I often had to deal with SMEs that had specific knowledge about Cisco database systems. They were reluctant to share their knowledge of how the systems worked which hindered my work flow. The SME would get very angry and yell at people for not understanding the systems he worked with. I was on one Webex where he yelled at another coworker for 30-40 minutes for not understanding how all the databases connected together. He really knew his stuff, but it was all specific to Cisco and useless knowledge outside of Cisco. Not sure why he hoarded his knowledge so much. Management never did anything about his outburst since he was one of the few SMEs on our team that touched those systems. Won't miss that guy and very happy prestigious companies outside of Cisco are now taking interest in me.
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Yep. There's someone in IT with the initials WN who is responsible for building Data Centers. He's the worse at this sharing of information.
@yom: Correction: The executive leadership teams who failed to adequately fund and manage these functions should be fired. The competent "knowledge hoarders" are already working almost 24-7 trying to hold up the house of cards. What are they supposed to do? Give up the few hours of sleep they get each night to overhaul 10-year-old process documents? I doubt there's even one of them who enjoys being so "important", and working around the clock under such stressful conditions is a recipe for personal disaster, NOT job security. The other unfortunate reality is that these teams have been largely staffed by people who lack the necessary skills, so the few competent ones are also shouldering the burden of their unskilled peers. The one thing we can agree on is that this is a huge liability for the company. When these people get smart and start leaving, the you-know-what will really hit the fan.
Everyone on my team is this way, no knowledge share even when instructed to do so by their manager, I love how these people think it makes them more important, or they will be able to keep their job by not sharing, by not doing documentation, when in reality they are putting everyone on the team at risk by becoming a liability. They should all be fired.
Subject Matter Expert
I meant "What's an SME"?
What's and SME?
Reading the comments I realized how overworked the SME is and I don't blame him. I recall him telling us he didn't have time to teach us anything and that he was overbooked. Management loaded him with building out additional capabilities and maintaining existing systems as @yzv mentioned. He worked on weekends as well. Whenever any systems went down it was on him to diagnose the issues and correct them as downstream sources would complain. He was extremely stressed out all the time. Wasn't a good place for someone fresh and under 30 to be at, no training and no mentorship. Thanks for the best wishes. I'm studying my tail off for these other opportunities...
I understand both sides of this argument:
Problem 1: Cisco's infrastructure is so antiquated, and has been band-aided so many times with non-standard patches and modules, that Oracle won't even support the resulting mess a lot of the time. These essentially home-grown systems are obviously not intuitive, even to someone who has plenty of prior database experience.
Problem 2: There's very little in the way of accurate, up-to-date training material available for anyone coming into Cisco or a new org to learn these systems on their own. So they have no choice but to rely on the SMEs to share their knowledge. Those SMEs are already stressed out trying to hold together the existing systems while building out additional capabilities to support new business requirements. They don't have time to go back and create entirely new training materials or to do hands-on training for every new team member.
So it's not really the fault of the newbie or the SME. Years of mismanagement led us here, and unfortunately, I don't see any realistic way to resolve it at this point. This may not be the case everywhere, but it's definitely what's happening in my area.
I fight this battle every day and it's only getting worse, so I feel for the original poster. Congratulations on the prestigious new opportunities!
Seems like you are griping about someone who "hoarded knowledge", while in the same breath noting that this person was exasperated that his peers couldn't understand what, to him, probably seemed like basic tech.
Did anyone try working with him, or was he slammed with back to back meetings without time to teach database 101 stuff to people who should have already been up to speed while he was both trying to deliver and not get cut? Why was he the only one touching system? Where were his development partners? Who was actively shadowing him? Nobody? Hm.
Sounds like he felt the knowledge was right there for all to see, and was aghast at how blind his coworkers were to it and/or stressed out at having to coddle so-called professionals. Seriously, how hard is it to create, read, and understand a multi-database schema diagram? Did anyone even try, or did they just shoot from the hip and break something else that guy had to then go fix? Betting the latter?
I'd be scared too if I were surrounded by a pack of non-performing folk who couldn't find their a-- with a map during LR season.
Good luck landing that prestigious gig.
Good for you bro
Won't miss that guy and very happy prestigious companies outside of Cisco are now taking interest in me.