From SME Pathways to Stakeholder Highways

Projects stall when one expert carries the content, decisions, and approvals. We flip that script with a clear, usable playbook for building a stakeholder highway—bringing sponsors, learners, frontline leaders, operations, tech, and compliance into the right moments so training actually lands in the real world. You’ll hear why SME-only pathways create bottlenecks and blind spots, how to map the roles that matter, and when to loop each voice in across discovery, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

Roadblocks happen: the ghost SME, conflicting leader feedback, or last-minute compliance asks. Jackie shares practical responses, from clarifying who decides versus who advises to offering trade-off options that protect timelines without sacrificing quality. A quick scenario shows the reset in action—expanding beyond one overbooked SME to include a frontline manager, operations, tech, and a learner pilot—so the course is accurate, feasible, and ready for day one performance. Close with one task: sketch a one-page stakeholder highway for your next project, add two new partners, and watch momentum return. If this approach helps you, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more designers can build learning that sticks.

🔗 Episode Links:

Please check out the resources mentioned in the episode. Enjoy!

Ask a Trainer: Time Slade on Working With Difficult Stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts

Stakeholder Highway Checklist

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Chapters

• 0:00 From SME Lanes To Stakeholder Highways
• 0:51 Why Overreliance On SMEs Backfires
• 1:45 Mapping The Stakeholders Who Matter
• 3:11 Timing Engagement Across The Project Arc
• 4:36 Keeping Alignment Clear And Simple
• 5:53 Roadblocks And Practical Fixes
• 7:17 A Real-World Scenario And Reset
• 8:37 One Action This Week And Resources
• 9:24 Closing Inspiration And Support

