Bob Pike’s Advice for SME Presenters

When I was looking for advice for an SME who had a tough time in the preparation and delivery of a training session, training legend Bob Pike read the case study and decided to weigh in with his advice. Following is what he suggested.

Bob Pike’s Questions

Here are questions I would ask in order to respond to the situation:

1. How many in the audience?

2. Are they all eye doctors?

3. Why did they need this presentation?

4. What is the outcome of the presentation supposed to be?

5. Why were you asked to do this presentation? What do you bring that is unique?

Bob Pike’s Approach

Then, given that it is only 30 minutes and that there is probably a huge amount of expertise in the audience I might approach it this way:

1. I’ve given each of you a piece of paper. Working with a partner you have two minutes to draw an eyeball and label as many parts of it as possible. Begin. At the end of two minutes I would say, “familiarity doesn’t mean competence.”

2. Then, I would allow them two minutes to confer with those around them and add/subtract/correct anything they want to.

3. I would the use this as a springboard into pulling from them the anatomy starting from macro to micro, maybe with a large poster of the eye rather than a PowerPoint just to change it up.

Final Advice from Bob Pike

One thing we constantly talk with our trainers about is having at least two ways to present each piece of content so that we are not dependent on technology.”

Bob Pike CSP, CPAE, CPLP Fellow, MPCT

Chairman Emeritus/Founder, The Bob Pike Group

Founder/Editor, The Creative Training Techniques Newsletter

Past Chairman of the Executive Board – Lead Like Jesus

Brian Washburn

Brian is an author, a sought-after speaker, and an experienced instructional designer who has been a passionate member of the learning and development field for more than two decades. His work has been published in TD magazine, and he was named a Top Young Trainer by Training Magazine in 2011. Brian is the author of two books: What’s Your Formula? Combine Learning Elements for Impactful Training and Instructional Design on a Shoestring.
He is the visionary behind Soapbox, our automated instructional design tool that creates instructor-led training programs in under 10 minutes.
Over his career, Brian has designed and facilitated numerous training programs for a wide range of organizations, including a global training program for a Fortune 500 company and a global train-the-trainer program for Management Sciences for Health.
Brian holds an MA in Organizational Development from Antioch University.
Brian is always available to chat about learning & development and to talk about whether Endurance Learning can be your training team’s “extra set of hands”.

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