Module 1:

1.2 Observation Skills: Getting Started

1.2.1

Introduction

Taking time to look around your surroundings is a very important, yet often neglected, groundskeeping skill.

Observation skills, which we might more accurately call purposeful observation skills, in contrast to maybe just looking around aimlessly or just for the sake of it, provide a key foundation for starting to make better informed decisions.

Observing your surroundings, in a purposeful way, can help provide a lot of useful data and information.

Noticing improvements or especially the start of a gradual deterioration of a football pitch can act as really useful trigger to provide early feedback on pitch conditions.

Taking early action on the findings can, for example, help to stop or reduce the rate of pitch deterioration.

1.2.2

  Can you think of one groundskeeping example that the feedback from a pitch observation might be used for?

Five examples the feedback might be used to determine are:

Purposeful observation along with staying alert is also an important part of routine maintenance work, especially if you are using machinery.

This can help to significantly reduce the likelihood of an accident or injury occurring.

It is easy to become so absorbed with using or operating a machine that an individual’s field of vision becomes very narrow focused, potentially missing hazards that are nearby.

1.2.3

Observation Exercise 1

Now is a good time for a little exercise.

  Now is a good time for a little exercise. Can you look at in a purposeful manner, rather than just glance over, the next picture which is of a motor vehicle.

Whilst you are looking at it make a few notes on how you might describe what you are seeing.

Don’t spend very long on this, just a couple of minutes maybe, because the purpose of this is to get you into describing mode. So, look at this car and describe it to yourself.

Here are a couple of observations to get you started: It has four wheels (well we can see three of them, so it’s quite reasonable to assume there are four in this example) and two side (wing) mirrors.

Over to you now to add some more notes from your observations.