When Your Subject Matter Expert Drives You BANANAS

They know everything about their topic. Everything. And they want to put it all in your course.

Working with subject matter experts is one of those skills nobody really prepares you for in L&D. One day you’re trying to convince a reluctant SME to give you thirty minutes of their time. The next, you’re in a review meeting where they’ve rewritten your entire script because “that’s not exactly how it works.” Either way, the project is officially off the rails.

The tactics you use to build and preserve your relationship with an SME can mean the difference between elegant content simplicity or your learning initiative crashing into a ball of flames. And yet no two SMEs are alike. Every project brings a different personality, a different agenda, and a different set of priorities that have nothing to do with yours. Learning to read the room and adjust accordingly is the real skill nobody talks about.

The good news? There are strategies that actually work. And this community has the battle scars to prove it.

What We Will Discuss

• The most common SME barriers and how to address them before they derail your project
• How to manage the SME who wants to include every single thing they know
• What to do when your SME ghosts you, pushes back hard, or thinks they know more about learning design than you do
• Practical strategies for setting expectations, maintaining momentum, and keeping the relationship intact

Come Ready to Contribute

Bring your SME horror stories and your wins. What’s worked, what’s backfired, and what you wish you’d known before your first SME relationship went sideways. The more specific, the better.

Can’t Make It In Person? No Worries, We’ve Got Your Back! Register And Receive The Following:

 Access to the Learning Rebels resource page with all the extra goodies

 Copy of the video recording

 Copy of the chatbox transcription

 Copy of the full session transcript & summary

 Additional resources such as books, articles, and handouts