What is a Spike in Scrum?

Spikes are a type of exploration Enabler Story in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
Defined initially in Extreme Programming (XP), they are used to gain the knowledge necessary to reduce the risk of a technical approach, better understand a requirement, or increase the reliability of a story estimate.
A spike has a maximum time-box size as the sprint it is contained in it. Spikes are investigation activity (such as research, design, investigation, exploration, prototyping) to gain the knowledge to solve a problem.
They produce information, rather than working code.

Principles

Agile and Lean value facts over speculation. When faced with a question, risk, or uncertainty, Agile Teams conduct small experiments before moving to implementation, rather than speculate about the outcome or jump to a Solution. It is also important that teams plan for and allocate time for getting smarter. Agile teams use the term spike to refer to a time-boxed research activity.

When to use a Spike?

Sometime the team unsure if they can complete the story due to some potential blockers and probably can’t even estimate the story. The Product Owner allocates a little bit of the team’s capacity now, ahead of when the story needs to be delivered, so that when the story comes into the sprint, the team knows what to do.

Examples of when Spikes may be used:
-The team may not have knowledge of a new…