George LewisProgram/Project Manager| DXC Technology CompanyHeredia, Costa Rica
How do you select your project SME's?
Are we careless? Do we take what we get or do we revise if SME's are fit for our project, fit for our timeline, fit for our team building.
Difficult right? sometimes we just take what we get because there is no other option available. These are signs of initial risks.
In an ideal world, we should be able to have draft and should be able to select from a pool and should be able to look at other projects and exchange SME's according to expertise, timeline, location and other STRONG reasoning. Saving Changes...
Aude Scheibli-RoumegouxStrategic Director EPMO| Fifth Third BankCincinnati, Oh, United States
I can only imagine how hard it would be for external consultants to identify the SMEs in our organization! They would ask the leaders or pick from an org chart and that would not be the best available talent. Over here, the best SMEs are most often unsung heroes who influence in the background while other just climb the corporate ladder. Leaders turn-over, they stay, so longevity in the functional area might be a filtering criteria. After that, I prefer SMEs who understand the cross-silos impacts and have the ability to take a holistic approach. Saving Changes...
Chosen SME would definetly be best achieve if we can access his knowledge breath in associated or related services. So my choice for SME would be based on experience in a successful project Saving Changes...
Tobe PhelpsDirector of Digital Experience| Central New Mexico Community CollegeAlbuquerque, Nm, United States
This is all assuming that you can select your SME's. Many times there is only one person or the team has been selected for you. Saving Changes...
Paul RadulescuBusiness Technology Mgmt| DeHavilland Aircraft of CanadaToronto, Ontario, Canada
Pick the ones who like what they do.
If there aren't any available to pick from, try to motivate the SME you're ending up with.
If you can't do that, send them home. They'll only eat your man-hours. Saving Changes...
Robert ParkSenior Project Manager| CommScope Inc.Denver, Nc, United States
I have found that most times the PM does not get to choose the SMEs assigned to their project teams. However, I have found that the use of a roles and responsibilities matrix, along with a RASCI matrix, helps the managers of these SMEs to better understand the nature and complexities of the work they will be assigning their folks to. They really appreciate the insight and have often stated that they might have assigned the wrong individual if not for the information provided. No one wants their people to fail, but they need to have the necessary information to make a good decision.
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1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Nov 08, 2016 10:44 AM
Adrian Carlogea
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Most times the PMs don't get to choose the SMEs because they are not the best people for this job. Assigning SMEs to projects is the job of the so called functional managers. The idea is that for SMEs the most important skills are the hard skills and only someone from the same line of work as the SME can really evaluate the hard skills.
A PM could assess the SMEs soft skills and determine if the candidate has good organizational and communication skills, if he is a good team player and so on. This is also important but if the SME does not have the right hard skills then he would be pretty much useless for the project. Also it is the job of the functional managers to train the workers to gain the right hard skills needed for most of the projects their organizations are delivering.
It is much better to have someone with poor soft skill but brilliant hard skills rather than having someones that is the other way around. A PM can put some effort on working with someone with poor soft skills but a SME that is not suited for the project's needs is useless.
PMs responsibility should not include choosing SMEs but rather finding the sources that could provide suitable experts and also helping the ones that do choose the SMEs to take the right decision.
Unfortunately I can tell from my own experience that in most cases there is a shortage of human resources that are needed on the projects and most of the times the functional managers don't have the luxury to assign the best people to projects but instead they assign whoever they have available.
It depends on the situation, as you mentioned sometimes we have the single option so we don't care either SME's are suitable for our projects or not. Saving Changes...
I have found that most times the PM does not get to choose the SMEs assigned to their project teams. However, I have found that the use of a roles and responsibilities matrix, along with a RASCI matrix, helps the managers of these SMEs to better understand the nature and complexities of the work they will be assigning their folks to. They really appreciate the insight and have often stated that they might have assigned the wrong individual if not for the information provided. No one wants their people to fail, but they need to have the necessary information to make a good decision.
Most times the PMs don't get to choose the SMEs because they are not the best people for this job. Assigning SMEs to projects is the job of the so called functional managers. The idea is that for SMEs the most important skills are the hard skills and only someone from the same line of work as the SME can really evaluate the hard skills.
A PM could assess the SMEs soft skills and determine if the candidate has good organizational and communication skills, if he is a good team player and so on. This is also important but if the SME does not have the right hard skills then he would be pretty much useless for the project. Also it is the job of the functional managers to train the workers to gain the right hard skills needed for most of the projects their organizations are delivering.
It is much better to have someone with poor soft skill but brilliant hard skills rather than having someones that is the other way around. A PM can put some effort on working with someone with poor soft skills but a SME that is not suited for the project's needs is useless.
PMs responsibility should not include choosing SMEs but rather finding the sources that could provide suitable experts and also helping the ones that do choose the SMEs to take the right decision.
Unfortunately I can tell from my own experience that in most cases there is a shortage of human resources that are needed on the projects and most of the times the functional managers don't have the luxury to assign the best people to projects but instead they assign whoever they have available. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Most of the time, SMEs come pre-assigned with the project. This makes sense when they are involved into the activities leading to the project. Saving Changes...
Pench BattaEnterprise Lean Agile DevOps Coach /SAFe Program Consultant (SPC6)| Capgemini, Inc.Bentonville, Ar, United States
For selecting any SME the product knowledge is most important. SME Should have complete visibility on the product. I also feel SME should be a path driver for the project/product. Saving Changes...
