Hey everybody,

We've been working on cool integrations and extensions these past few months, and here is another one in line for you, waiting to be of service to your team—Scrum Bot.

Scrum Bot is a lightweight adaptation of the scrum framework, and it's designed to take up the role of a Scrum Master without the extra effort to implement and manage Scrum for your team.

Setting up Scrum Bot for your team

1. Like all extensions, Scrum Bot can be downloaded from Cliq Marketplace. Here's the direct link to get it now.

https://marketplace.zoho.com/cliq/scrum-for-zoho-cliq

2. In the Scrum Bot's page, click on Install and proceed with the consent popups.

3. Then choose whether you want to install scrum for your entire organization or just for specific teams.

Do note you have to be the org admin to install Scrum for your entire org.

And it's done! You will be subscribed to the bot by default, and other members must look for the Scrum Bot under Bots in lhs and subscribe to it.

Tip: You can get the Scrum Bot's permalink and share it in the conversations for members to easily subscribe to it.

Decoding Scrum

Now before we dive in, let's see what is scrum. Scrum is a process designed for smaller teams to help solve problems and complete projects productively, by setting up goals and running time bound sprints to reach those goals on time.This is achieved with daily stand up meetings of 10 - 15 mins, where everyone outlines their progress and the ongoing work, allowing for transparency, inspection and improvement.

How does scrum work in Cliq?

Making Scrum work for your team is easy and simple. You just have to be consistent and the scrum bot will take care of the rest.

Thus from baby steps to end goal, your projects will be easily tracked every step of the way and accounted for—making sure team members are aware of the work progress in the sprint.

Why digital stand up meetings?

Digital stand up meetings are a great way to collaborate when your team is spread across cubicles or even places. Your members will just have to answer to 3 questions that will cover what they worked on and what more they have to work for their item to be completed. The scrum bot will then post everyone's responses in the sprint channel. This allows the members of the sprint to see what each other is working on, and the progress rate of each item.

Take a look at the below video to get the gist of how scrum bot works in Cliq. 

Creating sprints

1. Click on the bot action Create a Sprint.

2. In the form that appears, fill in the sprint details, set a due date, then stand up questions to be asked and the days the bot has to ask the questions.

3. Then hit the Run Sprint button and continue with filling in work items and assigning them to users.

A quick tip: Ensure all the sprint members are subscribed to the bot, else the scrum bot won't be able to remind them of the stand up meeting. 

Running the sprint

Running a sprint is simple as the bot takes care of all the manual work! During the time of the sprint, you can edit and modify it based on your sprint progress. Just click on the bot action Active sprints and explore the actions provided. You can add more work items, and view the sprint details.

The sprint details view is the sprint board. You can see the progress of all the work items of the sprint - To do, In progress, Pending and Done and keep track of them.

Tick of your work items

As you progress through your work, just mark the same in the scrum board as well, so you know what you have to do next. To classify your work items, click on the bot action My work items - all your works will be displayed under the 4 categories. Click on the one you want to update and then click on the status button in the card to update your status on the work item. This will also be reflected in the scrum board!

To sum it up,

Break down your project into smaller end goals called sprints, and run it with the help of Scrum Bot in a dedicated channel. The bot will conduct stand up meetings and post the responses for everyone to know and work together on backlogs, leading to successful completion of the sprint and reaching the final touch line. 

You can get Scrum Bot for your team by clicking here. Let's us know how Scrum Bot works for you, will ya?