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love Podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 89 of the Designing with Love Podcast. In this episode, I'll walk you through a practical playbook for scaling beyond the subject matter expert, who to engage, when to loop them in, and how to keep everyone aligned from kickoff through launch. So, grab your notebook, a cup of coffee, and settle in as we explore this topic together. Think of today's episode as your roadmap from moving from narrow SME pathways to wide open stakeholder highways. Let's start with why relying on SMEs can hold our projects back. Many projects default to a single SME lane where one expert carries content, decisions, and approvals. Some of the risks that can occur are bottlenecks, narrow perspective, burnout for the SME, and misalignment with the broader organization. There's a simple mindset shift I would encourage for you. SMEs are critical, but they're not the only voices that shape successful learning. Our job as educators and instructional designers is to design a stakeholder highway where the right people can merge in at the right time. Remember, when we expand beyond SME pathways, we design learning that actually lands in the real world it's meant to serve. Once we've reframed the problem, the next step is to map out who really belongs on that highway. Here's some core stakeholder groups you should consider in your projects. Project sponsor and business owner Define success, outcomes, and constraints. SMEs, bring deep subject knowledge and context. Learners, the people actually using what you designed. You can represent them via surveys, interviews, or user proxies, frontline leaders and managers. Influence time, priorities, and reinforcement, operations and process owners, no workflows, handoffs, and real world constraints, tech or platform partners, LMS admins, IT, and systems owners. Finally, compliance, legal, and HR. Ensure risk, policy, and regulations are covered. Next, here's a quick activity you can perform next week. Pick one project you are working on right now or getting ready to start. Next, draw a simple highway and label each lane with a stakeholder group. Then ask yourself, who's on my highway right now? Who's missing? Mapping is a great start, but timing is where projects either flow or jam up. Here, I recommend using a simple project arc, using a framework such as ADI or something with similar phases. Arc one, discovery and analysis. This can be your sponsor, SMEs, learner reps, operations, and possibly compliance to clarify any constraints early. Arc two, design. This is going to be your SMEs, learner reps, frontline leaders, and tech partners to validate concepts and delivery methods. ARC 3, development. These are also going to be your SMEs for spot checking accuracy, tech and platform partners for feasibility, and possibly a learner pilot group. ARC 4, implementation and launch. This is going to consist of your sponsor and leaders for communication, operations for logistics, and tech for support. Finally, ARC 5, evaluation and iteration. This would probably consist of your sponsor, leaders, and learners to review the data and decide on the next steps. Here's the key idea. Engage early and lightly rather than late and heavy. Short, well-timed touch points beat last minute fire drills. Incorporating these elements will save you much time and energy throughout your project. Now that we've mapped who and when, let's talk about how to keep everyone driving in the same direction. Step number one, set simple alignment goals. First, develop a one-page project brief with a purpose, audience, success metrics, scope, and timeline. Next, use a decision log to track key decisions and who made them so you're not re-litigating past conversations. Finally, incorporate a communication rhythm, which includes quick, predictable touch points such as biweekly check-ins or short updates. Step number two, translate ID speak into stakeholder speak. Here you want to focus on outcomes, risks, and time instead of only talking about models and tools. Make sure to use plain language to explain things like pilots, iterations, and feedback cycles. Step three, visuals. This includes a simple timeline or journey map, which calm nerves more than a 10-page document. Remember, alignment doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be clear, consistent, and easy to find. Of course, even on a well-planned highway, we're going to hit traffic and detours. Here's some common roadblocks to watch out for on your highway. A SME who goes quiet. I call this the ghost SME. A SME who is too busy or changes their mind late in the process. Conflicting feedback from different leaders. Or surprise requirements from compliance or IT at the last minute. Next, here's a few practical strategies you can implement to handle any roadblocks. Clarify roles up front. Even a simple who decides versus who advises conversation can prevent chaos and misunderstandings. Use the project brief as your anchor. When new requests come in, you can ask, how does this align with our agreed outcomes and timeline? Offer options, not just problems. This could mean saying something like, we can add that new module, but here's what it means for scope and timing. Which trade-off feels right? And finally, stay learner-centered. When disagreements arise, bring it back to the impact on the learners and the organizational goal. If you would like to learn about some additional strategies about working with difficult stakeholders and SMEs, I have included the link to a short video by Tim Slade through ATD in the show notes. Alright, so now that you have some strategies in hand, let me walk you through a quick example of what this can look like in real life. Here's the scenario. You're asked to design training for new processes in your department. At first, you're paired with one SME who is clearly overwhelmed and juggling multiple priorities. What are some early signs of trouble? Meetings get rescheduled, feedback comes in late, and you get conflicting information from emails versus conversations. What should you do next? You pause and ask for a quick reset with the project sponsor by sharing the risk. Right now we're depending on one SME. I'm concerned we're missing the learner perspective and operational impact. Next, you build a small stakeholder highway together. First, add a frontline manager to sanity check the scenarios. Then bring in operations to confirm the workflow. Next, loop in tech to validate system screenshots and access for learners. Finally, you can invite a couple of learners to pilot key activities and provide feedback. The solution isn't about adding more people to slow things down. It's about inviting the right people so the training actually works on day one. Before we close, I would love to give you one simple action you can take this week. Choose one project, current or upcoming, and create a one-page stakeholder highway for it. You can include the following elements. List your core stakeholders, circle one person you have been treating like just this me, and then add at least two more stakeholders who could help share the load and improve the design. To help you put this into action, I have developed a checklist you can utilize. Make sure to check out the show notes to make a copy of the Canva template. If you try this, I would love to hear how it goes. You can message me on LinkedIn or share your takeaways and tag me so we can keep learning together. I want to leave you with an inspiring quote from Henry Ford that captures the spirit of building these stakeholder highways. Coming together is the beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. As instructional designers, we're not just wrangling content. We're bringing people together. SMEs, sponsors, learners, and leaders, and helping them stay aligned so the learning experiences actually drives change. Remember, as you move from SME pathways to stakeholder highways, you're not just building courses, you're building connections that make learning work in the real world. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review, or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference, and I'm truly thankful for you.