At point or another a business analyst will come across a business domain subject matter expert (SME) or a SME in IT projects. The SME in business project can either be the cause of success or failure for a business analyst so they must be handled very carefully.
The business domain subject matter expert (SME) provides the knowledge and expertise in a specific subject, business area, or technical area for a project/program.
In this article, I’ll introduce a certain type of SME who is passionate and loves to dive into the detail. I’ll also explain how this was beneficial but needed to be managed on a recent project engagement.
Table of Contents
What is a Subject Matter Expert?
A subject-matter expert (SME) is someone who has extensive knowledge in a particular field or topic.
Diving Into The Detail With Subject Matter Expert
In this business analysis workshop
, I was brand new on the project and it was my first introduction to the business sponsor and various other individuals so I was planning on sitting back and watching to understand the project, the personalities and any politics.
One of the the attendees who I understood to be an SME in business project was very passionate about his subject and keen to explore problems and dive into the detail. This often left me floundering (due to lack of business domain knowledge) and wandering whether this was the right forum to be working at this level of detail. This was confounded by him meeting his counterpart on the IT team who was a business domain expert and immediately understood his concerns and was able to explore and make proposals very quickly.
Some of the proposals sounded a lot like solutions so I was concerned to understand the real drivers.
There is nothing wrong with any of this as long as it is relatively contained and/or contributes to the objectives of the workshop.
There were three reasons why I felt this may have been acceptable:
i) This project represented one business unit’s attempt to piggy back off an existing project that was already far advanced in requirements gathering. The new business unit represented the continental European part of the company whereas the main project was supporting the UK initiative.
ii) This was a regulatory change and time was extremely tight (less than one year to delivery).
iii) The proposed solution was utilising a package that was purported to be universally suitable for use within Europe for this particular area of functionality.
There was another reason – don’t upset your SME in business projection first meeting – establish a rapport first, then upset them 😉
A Way Forward to Deal with Subject Matter Expert
The best way to proceed (in my humble opinion) is three pronged:
Learn everything
Immerse myself in the business domain to get up to speed with the business jargon, practises and the requirements for the existing problem. This runs in parallel to the other activities. This is necessary to give myself half a chance of keeping up and avoiding slowing things down purely for my benefit.
Rapidly home in on the ‘obvious’ areas of change or new work against the existing requirement set
Use the subject matter experts to identify the ‘obvious’ areas of change or new work against the existing requirement set in an initial workshop
Run workshops that walk through the existing proposal from end to end, identify areas of concern, explore at length and generate initial requirements
Perform due diligence against the requirements
Review requirements arising from previous workshop and address quality issues. In particular, where requirements are really solutions then drive out the rationale or the underlying requirement
Walk through a wider variety of scenarios with all stakeholders to determine any additional requirements
Communicate Then Act
Before I proceed with this plan, I must have some face to face time with the SME in business project to explain my point of view and the risks that are being addressed. They need to understand and be behind the approach.
Subject Matter Experts Responsibilities
A subject matter expert (SME) should have the following responsibilities to help and support the business analyst on projects:
- Should have been in their role for a long enough period of time for their knowledge and skills to be “second nature”;
- Should know their job well enough that they rarely have to look up information and, if they do have to, they know exactly where to find the information;
- Can help define procedures or standards, since they the knowledge of what the right or best way to execute a task would be;
- Can help define performance objectives, and determine acceptable performance levels
- Can help provide recommendations for procedural improvements;
- Can help with putting together the project glossary and help understand the language/terms/jargon of the company terms;
- Can act as the “go to” person within a department or function for questions and problems for their area of expertise;
- Can articular their knowledge.
- Help support the definition of processes and policies, supply business rules and procedures;
- Help validate the requirements and deliverables;
- Help bring information about the project back to the stakeholder community;
- Help test the solution.
Subject Matter Expert in Agile
and other team members should be in frequent contact throughout the sprint with both stakeholders and subject matter experts, and know what they are worried about and understand their needs. SMEs have the knowledge the team needs for a successful product delivery.How Business Analysts and Subject Matter Experts Work Together
Most business analyst will come across subject matter experts in business projects. As a business analyst, you will work closely with your subject matter experts to discover, analyse, and validate the requirements.
The business analyst will be responsible for leading the business analysis process, preparing requirements documentation, and managing change.
The subject matter expert will review requirements, and may have a role in validating and approving requirements documentation.
It’s not uncommon to include subject matter experts in your meetings so that they have a current understanding of the work and then one-on-one sessions to validate documentation and answer questions.
Career Path – Subject Matter Expert to Business Analyst
Because subject matter experts have a detailed understanding of the current business processes and systems, it is a common career path for a subject matter expert to move into a formal business analyst role.
In fact, many business analysts fall into business analysis after being assigned as a subject matter expert on a major IT project.
Summary
In this article I explained how some SME’s have passion for their subject but may dive into detail prematurely.
I also explained how, when there are time pressures, this can be advantageous and, indeed, can be exploited for project success.
I described how you still need to exercise due diligence regarding the requirements.
Finally, I explained how you need to communicate your approach and keep the SME’s on side to be successful.
I’d be very interested in any opinions, especially any challenges – have I avoided my responsibilities as a business analyst or is this the right solution for a particular problem?