Subject Matter Experts as Trainers

The Training Design Podcast

Today Sheridan chats with Penny Booth Smith of PBS Consulting, a long term VIP Member of Training Designers Club.

In this conversation Sheridan and Penny talk about situations that they have experienced where this training has been done well and not as well as it could have been when using Subject Matter Experts as trainers.

They both agree that these are fabulous people but they might not have delivered training before and therefore need to have the understanding of how training works yet within businesses they have a lot of credibility due to the their knowledge.

Penny explains a situation where she trained alongside a Subject Matter Expert and how it went well due to providing both structured training and the subject knowledge.

Penny also believes that you need to get the WHY. If you don’t have the why and the buy in then employees are not going to take what you are training seriously and follow through to the what and how, which is what knowledgeable are able to do.

This is a great conversation that brings in other training topics as the conversation flows.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this if you’re a subject matter expert or if you’ve worked alongside one and if you agree or not?