What is Required of Your SMEs?
SMEs have two basic responsibilities: providing information that will comprise the content of a project and reviewing the content Contiem creates or updates.
Providing information: Whether source material is readily available or not, Contiem has a process for reducing the impact on SMEs during our information-gathering process. We familiarize ourselves with the industry, product, and content required for the users, identify areas that require clarification and where there are information gaps, then consolidate our questions before meeting with SMEs. This keeps our scheduled interactions with them as short and productive as possible.
Reviewing content. This is the more critical and time-consuming of the SME tasks because SMEs need to validate the accuracy of the content by reviewing it in its entirety. To make this as efficient as possible, Contiem has developed processes considerate of your SMEs’ needs.
The Contiem Project Team
Because the Contiem development team is made up of content development experts, our people have experience working with a wide variety of technical SMEs for our Clients’ products, software, and processes. Furthermore, the Contiem project manager (PM) selects project team members, knowing what skills and industry experience a particular project requires.
Our proven process ensures that we flexibly and efficiently:
- Plan and Communicate. The PM delivers a project plan outlining the project, the specifications of each deliverable, and the schedule. Every SME knows when interviews will take place, their duration and topics that will be discussed as well as when to expect drafts to review and approximately how long the review could take, based on the size and complexity of the deliverable. He/she can plan ahead, schedule time, and be prepared for the review.
- Ramp up. The team members will gain familiarity with the business unit/product family and review source material, if available, prior to engaging with the SME(s). This allows them to develop the required contextual information to ask only those questions required to address information gaps, thereby maximizing the use of the SMEs’ time.
- Coordinate. Our writers and illustrators can “pre-load” comments in the deliverable to call attention to specific questions and items of importance. This helps SMEs focus on any content in question.
- Review. Depending on the number of SMEs, their schedules, project timeframes, and other needs, we can provide SMEs with review options:
- Email
- Interactive via webinar
- SharePoint-based shared reviews
About Contiem
Contiem has been the trusted content partner of choice for companies and organizations such as American Express, the U.S. Federal Government, The Home Depot, Cisco Systems, UnitedHealthcare, eBay, Facebook, and many more.
When you engage Contiem, we take the time to listen and develop an in-depth understanding of your immediate needs and longer-term challenges. Then, leveraging the capabilities that make us unique, we will provide a best-in-class, client-focused solution designed to achieve your business goals.
Experienced in a host of authoring software and with a wide variety of industries, we specialize in delivering a blend of services for documenting products and processes, training development, translation and localization, and content management.
Whether you need a complete training program to augment a new product or service, or you require job aids for internal learning, Contiem has the experience and skills to deliver the results you are looking for.
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