Working Asynchronously With SMEs: A Practical Guide
The relationship between an L&D practitioner and a subject matter expert is one of the most important working relationships on any project, and it’s also one of the most likely to fall apart when the conditions aren’t set up properly. Getting someone on a call is ideal: you can course-correct in real time, and the relationship stays warm. In practice, SMEs are busy people doing this on top of their actual job, and a live conversation isn’t always possible. Asynchronous collaboration is, for most projects, the default.
That means the conditions for it need to be set deliberately.
Set expectations before you start
Have a direct conversation upfront about areas of responsibility, timelines, ways of working, and the scope of the review. Be explicit about what you’re asking for and what you’re not. If you’re sending an e-learning module to a content SME, you almost certainly don’t need their view on the visual design at that stage; you need to know whether the content is accurate, whether the scenarios are realistic, and whether anything important has been lost in the transposition from the source material. Say this clearly, at the start. Once the scope is defined, SMEs tend to stay inside it; they have their own work to do, and a narrow, well-defined brief is a relief rather than a constraint.
Keep communication in one place
Pick a single channel and stick to it. Whether that’s email or a shared workspace matters less than the consistency. Splitting conversations across Slack, email, and a document’s comment thread creates gaps, and in async work, gaps compound. Use a channel that keeps a record, so that if something gets missed, it can be found again.
Scaffold the documents you send
When you hand over something for review:
Highlight or isolate the sections that need attention; if the SME only needs to look at part of the document, consider whether they need the rest at all.
Use a structured Q&A table, with your questions on one side and space for answers on the other.
Give clear instructions on how to mark up the document: whether you want comments or track changes, and where you want their input to go.
Pick one collaborative document format and use it throughout. I use Google Docs for everything, and when a client works in Microsoft’s ecosystem, I switch to Word Online and its equivalents. Mixed formats create unnecessary friction.
Close the loop on everything they send back
Acknowledge receipt, work through their input visibly, and if there’s something you’re not going to action, say so and explain why where it’s helpful. SMEs who feel their review has disappeared are less engaged the next time around.
Make the timeline clear
A deadline only holds if the person understands what’s at stake when it slips. Communicate the downstream consequences plainly; you can’t reasonably expect someone to take a deadline seriously if they don’t know what breaking it costs the project.
Async collaboration works when the we put in the upfront work to scaffold it. Structure the documents, hold a single channel, define the scope clearly, close every loop, and make the timeline mean something.