
The engineering team can’t break a task down yet.The engineering team can’t estimate how long a task, feature or function will take to implement without understanding more about how it needs to be solved.On a day-to-day basis, some of the most common triggers for a Tech Spike are: You use a Tech Spike when the only or best way to make progress on a solution is to experiment with the solution. You use a Tech Spike when you recognise that a task or feature has uncertainty and you aren’t clear on how you will complete it, when you will complete it, or if you do complete it, that it will be technically acceptable to stakeholders.
METHOD SPIKE DEFINITION CODE
This work on the actual solution – usually writing code – is a key point of difference between a Tech Spike and research, design or architectural discussions. Real work also has a way of cutting through debates that have started to go around in circles. It’s through genuinely trying to develop and test your proposed solutions that you will reduce the uncertainty around a problem. It’s worth emphasizing the 3rd point, performing work to try to implement one of the proposed solutions.
METHOD SPIKE DEFINITION HOW TO
It might even be that you don’t know how to solve the problem.Ī Tech Spike gives you and your team a method for stepping outside the normal flow of work to remove or at least reduce the uncertainty around a technical problem. Due to this uncertainty, you might find it difficult to plan, estimate tasks, break a problem down into achievable tasks, identify risks and engage stakeholders. These technical problems introduce a level of uncertainty into your ability to make progress. In the development of new technology, you almost always come across technical problems where the answer isn’t knowable without putting in some effort to explore the problem or possible solutions further. This practical guide to Tech Spikes covers why you would do a tech spike, what they are, when to use them and how to run one. They help you step outside the current flow of development to increase your understanding and reduce uncertainty. Tech Spikes are a useful activity for your product development team to perform when you need to explore how you are going to solve a challenging problem.
