What is the Common Ground method
When a large consultation generates thousands of contributions, finding consensus can feel impossible. Common Ground solves this by distilling the discussion into concise, trade-off statements that participants simply react to — agree, unsure, or disagree.
The result is a clear map of where people align and where opinions diverge, turning an unmanageable flood of input into something decision-makers can actually act on. It's not a poll — it's a structured middle step that bridges open ideation and deeper deliberation.
value that it brings:
Encourage participants to make choices, featuring trade-off statements, weighing up competing arguments.
Find consensus fast: quickly spot high-agreement, divisive or neutral statements that can move straight to action.
Increase trust & transparency: participants see live results, showing how their voice contributes to the community view.
Low lift, high insight: easy for teams to set up and for residents to use, delivering immediate insights.
Recommended way to use the Common Ground method
Pre-deliberation: seed the conversation through ideation & summarize into position statements with sensemaking
Pro-tip: Leverage Sense-making, and Ask AI to generate statements.
Recommended amount: 25 statements.
Prompt: "Generate up to 25 trade-off questions (max 120 chars) from key ideation topics for agree / unsure / disagree responses.”
Deliberation: find common ground on trade-off statements for agree/unsure/disagree responses.
Post-deliberation: follow up phase to resolve disagreement, uncertainty
How to set up the Common Ground method
create a new phase
select the participation method "find common ground"
go to the input manager tab of the phase and either add new statements by press of +Add new input OR import statements from previous projects.
Users can now agree or disagree to all the statements in the project page
Visualisation results of the Common Ground method
Your participants, yourself and all allowed users can visualize results in real time from the front end
FAQ
FAQ
Can you add images to the statements? No, we can’t add images to statements.
When participants submit their own inputs, is their name visible or is it anonymous? Their names will not visible in the front office but admins can see the name when they click on the input from the input manager.
When importing all inputs from a previous phase, can users then remove or delete specific ones? At the moment, no. A work around would be for them to import all of them and then delete the ones they do not want from the input manager in the phase.
Can users select the inputs they want to import from a previous phase, or does it import all of them? At the moment, it will import all of them. A work around would be for them to import all of them and then delete the ones they do not want from the input manager in the phase.
Can users edit their votes? No, votes are final.
Can admins export results? Yes, admins can export the results from the input manager.
Do users see the statements in the same order? No, statements are shown to users in a random order by default. Note that this is not configurable yet.
Can admins configure who can react or vote on statements? Yes, admins can use the access rights page to configure who can vote on statements .
Can users see their statements that they submitted? Yes, users can see their statements in their activity page on the submissions tab.
Can normal users edit their statements after submission? No, only admins can edit statements.
Are users notified about new statements added after they participated? Unfortunately not at the moment. Users have to revisit the platform to see new statements
Can statements be added during an active consultation? Yes, admins and users will be able to add statements even during an active consultation.
Is there a limit to how many statements users can add? No, there is no limit to the number of statements that can be added.
Can admins hide who can see the results? No, not at the moment. All admins and users who have access to the project will be able to see the results.
Can normal users see results before participating in the consultation? Yes, results are always open for all users to see as long as they are available.
Can admins configure which normal users can submit statements? Yes, admins can go ahead and configure who can submit statements in the access rights tab of the phase.