icebreakers · small groups · offline + online
Common Ground.folder
Find what everyone at the table shares — but the money is in the surprises. Ordinary ground scores one point; "wait, really?" scores three.
// kit v2: a stage-ready HTML deck (presenter drawer, run-of-show timer, built-in QR codes) · poker-spec print-and-cut cards with backs and blanks · an A3 activity poster · manuals in A4 and US Letter with bookmarks · three license tiers (CC BY free / single event / organization).
The common-ground hunt, rebuilt with a scoring engine that punishes laziness: "we all work here" scores one point, "we have all moved countries for a job" scores three. Every line must be verified by every member — which makes the game a machine for asking the questions nobody asks in week one.
The props are poker-spec print cards (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides included) — a recorder card with ten lines and a scoring card with what counts. The run sheet carries the two rescues that matter most: the inflation announcement that moves groups off 1-point camping, and the quietest-member verification rule.
the run sheet
// this is the guide file, word for word — read it here, run from it here. the .md at the bottom of the page is the same text, offline.
Folder:
common-ground· Category: icebreakers · 3–5 per group · 15 min · offline + online · print props · assessment-typeLicense: CC BY 4.0
Small groups hunt for facts that are true of everyone at the table — but scoring rewards the surprising ones. "We all work here" scores one point. "We have all moved countries for a job" scores three. The hunt forces the questions nobody asks in week one.
Objectives
By the end of the activity, participants will have:
- Found non-obvious common ground with colleagues — the kind that survives Monday.
- Practiced asking past the first easy answer — the same move good interviews use.
- Seen how fast a group turns strangers into "people who share X".
Setup
Space: tables or breakout rooms, one group of 3–5 each.
Materials per group:
| Item | Source |
|---|---|
| 1 × recorder card | common-ground-prop-cards.pdf (card 1) — ten lines to write on |
| 1 × scoring card | common-ground-prop-cards.pdf (card 2) — what counts, what scores |
Scoring rule — say it out loud: "A common ground scores 1 point if it's ordinary, 3 points if it makes the group go 'wait, really?'. Facts only — opinions score zero. The whole group must share it, verified by every member."
Grouping rule: mix departments and seniority deliberately. Common ground inside a silo is just the silo.
Minute-by-minute script
| Time | Phase | Facilitator does | Participants do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–2 | Frame + scoring | State the scoring rule. "You have ten minutes. The best score I have seen is 23." | Form groups, take cards |
| 2–12 | The hunt (10 min) | Float. Kill opinion-claims gently ("likes coffee" is not a fact about everyone) | Ask, verify, write, score |
| 12–14 | Read-out | Each group reads only its two highest-scoring grounds | Listen, react, "wait, really?" |
| 14–15 | Bridge | "Keep the recorder card — one name per line. That's your group, starting today." | Transition |
Then run the debrief — see common-ground-debrief.md.
Known failure modes & rescues
- The group camps on one-point facts. "We all have a laptop" — ten lines, zero soul. Rescue: announce at minute 5: "3-point grounds are now worth 5." Inflation moves the hunt.
- One member's life dominates. Every fact is checked against the loudest storyteller. Rescue: rotate the verifier — each new line must be verified by the quietest member first.
- The group invents grounds to win. "We have all…" — someone nods along, falsely. Rescue: verification is the game's engine. If a member's eyes slide away during verify, ask them directly and kindly.
Variations
- One-deep: each ground may be used once in the room — read-outs stay surprising.
- Online: breakout rooms of 4, recorder card shared on screen, one person types.
- Deep cut: final two minutes, only grounds worth 3 points count. Groups go from jobs to journeys fast.
the debrief sheet
// the debrief questions, in full — the .md version prints on one page for the room.
8 questions, 3 failure modes, one rule: verified ground is the only ground.
Use with
common-ground-guide.md. Debrief runs 10 min after the read-out.
The 8 questions
1. The three-pointer.
"Read your group's best 3-point ground again. What question uncovered it?"
→ The question is the skill; the fact is just the receipt.
2. The easy camp.
"Which 1-point grounds did your group write before it started hunting? What finally moved you off them?"
→ Targets: the cost of settling for the first answer — a daily-work habit.
