Praxis Creative Studio

As an instructional designer, your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are your absolute goldmine—but getting the really good stuff out of their heads and into a course takes a bit of finesse. You aren’t just there for a brain dump; you’re partnering with them to build something that actually moves the needle.

When you kick off a new course design, how you handle that first SME interview sets the entire tone.

Here are the open-ended questions I rely on to get past the “nice-to-know” fluff and extract quality, practical content that ties directly to business goals.

1. Anchor it to the business impact first

Before you talk about content, talk about outcomes. If you don’t know why we’re building this, you’re just making an expensive slide deck.

• “What specific performance gap or business problem are we trying to solve here?”
• “What will success look like a few months down the road, and how are we actually going to measure that?”
• “Once people finish this, what exact actions do they need to be doing differently on the job?”

2. Dig for the real-world friction

SMEs often default to high-level theory or best-case scenarios. You need the messy, practical reality.

• “If a learner could only walk away with three things burned into their brain, what should they be?”
• “What are the most common mistakes people make when they’re new at this, and what happens when they mess up?”
• “Walk me through the last time you ran into a really tough scenario with this. How did you handle it step-by-step?”
• “Where do learners usually get totally stuck or push back?”

3. Define what ‘good’ actually looks like

Evaluation shouldn’t be an afterthought at the end of the project. Get it on the table on day one.

• “How do your absolute best performers handle this day-to-day?”
• “What metrics or feedback loops are we already looking at that we can tie this back to?”

Getting rich insights out of that initial interview is half the battle. Tomorrow, I’m sharing Part 2: how to partner with your SME later in the cycle to validate the materials, catch errors, and get a painless sign-off before publishing.

Curious—what’s your go-to question when kicking off a project with a brand new SME?

#InstructionalDesign #LearningAndDevelopment #CourseCollaboration #CourseDesign #SME