Bringing Expert Knowledge to Workplace Learning with Michele Medved

“I believe SMEs are the key to upskilling and rescaling in your organization. And I believe that if their knowledge is not leveraged, then you are missing an incredibly important opportunity to gather tacit knowledge,” explains Michele Medved, senior instructional designer and corporate learning professional with over 20 years of experience. Michele is the author of The Guide to Working with Subject Matter Experts and she has worked across various industries helping to extract and utilize the knowledge of SMEs to create learning deliverables. She joins Mike Horne in conversation to talk about the importance of gathering the tacit knowledge that all subject matter experts have and how to use that knowledge to give novice employees the information they need to become proficient at their jobs.

When their knowledge and experience is put to good use, subject matter experts can be the key to rescaling and upskilling an organization. Since most of the knowledge of an SME is under the surface and not necessarily documented, it is crucial to know how to ask the right questions to extract that knowledge. Michele uses the acronym FRED which means focused, relevant, engaging, and deep so that she can get the most content rich information out of SMEs when she is speaking with them. Then, she uses that tacit knowledge to create learning tools like simulations, presentations, guidebooks, infographics, and more in order to make that knowledge easily accessible within the organization. When SMEs are properly utilized, their knowledge is able to stay within an organization and help novice employees grow into professionals.

Tune into this week’s episode of the Authentic Change Podcast to learn more about how to fully tap into the expertise and knowledge of subject matter experts within an organization and why this knowledge is important for the success of a business.

• “We need to leverage that knowledge of the SMEs before it walks out the organization and before it gets lost.” (6:25-6:32 | Michele)
• “Going back to the SMEs, I believe they are the key to upskilling and rescaling in your organization. And I believe that if their knowledge is not leveraged, then you are missing an incredibly important opportunity to gather that tacit knowledge, that knowledge that if you look at that iceberg is under the water.” (8:56-9:16 | Michele)
• “Part of our responsibility is to assess how to best present information in terms of the needs of the audience, in terms of the timelines, and really, at the end of the day, it's about getting them to change behavior. And what's the best way that we can do that?” (20:48-21:07 | Michele)
• “It's really about taking people from a novice to being proficient. And in the olden days, it was pretty easy to do that. You would work alongside somebody, and you would teach them and you would show them how to do it. But with the change and with industrialization, that's just no longer possible.” (23:37-23:56 | Michele)
• “A subject matter expert is a person who has expertise and experience in a specific area.” (3:16-3:23 | Michele)