A link, not a signup.
A host shares a room with up to 25 teammates and sets the ticket title and Jira link. Anonymous avatars give everyone a recognizable seat without asking for names or accounts.
Independent project · Open source
common ground↗
Different perspectives.
Better conversations.
A lighter way for Agile teams to estimate together. Private cards, a shared reveal, and room for the conversation that brings everyone closer.
A little room for shared understanding.Designed & built by Erik Rodriguez
- Project
- Independent, open-source collaboration tool
- My role
- Product design, interaction design, visual direction, full-stack development
- Built with
- React · TypeScript · WebSockets
Cloudflare Workers & Durable Objects
Mission statement
Make refinement a shared conversation.
Build a flexible Planning Poker tool for a community of Agile practitioners to create a more efficient, collaborative, and consistent approach to refinement. Give teams an easy-to-use environment to independently assess the complexity of deliverables and compare estimates, reducing administrative overhead and creating more space for the conversations that lead to shared understanding.
The starting point
The conversation is the valuable part.
The idea began with feedback from my sister’s Agile team: estimation tools often felt overcomplicated, while the small touches people enjoyed, including avatars, backgrounds, and confetti, were missing or out of reach. I built Common Ground to make refinement easier to join and more enjoyable to participate in.
Common Ground gives a team a shared room to independently assess complexity, compare estimates, and discuss the differences. Its intended value is less coordination overhead and more space for shared understanding. Team research will evaluate how the experience supports real refinement sessions.
The core loop
Think independently. Reveal together.
A hand of possibilities.
A gently fanned Fibonacci deck makes selection tactile. Votes stay private until the host reveals; hidden values are withheld by the server.
Make uncertainty welcome.
A coffee card invites discussion. After reveal, the host can set a shared timer up to ten minutes or let the conversation flow, then clear the round when the team is ready.
Interaction & expression
A little personality. Clear feedback.
Cards lift on selection and turn on reveal. Incoming votes get a small acknowledgement. A brief burst of confetti marks agreement, and the host can celebrate the team at any time. Coordinated backgrounds, anonymous avatars, and dark mode let each person shape their space.
Motion serves state changes and respects reduced-motion preferences. Celebrations last less than two seconds, and a coffee timer offers structure without forcing a break.
Built to work together
Privacy belongs in the implementation.
A real-time room server controls reveal, reset, and celebration permissions. Separate private connection tokens prevent a visible participant ID from becoming a host credential. Room state is temporary, with no application database or saved voting history.
Validation covers 25 connected participants, room capacity, hidden-vote payloads, host controls, consensus, host transfer, and shared timer deadlines. This is a working independent product; broader team research and observed outcomes are the next step.