community?Hwang: Accounting can be very technical. It is more than just counting thebeans. So in my first class, I introduced to them the purposes of accountingand I had them sample the end products of accounting. If you are seriousabout accounting, you have to invest the time.

Janis: Is it different when you talk to outsiders about accountingthan it is to talk to insiders?Hwang: Accounting involves very technical issues. If the outsider is notinformed about particular accounting standards, it is difficult to establish ameaningful conversation. It depends on the purpose of the conversation.

Learning new information from a basis of learnedinformation:Dr. Hwang mentored her graduate assistant (Meiqin) on real-worldapplications of financial reporting by having Meiqin survey the financial

reports of European Union pharmaceutical companies. This is because Meiqinhad previous experience working as a researcher in the U.S. pharmaceuticalindustry.

Janis: When your current graduate assistant first wanted you tosponsor her project, and you said no, I dont have the time to trainyou, how do you train a new grad student?Hwang: Meiqin already had basic accounting knowledge. While I wasworking at Visteon, I identified European companies that used U.S. GAAPprior to this IFRS, and immediately I saw the opportunity to learn from thosecompanies. But I needed to know about the accounting practices used by

those companies. That would be a good idea for students to read financialstatements and understand the financial disclosures, and survey thepractices made by those firms.

So that was a perfect complement to what Meiqin had learned. She hadknowledge that was not taught in the classroom and that would become avery important skill, should the US convert to IFRS. She enjoyed theaccounting process, and given her previous experience in the


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pharmaceutical industry, I said, Wow, I got to match something she knowsthe best with what she has learned. So I asked her to survey the IFRSaccounting practices in the pharmaceutical companies.

Janis: Is that how you helped her help you?

Hwang: Exactly. As a result, she finished her thesis, and Im using herthesis as the framework for how I develop the projects for my newinternational accounting course. So now, my students will be studying ninedifferent industries and after each group gives a presentation, the entireclass will get to learn nine industries. During the presentations, I am going toinvite a recruiter to examine our students IFRS literacy and maybe hire ourstudents.

Real Life Application of an SME Interview:Secondary Goal

Context in which the interview took place:I interviewed Diane DeCillis, owner of the Lido Gallery in Birmingham, MI,about an exhibit addressing how media pressures young girls to work to besexy in the eyes of men. I was writing a feature article on the exhibit forBirminghams Patch.com, an online news website.

How I enriched the relationship between me and the SME:I was able to get DeCillis to share more relevant information with me bytaking a genuine interest in her as an individual and not a news resource.

Janis: Did you feel pressure like that when you were growing up?DeCillis: I felt a different kind of pressure because I did not grow up withMySpace or Facebook. It was more internal. This seems more external. Ididnt have an audience for my pressure the way some girls do now. I grewup in the 1970s and the womens civil rights movement was underway. Mypressure was centered on family or career, and being happy.

How it benefitted my article:After I asked her about the pressures she faced growing up, the tone of theinterview changed. She ceased to see me as a professional strangerinterviewing her. She began to see me as a person she was having a

conversation with about art. She was visibly less nervous and more relaxedabout the interview.

When my interview was almost over, she asked if I wanted to see Frenchposters from the 1940s that were for the upcoming exhibit. She led me tothe backroom of the gallery and took some posters out. She explained howthey were created, for what companies, and how the environment in which


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they were created (WWI, WWII, etc.) affected the artists choice of color andimage to communicate a message to its audience.

Conducting an Sme Interview

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