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Subject:RE: How you take notes in SME interviews From:Diane Brennan <dalaine00 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 6 Sep 2006 10:37:55 -0700 (PDT)
I've also been doing technical/SDK writing for many years and pen and paper is far more flexible than laptops when it comes to interviewing SMEs. But after reading your e-mail and the responses, I realized that I have been using some tricks for a long time. So here's a few tricks:
--Use the big yellow legal pads. They have more real estate.
--Write on only one side of the page. That way you can squeeze info back in a previous section, if needed.
--When the topic changes, which is usually quite abruptly, draw a line halfway across the page to indicate a new subject.
--When a SME goes back to provide more explanation on a previous point, start writing on the back of the page where the original discussion happened. Another trick I use all the time is to put an A with a circle around it in the border next to the point that is being expanded upon, and put an A in a circle in the point in my notes where I am continuing the dicussion. I usually end up with a B, C, D for a lengthy discussion since SMEs have a tendency to go back to previous points. Since I have lines between topics, I can see where the original part and new part of the discussion begins and ends.
--Another advantage of using the legal pad is that you can divide up information using notes in the right-hand border.Like Monica, I put a star next to important info, a question mark next to stuff I don't get, a note about the information that will help me organize it later (like if the dev is talking about two subsystems, I may annotate the name of the subsystem being discussed so I don't get the two confused when I look at my notes later).
--Sometimes while the SME is talking he'll say something about the customer like "our customer needs to know how to do X." In that case, in the border I write TASK and I note the task just mentioned so I know that I need to get specific information for a task-oriented topic or walkthrough.
--When you use a question mark to indicate that you didn't understand something, leave your question until the end of the discussion so you don't break the SMEs train of thought. In your mind, set the expectation that the SME will get to your point without your having to ask. Nothing is more irritating to a SME than being constantly interrupted when trying to explain something. Be patient and concentrate with your entire mind on what is being said. At the end of the discussion, or at the point where the SME asks if you have questions, you can go back to the question mark and ask the question if it hasn't been answered. Don't worry about forgetting the question--read your notes and you will remember the question. If you don't remember, then the question wasn't important.
--If the SME makes a reference to something that you can look up, don't bother asking for an explanation unless you are really feeling lost. I often take notes without completely understanding some aspect of the discussion and learn about that unknown subject at a later time. If you have taken thorough notes, then when you learn about the stuff you didn't understand, you will be able to go back to your notes and understand what was being said. This may raise new questions, but you can meet with the SME again or send e-mail to get answers to your new questions. The key is to not waste the SMEs time by asking him to teach you things that you can easily teach yourself by doing research on the Internet.
Whiteboarding:
When the SME gets up to the whiteboard to draw an illustration, if he is talking while whiteboarding then do not start drawing on your notes--that's the advantage of having it on the whiteboard--you can go back later and draw it in. Instead, concentrate on learning and asking for clarification of points. This is how I get my illustrations. I listen and keep clarifying things so that the SME keeps erasing parts of the illustration and drawing things in a way that makes more sense until we get to the point where I have a diagram that I can put into the docs. If the SME wants to erase the whole thing to create an entirely new drawing, then at that point I will stop him so I can put the information in my notes. Otherwise we just move to another whiteboard.
Diane Brennan
Programming Writer
"My favorite place to be is on the steep part of the learning curve." Sally Jewell
Monica Cellio <cellio -at- pobox -dot- com> wrote:
I use paper and pen (never pencil), exclusively. I rarely get through a
discussion that doesn't involve *some* non-text notations; paper gives
me the flexibility for inheritance diagrams, flow diagrams, schematics,
circles and arrows connecting points after the fact, and even
cross-outs. The last is particularly interesting to me: if *I* got it
wrong initially then I have to be careful to make sure my reader doesn't
as well, and if the *SME* changed his mind then this is something to
follow up in the product itself. (Perhaps the design is unclear, or it
was clear but we're using it inconsistently. Either way, that's going
to trickle down to the users if we don't do something about it. [Insert
standard comment about our jobs including being the proxy for the user.])
I also sometimes use different pen colors, particularly if we're
discussing what's in an interface (the signatures, class hierarchy, etc)
versus annotations about why we did it that way. I also sometimes pull
out the red pen to draw stars next to particularly-important things to
come back to; text search doesn't always have the same impact.
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