SBI feedback is a three-part shape for a comment: the situation in which something happened, the behaviour the person showed, and the impact it had. It exists because most feedback skips the first two parts and delivers only a judgement, which the receiver cannot act on and may not accept. In an appraisal cycle the model does two jobs: it makes the notes a manager writes during the year specific enough to use at review time, and it makes the review comments themselves readable as evidence rather than opinion. This page sets out the model as a manager in a small company uses it, and gives positive employee feedback examples written in that shape, because praise written vaguely is as useless as criticism written vaguely.
The three parts, and what each one guards against
The situation is when and where: the client call on Tuesday, the release last week, the onboarding of the new starter. It guards against feedback that floats free of any event and so cannot be checked. The behaviour is what the person did, observable, without motive attributed: took the difficult question, stayed on the call, wrote the checklist. It guards against character judgements. The impact is what followed for the team, the client or the work: the client renewed, the release shipped clean, the starter was productive in a week. It guards against feedback with no stated consequence, which is the kind that gets ignored.
Positive employee feedback examples in the SBI shape
On the client call on Tuesday, you answered the pricing question directly instead of deferring it, and the client signed the renewal the same afternoon. In last week's release, you wrote the rollback checklist before the deploy, and when the config failed the team was back in ten minutes instead of an hour. When the new analyst started, you sat with them for the first two mornings and walked the reporting process, and they produced the weekly report on their own by Friday. Each one names the event, the observable action and the result, and each one can be quoted in a review comment as it stands.
From SBI notes to the review
A manager who writes SBI notes through the year arrives at the review with evidence sorted by employee and by objective. The self-appraisal is checked against it, the rating is defended by it and the final comments are written from it. The free final comments worksheet on this site turns the rating and the objectives met into an outcome and a new salary, with example comments beside the figures; the SBI notes are where those comments come from. Reviewvo Pro keeps the notes against the employee's cycle record, so the review is written from what was actually observed.
Questions people ask about sbi feedback
What does SBI stand for in feedback?
Situation, behaviour, impact: the event in which something happened, the observable action the person took, and the consequence that followed. Feedback in that shape can be checked, accepted and acted on.
Does SBI work for positive feedback?
Yes, and it is more useful there than vague praise. Naming the situation and the behaviour tells the person what to repeat; naming the impact tells them why it mattered.
How does SBI feedback feed a performance review?
Notes written in that shape during the year are the evidence the rating and the comments are written from. Filed against the employee's cycle record, they make the review specific and defensible.