SBAR (Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation)
A four-part structure for a short, focused briefing, developed for urgent clinical conversations at Kaiser Permanente. It makes the speaker get to the point and end with a clear request, which is why it travels well to escalations, status updates and decision requests in any meeting.
When your sessions feel disjointed or participants lose focus
Your meetings or sessions need better pacing, clearer transitions, or more engaging sequences to keep participants engaged.
Escalations, handovers, status updates and decision requests that must be short and end in a clear ask.
Situation
One or two sentences on what is happening right now and why you are raising it.
Background
Only the context the listener needs to understand the situation.
Assessment
What you think is going on and what the options are.
Recommendation
What you propose or need from the listener, and by when.
Creates natural rhythm and momentum that keeps energy high throughout.
Use it inside a block for a briefing, escalation or update item, or as the template each person follows in an update round so reports stay short and end in a request.
- 1Vary the pace between high and low energy activities
- 2Use clear transitions between sections
- 3Build complexity gradually throughout
- 4End with actionable takeaways
- Escalations and handovers
- Update rounds
- Briefing senior decision-makers
- Incident communication
- Lead with the situation
- Include only relevant background
- State your own assessment
- Always end with a concrete request
- Same structure for everyone
- Designed for healthcare; outside it, adapt the language to the setting
- Assessment and Recommendation are the parts people most often leave out
- Not meant for open-ended exploration