What is an Agile Spike Story? How to Use, Types & Benefits

What is an Agile Spike

An Agile spike is a timeboxed experiment meant to gather information to reduce risk and enable more accurate estimates for complex user stories.

Sometimes, teams struggle to estimate a user story because it is too ambiguous or technically challenging. In these cases, they may decide to complete a spike activity first to analyze potential solutions and unknowns.

A spike can take various forms - building a proof of concept, prototyping, researching options, or adding technical validation. The goal is to break down the uncertainty of a complex story so the team has enough confidence to estimate and plan the full feature.

Spikes are meant to be short, often lasting a few hours, days, or weeks, depending on the situation. The learning from the spike is then used to create more defined user stories for future sprints.

What is an Agile Spike Story 

An agile spike story is a type of user story focused on investigating potential solutions for a product need identified through customer feedback. A spike is the hands-on activity to explore a complex solution, while the spike story captures and plans for that activity in the backlog. 

Unlike typical user stories that detail work to build a feature, spike stories allow engineers to explore if a particular solution is technically feasible to implement. Spikes are timeboxed to a few days or a sprint and aimed at answering specific questions or proving out concepts.

For example, if customers request a complex new feature, the product manager may create a spike for 1-2 engineers to research technologies and build a proof of concept. They are given flexibility to explore the problem space with the goal of determining if the solution is possible within reasonable time and resources.

The spike may involve activities like reviewing documentation, analyzing APIs, prototyping, proof-of-concepts, and technical experiments. The engineers share what they learn so the team can decide if the solution is viable or if alternative options should be considered.

Spike stories enable teams to gain key insights before committing to full feature development. They reduce risk and uncertainty around the best technical approach. By validating feasibility early, spikes ultimately lead to better solutions that delight customers.

Difference Between Agile Spike and Spike Story

An Agile spike is the tactical activity that provides insights, while the spike story is the backlog item used for planning and tracking that activity. Here is a table comparing Agile spikes and Agile spike stories:

Different Types of Agile Spike Story

• 1Technical Spike - Spike to investigate technical feasibility and options for a complex user story. It may involve prototyping, proof-of-concepts, research, or experiments.
• 2Functional Spike- Investigates the functional scope, requirements, and logic needed to implement a complex user story. It aims to break the story down into more manageable parts for estimation.
• 3Design Spike - Spike focused on exploring potential design solutions for the UI/UX to better understand effort and viability. Often involves mockups or wireframes.
• 4Architecture Spike - Spike to evaluate whether a proposed solution aligns with existing architecture principles or standards. May assess integration complexity.
• 5Research Spike - Spike is for investigating APIs, tools, 3rd-party capabilities, or other research needed to size a story.
• 6Performance Spike - Spike to test potential performance issues and optimizations for a user story.
• 7Usability Spike - Spike that creates simplified user flows or prototypes to gauge ease-of-use for a future capability.
• 8Data Spike - Spike to analyze data schema, availability, and quality that will impact user story implementation.
• 9Integration Spike - Spike to assess the effort required to integrate a new tool, platform, or system for a user story.
• 10Security Spike - Spike to identify security requirements and considerations for sensitive user stories.

How to Write Agile Spike Stories in 7 Actionable Steps

So, till now, we’ve explored what Agile spike stories are and how they help teams investigate and estimate complex user stories.

Now, let's dive into the specifics - how do you write a spike story that delivers maximum value?

1. Identify a complex user story that has high uncertainty

Review your product backlog for user stories with major technical unknowns, open-ended UX needs, or other ambiguities that makes estimation difficult. Spikes are most valuable on complex stories to fill critical knowledge gaps for planning purposes.

Look for stories with a lot of risk around feasibility, effort level, or viability of potential solutions

Prioritize spikes for large, epic-level stories versus smaller standalone stories. Collaborate with engineers and designers to understand which complex stories would benefit most from spikes

2. Determine a specific objective and scope

Define a clear, focused spike goal and boundaries tied to the original user story. A narrow scope prevents waste and keeps the spike targeted on key questions. Limit scope to validating assumptions critical for estimating the larger story rather than full requirements.

3. Frame the spike as a question to answer

Write the title and description in the form of a testable question using "how might we" or "what if" framing. This creates clear purpose and expectations around evaluating a specific hypothesis. Make the question narrow enough to reasonably answer given spike time constraints. Avoid overly broad questions that lead to vague, speculative answers. 

4. Specify assumptions to test

Document the hypotheses, constraints, and assumptions that need validation. List technical factors, integration points, and UX concerns that impact feasibility the most. Also, focus on assumptions that could fundamentally change scope, resources, or release plans if wrong.

5. Allocate time proportional to the uncertainty

Keep spikes small - a few hours, days, or at most 1-2 sprints. Scope the spike to target the simplest experiment that will provide useful insights. Remember you are trying to estimate the larger story, not deliver the full solution.

6. Plan spike execution timing

Schedule spikes in the sprints where related larger stories are planned. Time spikes so learnings can inform the estimation and feasibility of those larger stories. Avoid doing spikes too far in advance when the context may change. 

7. Track insights as spike findings

Document spike outcomes, results, research, and links clearly as comments on the story. Create traceable connections between spike findings and related product decisions. Use findings to support estimation and answer whether more spikes may be needed.

7 Proven Benefits of Agile Spike Stories 

Agile spike stories are a lightweight and effective way for teams to maximize learning, validate assumptions, reduce risk, and make better product decisions. When used well, they can accelerate development cycles and lead to better solutions.

Here are some of the key benefits of using  spike stories:

• Reduced Risk– Spikes allow teams to validate assumptions and mitigate risks before committing to full development efforts. This prevents wasting larger amounts of time and resources on ideas that may not work.

• Improved Estimation– By scoping uncertainties, teams can break down large stories into more granular, measurable sizes for sprint planning. Spikes provide the knowledge needed for more accurate estimation.

• Accelerated Learning– Spikes enable fast learning by focusing on targeted questions and experiments. Teams build knowledge faster by testing ideas quickly.

• Informed Decision Making– Spike findings give teams the insights they need to make smart product decisions. They can choose solutions confidently, knowing that key risks have been addressed.

• Enables Innovation– Spikes allow teams to freely explore creative or unproven solutions without needing to build them out fully in the first pass. This encourages innovation.

• Greater Alignment– Discussing spikes during planning and retrospectives creates alignment around key questions and hypotheses to test across the team.

• Prioritization Optimization– Timeboxed spikes help teams quickly filter and prioritize complex stories in the backlog based on what they have learned.

Wrapping Up 

Agile spike stories provide immense value to teams faced with complex, ambiguous user stories by enabling upfront learning and risk reduction. They are one of the most important tools in an Agile toolkit.

By taking the time to purposefully plan spikes linked to larger stories, teams avoid wasting effort building the wrong solutions. Assumptions get tested early when they are the cheapest to invalidate. 

However, teams must be disciplined to keep spikes short and targeted. Their purpose is learning just enough to progress, not implementing an entire solution. Writing high-quality spike stories takes practice. But once mastered, spikes will enable your team to work on complex problems in an Agile way.