3. The verification moment.
"When did verifying almost break a ground? Who almost nodded falsely, and what stopped them?"
→ Targets: psychological safety. Handle gently; the honesty is the win.
4. The quietest member.
"What did the quietest member contribute that the group almost missed?"
→ Almost always the best fact in the game came from the person who spoke least.
5. The surprise ranking.
"Which ground from another group surprised you most? Why that one?"
→ Cross-group learning; also tells you what this room values.
6. The daily version.
"Where does your week reward the first easy answer instead of the second question?"
→ Transfer question. Expect: stand-ups, requirements interviews, support tickets.
7. The one question.
"What is one question from this game you will ask a colleague this week?"
→ Commitment question. One question, named, with a deadline.
8. The group identity.
"Your recorder card has ten lines and your names on it. What is this group now — one sentence?"
→ Closing question. Groups keep these cards; the sentence becomes the group's name for itself.
3 known failure modes of the debrief itself
- Read-out becomes a talent show. Groups perform their funniest facts; nobody reflects.
Rescue: question 1 first — always the question behind the fact.
- A false verification gets exposed. Someone admits they nodded along to a 3-pointer that wasn't true.
Rescue: praise the confession louder than the fact — "verification just worked, in front of us."
- The debrief skips the quiet. Loudest groups dominate again.
Rescue: question 4 goes to a named quiet member, with a five-second silence buffer before they answer.
If you are running the pre/post measure (common-ground-assessment.json), note these observables during the hunt:
| Observable | Points to |
|---|---|
| Group asks a second question after an easy "yes" | Curiosity habit |
| Quietest member's line is written down | Information flow |
| A ground dies at verification and the group thanks the verifier | Safety culture |
The report your participants receive is a self-comparison, never a group ranking — keep it that way.
who it's for · what it leaves behind
Who is the Common Ground activity for?
Facilitators who need a first-hour connection exercise with actual depth — kickoffs, team merges, cross-department projects. It runs from 8 to 20 people in groups of 3–5, works online in breakout rooms, and the verification rule makes it safe: nobody performs, everybody confirms.
What results does it produce?
Each group keeps a recorder card with ten verified common grounds and the names behind them — physical evidence of connection that survives the workshop. A pre/post group-level delta from the assessment preset shows how curiosity, listening and safety to disagree actually moved. It measures question-asking habits, not who is most interesting.
Can my AI agent use this folder?
Yes. Every folder ships a SKILL.md skill file: frontmatter for matching, plus runnable prep commands — fetch the props, pull the debrief, build the live pre/post measure with formlm-cli. The three-step workflow (discover, install, run) lives on the skills page, every folder ships a one-command zip bundle, and the machine index is skills.json.
Is it really free?
Yes — CC BY 4.0, no account, no email wall inside a folder. Download it, run it, copy it, rebrand it for your own workshop. Attribution keeps everything free.
make it live
The folder's paper pre/post measure is built for rooms with nothing but markers. If you want the digital version — the same 6 items as a live form, each participant's before/after delta computed automatically — two ways:
for AI agents
$ formlm-cli smart generate --input "Pre/post measure for the Common Ground group exercise: 6 Likert items on curiosity, second questions, listening and safety to disagree — the same 6 items before and after the activity, so each participant's delta is computed automatically"
Step 4 of the agent workflow: npm install -g @formlm/cli, log in once, and the prep above runs itself. The form and its data live in your own workspace.
— or, with a mouse —
Open the free pre/post training quiz template on FormLM
and paste the 6 items from common-ground-assessment.json — the template already runs the before/after comparison and scores it.
// optional, not required — the paper version in this folder is complete on its own. free account on their side.
put it on the wall
The folder ships a single-file HTML deck that presents full-screen from one laptop. To run the activity on the room's big screen — submissions land on the wall in real time, the countdown and the spotlight stay in your hands, and the whole room joins with one scan — the scan-and-project companion is QRCard-AI:
See the trainer live-screen mode on QRCard-AI — one QR code on the wall, participants join and follow from their own seats.
// optional, not required — the deck in this folder already runs full-screen on a single laptop.
take this folder with you
// every file downloads as a plain file. no account, no email wall inside a folder.