Re: Uncooperative SMEs

["Samuel Choy" <schoy -at- us -dot- ibm -dot- com>]

>At my company, which shall remain nameless, there is almost no buy-in from
>department heads on the issue of SME cooperation.

I don't think that SME cooperation should be a matter of "buy-in" from the
department heads. I suppose you could press the issue with them until you
either get fired, or get them to issue a new command from on high. But even
if you could get "buy-in" from management, you would end up with a bunch of
resentful SMEs who see reviewing your docs as just one more drain on their
precious time.

>Any success dealing with SMEs must come on the basis of personal
>initiative, ingenuity, charm, back-scratching and arm-twisting.

And what's wrong with that : ) I have done all of the above with the
exception of arm-twisting. To be able to work with your SMEs, you are going
to need to establish a good working-relationship with them. The best way to
do that is to respect their precious time by doing your homework before you
go to them for questions.

I'm going to get more opinionated than I usually am...I don't interview my
SMEs anymore. When I say that, I mean I don't sit down with them and expect
them to tell me everything about the product I'm going to write about. I
read, read, read about whatever I'm supposed to write about so that I can
write from my own knowledge base. I read existing documentation. I read all
of the SMEs planning documents. If I can get my hands on it, I play around
with the product. (Obviously if you are writing about a cruise missile you
can't do that).

My goal is that when I do ask my SMEs a question, its for a clarification
of my understanding. When its time for a review, my goal is that the
corrections they make are for nuances in the technology that I might have
missed or misunderstood. But I don't expect them to write the documentation
for me.

If your corporate environment has been one of antagonism between the SMEs
and the writers, you aren't going to change it by mandates from you or
management. Work on your relationships with your SMEs and respect their
time.


Samuel Choy
IBM Rochester

http://www.ibm.com/eserver/iseries/infocenter

My opinions are my own and not IBMs.




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