I had a humbling experience recently. If you've read some previous writings you'll know that I have been coordinating and facilitating a company-wide initiative to educate employees about the real estate industry. Unfortunately, my own lack of knowledge of the industry contributed to a humbling experience where my ignorance snuck up and quietly bit me.

In coordinating the training initiative, I realized that my own lack of knowledge would hinder learning if I undertook actually teaching the curriculum. So, I looked for a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to conduct the instructor-led class sessions. I found one in the form of a director of a nearby real estate pre-licensing school. Now, to maximize learning transfer, a blended metholodology approach is being used where first employees attend the instructor-led class session and then I follow up with online assessments. This is where the trouble began.

In my haste to publish the post-session assessment, I failed to enlist the help of several SMEs in our office and the "official" SME who facilitates the instructor-led sessions. That, in hindsight, was a mistake.

Here's how the scenario played out.

Friday

Due to some scheduling issues, the person who was facilitating the instructor-led session could not give me any materials before the session started. So, while she conducted the training session, I sat furiously taking notes. Apparently, some of the items I wrote down were incorrect. And, unfortunately, I used ONLY my notes from the session to construct the online post-session assessments.

Monday

After a frightfully short weekend, I came to work ready to construct the post-session assessments. Diligently, I extracted my notes from the appropriately marked folder, logged on to Quia Web, and began construction of the assessments using the website's quiz templates. All went well initially. I checked and rechecked my grammar and spelling, checked and rechecked the questions for validity against my notes. Only my notes. Here's where things got hairy.

I sent out an email to everyone who attended the instructor-led session. Not thirty minutes afterward, a visitor stopped by my cube, stating that my information on one of the questions was incorrect and misleading.

This person happened to be the CEO.

Crud.

Shortly thereafter, no less than two others found erroneous or ambiguous wording in my quiz. By 9:00 am, I was told to "pull the quiz" by my boss.

Later that day I made an appointment with the director of the real estate school to look over my notes and the quizzes I had constructed. He had a few suggestions on wording and term usage.

Then, I asked a person in our company who has their real estate license to look over the quizzes. She said they were much better and had a couple of suggestions. Then, I asked another person who has been in the MLS business for 15 years to look them over. She had one suggestion. I adjusted the quizzes accordingly.

Lesson

The lesson here is simple: check with your SMEs BEFORE publishing any assessment. Have them check the facts, wording, etc. for anything hinkey. Notice that I say "SMEs" - plural. Don't rely on just one. Run it by two or three or four. If you are lucky enough to have them around and they are willing, USE THEM. I didn't, and I got burned. Well, maybe slightly singed. No matter how you term it, it's uncomfortable. I needed to realize that, in this situation, I was only an SME when it came to the instructional delivery and NOT the content. Unfortunately, in my haste to maximize transfer, I published an assessment that was simply wrong.

I'll never make that mistake again. I'll never forget to use my SMEs.

Tuesday

I re-published the quizzes at 9:00 am feeling much more confident that the products were accurate. As I write this, there have been no complaints. My fingers are crossed, however.