is there a cost of using spikes in Jira

[Haseeb Toor]

Our agile governance team is discouraging use of spike,, and instead wants us to use tasks ? Is there a quirk or a cost of using spikes vs tasks?

[Sudarshan · Accepted solution]

Hello @Haseeb Toor 

Every activity has a cost factor.

your agile gov team disagrees to the use of spike, could mostly be like " everything is a task, so why add another item called spike and say we will not estimate it and it will be a research etc..."

A spike is an unexpected/unknown work which may cause some imbalance/disruption to a product backlog.

Spikes can have tasks -- but if you say a task is a spike -- not sure of this.

Sometimes we define what is a Spike in our team as below: (like an agile contract some orgs have this)
1. when the team is half known about how to implement the story, but still lack clarity. (actually, it is not encouraged to take in such half-baked understanding to a sprint)

" I understand, but I am not sure if the new library will support it"

2. we must document what was researched in the spike - not a report, but the steps.

3. we take 2 to 3 days in the sprint to get a go or no go for the spike based on its result.

[Haseeb Toor]

Thank you for your response  Sudarshan ,

While I agree with you on the premise for using  a Spike, my question is more on what if any gotchas exist in using the issue type Spike in Jira, the tool. 

I know that certain plugins  can adversely impact Jira's performance. I am trying to understand if there are similar or other tool specific issues in using the issue type Spike.  

[Daniel Ebers]

If I understand you correctly the specific question here is if an additional Issue Type "Spike" has negative consequences for your instance?
No, it won't - apart from a basic rule to do housekeeping and just to create Issue Types which are useful.
Also the basic advise is to negotiate with others - for example: if there is the same Issue Type already present (or a similar named to it).