Do you do training that relies heavily on participants paying attention to the little things? Nancy Azar uses this activity to increase awareness to details.

 I train operations folks - the type of people who need to be attentive to their surroundings, and who must develop what I call the manager's eye or the ability to take stock of the situation as they walk by. So, in a multiple-day class, I test my participants' attention to details by quizzing them on something they see every day, but may not be highlighted in the course of the class. I do this in two ways:

   To assess current levels, I strategically place something (a sign, a poster, or a notice) in a location they must pass through every day. I then offer a reward to the first person who can tell me what the sign says.

    To remind them of the importance to notice things around them, I strategically place purposefully incorrect information on something in the room. [Azar has a poster professionally made that looks just like one she posted on the first day of training; the difference is that this "new" poster has an error or change from the other.] I then tell them that something in the room has been changed and now includes a blatant error or something different than when first presented, and I reward the first to find it. I usually give them 5 minutes to look around the room to find it. If I don't, the more competitive ones keep looking and don't pay attention to what's going on in class.

 Nancy Azar is a retail trainer for Hess Corporation. This activity first appeared in Bob Pike's Creative Training Techniques newsletter.