A customized agile guideline based on pinoy dev culture.
A proposal for adapting Scrum to Filipino organizations by embracing psychological safety, continuous collaboration, and the Kanban mindset.
Lokalisadong Scrum (available here) argues that Filipino cultural values—hiya, pakikisama, and utang na loob—should not be treated as obstacles to Agile but as strengths that can be incorporated into Scrum.
This proposal extends that idea.
Rather than merely changing the wording of Scrum ceremonies, Scrum Pinoy proposes changing their purpose.
Instead of asking individuals to report status, Scrum Pinoy encourages collaboration sessions where team members learn to:
- speak up earlier,
- respectfully challenge assumptions,
- ask for help immediately,
- critique ideas instead of people,
- normalize failure as part of learning.
The goal is not to remove hiya, but to redefine what should cause shame.
Instead of being ashamed of mistakes, Filipino teams should become ashamed of hiding problems.
The Scrum Guide assumes that developers are comfortable with:
- speaking in public,
- disagreeing with teammates,
- challenging estimates,
- admitting mistakes,
- questioning authority.
In many Filipino organizations, these assumptions are weak.
The Philippines consistently exhibits high power distance and collectivist tendencies, making open disagreement more socially costly. Lokalisadong Scrum identifies this mismatch as a source of dysfunction in standups, planning, and retrospectives.
Examples include:
- QA discovers a bug but softens the feedback to avoid offending the developer.
- Junior developers remain silent because seniors "must know better."
- Developers knowingly accept impossible deadlines because saying "no" feels disrespectful.
- Product Owners interpret silence as agreement.
The result is delayed feedback and lower product quality.
The Daily Scrum was originally intended to synchronize work and identify obstacles.
Instead, many teams use it as a reporting session.
Developers answer:
- What did I do yesterday?
- What will I do today?
- What is blocking me?
Although simple, these questions unintentionally encourage performance reporting.
People begin optimizing for looking productive instead of exposing uncertainty.
Instead of asking everyone to give an individual update, Scrum Pinoy proposes a Collaboration Session.
The discussion begins with questions such as:
- Where can someone use another person's help?
- What assumptions should we challenge today?
- Which decisions deserve another opinion?
- What risks are emerging?
- What knowledge should be shared before someone becomes blocked?
The facilitator actively encourages:
- disagreement,
- questions,
- alternative approaches,
- constructive criticism.
Success is measured not by everyone speaking once, but by everyone contributing to solving problems.
In this proposal, walang hiya is intentionally redefined.
Not as disrespect.
Not as arrogance.
But as the willingness to speak uncomfortable truths for the benefit of the team.
Examples include:
- "I think this design will fail."
- "I don't understand this requirement."
- "I disagree with this estimate."
- "Can we reconsider this architecture?"
The objective is to normalize respectful pushback.
Silence should become more uncomfortable than disagreement.
Many Filipino QA engineers communicate findings gently to preserve relationships.
Instead of saying:
"May konting issue lang."
They should feel comfortable saying:
"This behavior violates the acceptance criteria."
The criticism targets the software—not the developer.
Likewise, developers should critique test cases, UX, documentation, and architecture without fear of damaging relationships.
Feedback is collaboration, not conflict.
Another cultural habit reinforced by schools is deadline-oriented work.
Students often succeed despite procrastination through last-minute effort.
Unfortunately, this mindset carries into professional software development.
Teams collaborate intensely only when deadlines are near.
By then:
- designs are fixed,
- code has already been written,
- bugs are expensive,
- changes become political.
Scrum Pinoy argues that collaboration should occur at the beginning of work rather than near the end.
Questions should be asked while ideas are still inexpensive to change.
Traditional Scrum places most reflection inside the Sprint Retrospective.
The retrospective asks:
- What went well?
- What didn't?
- What should we improve?
Lokalisadong Scrum already strengthens this ceremony through gratitude, anonymous feedback, and reciprocity rituals.
Scrum Pinoy proposes going further.
Instead of waiting until the sprint ends, improvement should happen continuously.
Every conversation becomes an opportunity to ask:
"What can we do better right now?"
This mirrors the Kanban philosophy of incremental improvement.
Sprint Planning is often viewed as committing to work.
Instead, planning should become collaborative learning.
The purpose is not to assign tasks.
It is to ensure everyone understands:
- why the work matters,
- what success looks like,
- where risks exist,
- what assumptions remain uncertain.
Teams leave planning with shared understanding—not merely assigned tickets.
Kanban emphasizes:
- continuous improvement,
- limiting work in progress,
- observing workflows,
- making problems visible,
- improving collaboratively.
Unlike Scrum, Kanban does not rely heavily on ceremonial checkpoints.
Instead, improvement happens continuously.
This aligns well with Filipino teams because it reduces the pressure of formal public reporting while encouraging frequent, lower-stakes conversations.
Rather than waiting for retrospectives every two weeks, teams improve every day.
A localized Filipino Scrum guide should encourage the following principles.
Finding a defect is helping the team.
Not embarrassing someone.
If you care enough to challenge an idea, you care about the product.
Silence is not respect.
Mistakes should be documented.
Repeated mistakes should be improved.
Hidden mistakes are the real failure.
Questions asked today are cheaper than bugs discovered next week.
Critique requirements.
Critique designs.
Critique code.
Never attack character.
Every meeting can improve the process.
Knowledge sharing is everyone's responsibility.
No one should become the single point of failure.
The Scrum Master cannot create psychological safety alone.
Every team member contributes by:
- welcoming questions,
- thanking people who raise problems,
- rewarding honesty,
- admitting uncertainty.
Lokalisadong Scrum demonstrates that Filipino cultural values can be transformed into strengths through localized Scrum rituals.
Scrum Pinoy extends this vision by arguing that localization should go beyond changing ceremony scripts. The larger opportunity is to cultivate new habits: continuous collaboration, respectful disagreement, and the courage to expose uncertainty early. In this model, the highest-performing Filipino teams are not those that avoid conflict, but those that make it safe to challenge ideas, learn from mistakes, and improve every day.
Rather than asking teams to become less Filipino, Scrum Pinoy encourages them to redefine what hiya means in a modern engineering culture: not shame over making mistakes, but accountability for leaving problems unspoken. By combining the cultural insights of Lokalisadong Scrum with the continuous improvement mindset of Kanban, Filipino organizations can build software teams that are both culturally authentic and operationally resilient.