Agile Philippines Meetup (Jun 2019)
Agile Philippines gathered at Cambridge Manila for its June 2019 meetup. The evening brought the community into Cambridge's new office for small-group introductions, Open Space discussions, and practical conversations about agile delivery in real organizations.
Hosted by Cambridge Manila
Cambridge Manila hosted the June meetup, marking a long-awaited community visit to its new office. Ronnie Mañalac, General Manager, formally welcomed attendees to Cambridge and opened the evening.
Before the topic rounds began, participants joined small-group discussions to meet people across the room. That gave the event a conversational start and helped set up the Open Space format that followed.
Open Space across Cambridge Manila
The meetup used Open Space facilitation with four topic areas in each round, arranged around CAM-BRI-DGE-MNL. The group ran three 20-minute rounds with short breaks between them, giving attendees time to choose where they could learn, contribute, or move to a different conversation.
The first round focused on broad delivery concerns: timelines in agile, budget and forecasting, DevOps in Scrum, and the basic question of how agile helps a company.
Questions from the community
The second round moved into product and engineering practice. Participants discussed whether a Product Owner is required, what to do when no Product Owner is available, how XP works in a real work environment, whether internal cut-offs are necessary, and when performance or security testing should happen in agile delivery.
The final round covered team setup and operating model questions: how to set up a first agile team, whether all Agile or Scrum activities are necessary, how to handle multiple projects, and how Scrum Master support relates to the Agile Delivery Lead role.
Together, the board reflected a community thinking beyond textbook agile. The questions were about applying the methods under normal delivery pressure: budgets, timelines, testing, ownership, multiple projects, and the practical limits of ceremony.
Closing the evening
The meetup wrapped up a little after 9:00 PM with a quick raffle and a big closing circle. Agile Philippines thanked Cambridge Manila and the people who helped host the evening, then reminded attendees that the monthly meetup depends on both active participants and organizations willing to open their space.
For ToolTwist, this kind of meetup captures a useful agile habit: practitioners keep improving when they share what is working, name what is difficult, and compare practical patterns across teams.
Source: Agile Philippines Meetup 2019.06