22. Need to Learn More About the Work You’re Doing? Spike It!
In a recent estimation workshop, one of the participants asked, “How do we estimate something we’ve never done before?”
“Is it a feature or a project?” I asked.
“A feature,” she said.
“How do you do things now?” Based on her previous comments in the workshop, I suspected she was pretty good at what she did.
“I take a little time, do a proof of concept, and then I know how long the rest of the work will take.”
That’s the general idea of a spike. You timebox a little work, do some research—just enough to know how long it will take to finish the rest of the work—and then you can estimate the rest of the work.
22.1 How Does a Spike Work?
I like to timebox the spike for these reasons: ...
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