RE: "Handling" Unavailable SMEs Re: Evaluating Candidates Using Tests, Logic Questions, and Similar

["James Barrow" <vrfour -at- verizon -dot- net>]

>Richard Lewis wrote:
>>Jim Barrow said:  
>
>>Anyway, back to my point. If you were faced with a deadline, and the 
>>people that had the information you need were unavailable, how would you
>>handle that?
>
>It has been my experience that this unavialability of people who "have the
>info" is often not an accident.  I have often discovered that what I
>intuitively though a SME would know, he/she, in reality, only had a
>disjointed understanding.  Such individual are hard to reach because they
>fear exposure.  
  
Y'know...if you had written this five years ago I would have dismissed it as
you just trying to make me feel better about myself.  That was then, this is
now.

During my last contract, I did all of what Donna just wrote in her post to
this list (actually, I tend to always do those things).  After approximately
three months, I started getting this response to my emailed questions:

"Gee, Jim, I'm going to defer your question to Bob.  He knows more about
that than I do".

And Bob forwarded my email to Carol, and Carol forwarded my email to Ted,
and Ted forwarded my email to Alice.

At first I thought that I had done something to tick-off my SMEs.  'Why are
these guys unwilling to deal with my questions?', I thought.  So I started
to approach these same people in person, hoping that I could gauge what the
heck was going on.  I went to the developer who had helped me the most in
the past.  After I asked my question, he looked away and had an expression
on his face similar to an interrogated suspect on CSI.  He then leaned
forward, lowered his tone and said, "I really don't know.  Sorry 'bout
that".

That blew me away.  At that point I realized that I, the lowly tech writer,
was not the person who knew the least about the software; I was
approximately fifth (of a team of approximately 40).

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