Observation Skills

What Observation Really Means

Observation is a security guard's core skill. It is not just "looking around" — it has three distinct parts that the ABST exam expects you to tell apart:

1. Noticing — picking up a detail with your senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch)
2. Interpreting — deciding what that detail means in context (normal, suspicious, dangerous)
3. Recalling — accurately remembering and recording the detail later

A guard who notices a puddle but does not interpret it as a possible leak, or who interprets a visitor's behaviour as suspicious but cannot recall what they wore, has failed at two of the three steps. Report writing and courtroom testimony depend on the recall step, which is why memory aids matter so much.

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Systematic Scanning

The untrained eye wanders. The trained eye scans systematically — left-to-right, top-to-bottom, near-to-far — so no zone is skipped. The principle is the same whatever pattern you adopt: cover the whole field of view in a repeatable order, then repeat.

The Alberta manual also stresses that observation uses all five senses, not just sight. Smell (smoke, gas, solvents), sound (breaking glass, raised voices, a running engine), touch (a door that is warm, a handle that is wet), and even taste in rare cases all feed the picture. A guard who only looks is observing at one-fifth capacity.

C.A.R. — The Manual's Memory Aid for Recall

The ABST participant manual teaches a three-step aid for the recalling stage of observation:

Concentrate, associate, repeat. Expect the exam to ask you to name the three activities of observing (noticing, interpreting, recalling) and the three steps of the recall aid.

Baseline-and-Deviation

The single most useful observation technique is baseline-and-deviation. Before you can spot the abnormal, you have to know the normal.

• Establish the baseline — On the first rounds of a shift, learn what belongs: who is usually in the lobby, which doors are propped, what vehicles are in the lot at 02:00, what the normal hum of the HVAC sounds like.
• Detect the deviation — Once the baseline is fixed, anything that differs jumps out: a car that was not there at the last round, a door that is now ajar, a smell that was not present an hour ago.

This is why experienced guards seem to "just know" something is wrong — they are comparing against a mental baseline, not analysing from scratch.

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Attention to Detail

Observation is only useful if the details are accurate. Witnesses who say "a man in a dark jacket" are rarely useful; witnesses who say "a man about 5'10", mid-30s, navy zip-up hoodie, left shoe untied, carrying a black backpack with a torn strap" are. Train yourself to capture:

• People: height, build, age range, sex, clothing (colours and type from head down), distinguishing features, direction of travel
• Vehicles: make, model, colour, approximate year, licence plate (province and number), damage, number of occupants
• Environment: what changed since the last round (doors, lights, objects, smells, sounds)

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Memory and the Notebook

Memory decays fast — research on eyewitness recall shows meaningful detail loss within minutes of an event. The fix is simple: write it down immediately.

• Record observations in your notebook as they happen, not at end-of-shift
• Use the 5 W's plus how: who, what, when, where, why, and how
• Write facts, not conclusions ("male, red jacket, running north at 0214" — not "suspicious person")
• Note times to the minute; sequence matters in reports and court
• If you did not see something, do not write that you did — record "unable to observe" instead

A well-kept notebook is also your legal protection. If an incident goes to court months later, your contemporaneous notes are far more credible than memory alone.

A Sample Notebook Entry

A model entry for a suspicious-person sighting:

0214 — North parking lot, Row C. Adult male, approx 5'10", mid-30s, slim build, dark complexion, wearing navy zip-up hoodie and dark jeans, left shoe untied. Carrying black backpack with torn left strap. Walked east between Rows C and D, looked into three vehicles, exited lot east gate at 0217. Unable to observe further. Radioed dispatch at 0214.

Notice the entry is facts only, time-stamped to the minute, head-to-toe description, direction of travel, and what the guard did. It says nothing about motive or guilt.

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Cognitive Traps That Cause Missed Details

Two psychological traps defeat even careful guards:

• Selective attention — focusing so hard on one thing (a loud argument, a favourite hazard point) that you miss other events happening at the same time. The classic example is missing an obvious unusual event because you were tracking a different one.
• Inattentional blindness — failing to see something that is fully visible because your attention was directed elsewhere. Expecting a routine shift makes this worse; baseline-and-deviation counters it.

Counter both by varying your route and timing, rotating which zone you scan first, and deliberately asking yourself "what is different since the last round?" at every checkpoint.

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Maintaining Alertness Across a Long Shift

Observation quality drops sharply after about 90 minutes of continuous attention — a phenomenon known as vigilance decrement. On an 8- or 12-hour shift, combat it by:

• Rotating tasks between patrol, desk, and monitoring when post orders allow
• Changing scan order so no two rounds feel identical
• Brief physical activity — standing, stretching, walking a flight of stairs
• Hydration and small meals rather than one heavy meal that causes drowsiness
• Briefing the relief at shift change so the next guard starts with an accurate baseline

A guard who is tired, bored, or distracted cannot observe well. Managing your own alertness is part of the observation skill, not separate from it.