What is being expressed here is not a new problem. The challenge with solving it is that there isn't an easy set of steps that works every time. Someone's exper

What is being expressed here is not a new problem. The challenge with solving it is that there isn't an easy set of steps that works every time. Someone's experience with the challenges of getting time with SMEs is highly dependent on the culture of the org, incentives, structure of the engagement, personality of the SME, actual workload, SMEs situation/feelings/stress, etc. You can solve or mitigate these problems, but it takes experience and expertise that most coming from more pure software development backgrounds may not have. From experience, someone coming in with some consulting experience will tackle the situation differently. Writing stuff down isn't always the best approach. Having a written record may be a good end goal. It may be better to have the small implementation soak up that experience through co-location with the experts. That way they are close by for interviews (probably too formal) but more likely sit and observe as the experts work. OP can then focus on building relationships between the experts and dev team. On this foundation you can add in more formality. As part of the relationship management, OP will have to help the experts free time by working with their management. Without details of the company, we can't give real examples, but it might include supporting their requests for contractor support or giving their leadership political help. When you can't come to some sort of co-location situation, you have seriously undermined your ability to execute the project. You will not have a true picture of the situation. Getting PMs or user experience people to engage with the experts will be lower value and require more clarifications. Developers can be low threat to the experts versus other types of people you can bring in.