What's the Sitch?

The latest round of performance evaluation at Atlassian has just reached its midpoint, so while the pain is mostly over for all of the individual contributors, it's only just begun for the people managers.

Thank god I'm not a people manager anymore.

Going through the process did remind me of something though, and what better way to share that thought more widely than to write about it.

You Think You're All That!

There is nothing more terrifying than a blank page.

At least, that's how it works for me anyway. Whenever I need to write something down, like say formally requested Peer Feedback or my own Self Assessment notes, it can be challenging to get started.

I've found that the best way to combat that terror, other than repetitively incanting the litany against fear, is to have a pattern or model to follow.

If you start with a pattern, you know what the general shape of the thing is right away, which can help to push through that initial resistance and get the ball rolling.

And that initial bit of resistance is not to be underestimated, because it's probably the most risky part of the entire process. Once you've got something down, you've already won the majority of the battle.

All you have to do is keep moving forward and building on that foundation.

The good news is that I have just the right model to use.

Note, Serious Face

It's the SBI model! Something which I can take no credit for creating, because it may actually be older than me, which is saying something.

Anyway, SBI stands for situation, behaviour and impact, specifically in that sequence.

The situation component is somewhat self-explanatory. It's a sentence or two containing any context that is necessary for the reader or recipient to understand the rest of the content.

For example, if you were writing a piece of Peer Feedback for someone called Dot Selwob, you might start it with the following sentences:

When Dot was facilitating the most recent project backlog grooming sessions, in his official role as the scrum master...

The behaviour component describes any relevant observations about the situation in the context of the communication. Note that the focus should be on the observational aspect and not judgement, you want to be careful to separate the two.

Continuing the example above, it might look something like this:

... he consistently minimised conversation, interrupting team members who were trying to share context about the projects being discussed and ignoring their contributions.

The impact component brings it all together and is where you can provide a judgement of sorts, along with any personal opinions or thoughts. The intent here is to help the reader or recipient to understand the ramifications of the behaviour in the context of the situation.

For example:

The impact of this was that while the projects were groomed, the information recorded within only considered Dot's thoughts and opinions and the engagement from the rest of the team decreased, which will lead to less sharing during subsequent grooming sessions and projects that are less likely to succeed due to narrower perspectives.

And that's it!

Boo-yah!

As much as I like the SBI model, it does come with its downsides.

For starters, while following a structure is great for getting over the initial hump, if you're doing a lot of these things together (like, I don't know, writing 15 sets of Peer Feedback for people) it can start to feel very...formulaic.

In the Peer Feedback case, I imagine it doesn't come across to each individual reader, because they are only seeing one piece of the whole puzzle and it's unlikely that everyone who is giving them feedback is following the same model, or style of writing, or anything else that would tie things together.

As the writer though, you have to be careful not to let your brain turn off as it follows the pattern multiple times and fills in the gaps, like some sort of less fun version of mad libs.

The second thing worth considering is that following the SBI model does require significantly more effort than just throwing something together with no structure, and that effort has to come from somewhere.

Going back to the Peer Feedback case, I'll almost always use the SBI model for formally requested feedback, but if someone just wants something ad-hoc and my relationship with them is good, I'll just throw some raw thoughts their way that they can chew on as they see fit, leaving me more time to do other things.

The last thing worth nothing about the SBI model, and models in general, is that for some people, following a structured approach like SBI is actually detrimental to their ability to get anything done. Don't try to force a square peg into a round hole by using a process that doesn't resonate with you.

Obviously, I'm a weirdo who can't operate without an overarching pattern of some sort, but you might not be. If you start using the model and find yourself struggling, just walk away.

Everyone has their own brand of mental weirdness and really all that matters is understanding what it is and how to work either with it or around it.

So Not The Drama

The whole reason I was inspired to write this blog post was that I made extensive use of the SBI model when I was writing Peer Feedback during the most recent round of performance evaluations at Atlassian.

I might not be a people manager anymore, but if someone thinks enough of me to ask for my feedback, I'm going to do the best job that I can, and using a model helps me to achieve that.

While it did increase the amount of effort that I needed to put in to generate the desired outcomes, I personally think that investment was worth it.

I mean, I didn't exactly ask for feedback on my feedback, that would have been weird, but no-one complained about what they got, so that's good enough for me.

So, if you think that you produce better outcomes with a bit of structure, then you should give it a try, perhaps by giving feedback to someone you work with. The impact of this is likely to be an increase in the clarity of your message, leading to a higher likelihood that the feedback will be actioned.

...

See, I told you it was a useful model.