Subject Matter Experts

Marty Cagan describes a less common product-team role: subject matter experts (SMEs) or domain experts, who have deep knowledge of the business's particular field, such as tax, payroll regulation, or medicine. He argues product managers should use them during discovery to understand the market, users, and business logic, and that they also help QA define test cases and support acceptance testing. He cautions that SMEs are not a substitute for talking to customers, since they know far more than typical users and care more about the company. He prefers SMEs sit close to product management as a shared resource. Most companies don't need the role, since product managers can usually develop the domain expertise themselves, but for highly specialized products it can be a valuable leveraged resource.

01Key takeaways

• Use domain experts early and often during product discovery to understand business logic and regulatory details.
• Don't treat domain experts as a replacement for talking directly with real customers and users.
• Expect SMEs to be unrepresentative of your customers, since they know more and care more about your company.
• Bring SMEs into QA work to define test cases, expected behavior, and acceptance testing.
• Consider a dedicated SME role only when the domain expertise required is extensive; otherwise, product managers should build it themselves.

02Key sections

What SMEs are

SMEs are domain experts whose knowledge of the business's specialized field is deep, such as tax experts at tax software firms or physicians at healthcare software companies.

How product teams use them

Product managers use SMEs in discovery to learn about the market, users, and business logic, and QA uses them to define test cases and perform acceptance testing.

Not a substitute for customers

SMEs are unrepresentative of the customer base because they know more and care more than typical users, so direct customer contact remains essential.

Where they belong in the organization

Companies often place SMEs inconsistently, but Cagan prefers them closely tied to product management as a shared resource used early and often.

When the role is needed

Most products don't need dedicated SMEs since product managers can become domain experts, but highly specialized domains can justify the role.

03From the post

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Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.