Back up your BLUF with a short SBAR summary

Last week’s post was on the importance of using the BLUF framework of Bottom Line Up Front and “starting with the point” in your professional communications to increase your efficiency as well as your impact. This post takes a deeper dive into how to best back up your BLUF with an equally efficient and impactful unpacking of the details using the SBAR approach of Situation, Background, Assessment, & Recommendations. Using the BLUF/SBAR combo well will quickly get you positively noticed as a high performer worthy of additional opportunity, responsibility, and promotional consideration.

*** I’ll be trying to use the BLUF/SBAR approach in most of my blogs going forward. Please share your thoughts on if you like this style better, and of course, any suggestions for improvements as well! ***

As we covered last week, the BLUF approach is designed to quickly and clearly communicate the What?, the So What?, and the Now What? basic ingredients of what you’re telling your audience, why you think they need to know it, and what you are suggesting or asking for as a consequence. However, while the BLUF may be all you need to send out a short text or quick email, often you will be expected to unpack things more thoroughly in the main body of your paper or presentation. The SBAR format can help you do so in a reliably organized and efficient manner, and you should be looked at as the next layer down in your framework.

The S in SBAR stands for the Situation. This part is where you can unpack the first 2 components of the BLUF paragraph of What? and So What? in more detail. In other words, where are we now?, and what’s the main issue at hand? 

Picking up from our example last week of the software roll out challenges and pending delays we led with in our BLUF, if Anna had responded with a request more info then we could begin our SBAR reply with a more detailed breakdown of what was going on with the software challenges and why we were concerned about falling behind by referring to previously shared tempos, timelines, or other relevant context. This section can still be fairly brief, so maybe think of it as adding just 4 – 6 sentences of further explanation to give more color and context to the Situation.

Next up is B for Background. How did we get here? What led us to this point? This can often be a bulky section, especially for formal presentations, and sometimes needs to be put into bullet points or multiple paragraphs. Again, depending on context, it is recommended to err to the briefer side here knowing you can provide more detail if asked, and/or putting additional information in footnotes, appendices, or other reference materials.

Using the Anna email as our example, here is where we could share a more detailed explanation of our initial assumptions of difficulty, the trajectory of the phased roll out over the last 3 weeks, what other challenges we encountered along the way, how we solved them, and why we are asking for help at this point in the timeline. Definitely try to stay focused only on what’s relevant though! Showing awareness of your audience’s perspective and only providing the relevant details is critical here.

Assessment is the A, and where you are setting up the transition from So what? to Now what? This section is critical in that you are expected to share your own independent appraisal of things as a prelude to what follows. In other words, the spotlight is now firmly centered on YOU. While it can be helpful here to bring in a few objective perspectives and/or well-considered opinions of others, at this level the goal is to clearly communicate what YOU think about the What? and So What?  This section should be handled wisely as this assessment is going to give your audience the clearest view into your thinking process, and will therefore have the most powerful impact on their appraisal of you and your performance potential.

With the Anna email example, this section is where we could make a point to share our concern about timelines, budgets, and other areas where we foresee difficulties coming up. Again, stay focused on how this is relevant to your audience! In this email to Anna, you want to focus on customer expectations, her upcoming site visit, and avoiding problems there. In other words, how does this problem impact their priorities? With Anna, it might be about financial implications, but in an email to your spouse about working over the weekend for this project, you can simply share your frustration with the initial timeline, team performance, or other more personal issues. Assessments are always connected to relevance, and relevance is context dependent! 

Recommendations is the last section, and here is where you can clearly and directly share what you think needs to be done next. These recommendations should be communicated as simply as possible, perhaps only in a sentence or 2 for less complex matters. Even if your conclusion in the Assessment is that no immediate action should be taken, that should be clearly stated here along with an articulation of how changes in the initial Situation might lead to a revised Analysis and Recommendations section. 

With the Anna email here you can restate your request for design team support, and could also float a few other options for her to consider as well, like either extending the deadline, postponing her visit, or something else. The main thing to keep in mind is finding the balance of clearly stating your recommendations while also creating room for your audience to make a different decision as needed.

At the end of the day, using the BLUF/SBAR approach well will leave your audience appreciative of your succinctness, impressed with your clarity, and elevating you in their esteem.