How long should a technical spike last?

Most spikes should be one to three days. If the question cannot be answered in five days, it is either too broad (split it into smaller questions) or too complex (treat it as a phased proof of concept instead). The value of a spike is speed. Long investigations defeat the purpose.

Who runs the spike. The most senior engineer or anyone?

Assign spikes to the engineer most likely to work on the resulting feature. They build context during the spike that accelerates delivery later. Senior engineers should review spike outputs and decision criteria, not necessarily run every investigation themselves.

What happens if a spike's verdict is "abandon"?

That is a successful spike. You spent two days learning that an approach will not work instead of spending two months building it. Document the findings so the team does not revisit the same question in six months. Link the spike output to the relevant backlog item and mark it as not viable.

Should spikes count toward sprint velocity?

Track spikes separately from feature work. They consume capacity but do not produce shippable increments. Reporting them as a distinct category in your [sprint velocity](/metrics/sprint-velocity) helps PMs and leads understand the ratio of research to delivery and adjust planning accordingly. ---

Technical Spike Roadmap Template for PowerPoint

Quick Answer (TL;DR)

This free PowerPoint template organizes technical spikes into structured investigations with clear research questions, time-boxes, decision criteria, and documented outputs. Instead of open-ended exploration that drifts, each spike gets a fixed window and a binary decision gate at the end. Download the .pptx, define your spikes, and give engineering the structure to investigate without losing momentum on delivery.

What This Template Includes

Cover slide. Product area, sprint or quarter, number of active spikes, and engineering lead.
Instructions slide. How to define spike scope, set time-boxes, and run decision reviews. Remove before presenting.
Blank template slide. A table with columns for Research Question, Hypothesis, Time-Box, Decision Criteria, Output, and Verdict. Rows for up to eight spikes per cycle.
Filled example slide. Five spikes from a real product team evaluating database migration, third-party API reliability, caching strategies, auth provider options, and WebSocket scalability.

Why Technical Spikes Need Structure

Engineers often treat spikes as unstructured exploration time. The intention is good. Reduce uncertainty before committing to a large effort. But without a framework, spikes expand to fill available time and end with "we learned a lot" instead of a clear build-or-skip decision.

The cost is real. A two-week spike that produces no actionable recommendation is two weeks of engineering capacity with zero delivered value. Multiply that across a team running three or four spikes per quarter and you have a month of lost throughput.

Structured spikes solve this by applying the same rigor to research that teams already apply to delivery. Each spike gets a specific question, a time limit, and criteria that trigger a go or no-go decision. This is the same principle behind hypothesis-driven development. You state what you expect, run the experiment, and evaluate the result against predefined thresholds.

Template Structure

Spike Definition Table

The core slide is a table where each row is one spike. Six columns capture everything the team needs:

Research Question. A single question the spike must answer. "Can we migrate from Postgres to CockroachDB without downtime?" is good. "Explore database options" is not.
Hypothesis. What you expect the answer to be and why. This prevents confirmation bias during investigation.
Time-Box. The maximum duration. Most spikes should be 1-3 days. If a spike needs more than a week, break it into smaller questions.

Decision Gate

Decision Criteria. The specific thresholds that determine the verdict. "Latency under 200ms at 10K concurrent connections" is measurable. "Performance is acceptable" is not.
Output. The required deliverable: a written recommendation, a proof-of-concept branch, a benchmark report, or a trade-off matrix.
Verdict. Proceed, Pivot, or Abandon. Filled in after the spike completes.

Priority and Sequencing

A second slide maps spike dependencies and priority order. Some spikes block feature work and should run first. Others are exploratory and can run in parallel with delivery. Color-coded priority badges (Critical, Standard, Exploratory) help PMs and engineering leads negotiate which spikes enter the current cycle.

How to Use This Template

1. Collect spike candidates

Pull unresolved technical questions from your backlog, architecture decision records, and engineering retros. Each candidate should represent genuine uncertainty. If the team already knows the answer, it is not a spike, it is a task.

2. Write research questions

Convert each candidate into a single answerable question. The question should be specific enough that two engineers would agree on whether the answer is yes or no. Run a quick review with the tech lead to eliminate duplicates and merge overlapping investigations.

3. Set time-boxes and criteria

Assign each spike a maximum duration. The default is two days. Spikes that affect technical debt decisions or architecture choices may warrant three to five days. Define the measurable criteria that will determine the verdict. Without these, the spike has no finish line.

4. Run spikes and document outputs

Engineers work within the time-box. If the time expires and the question is not answered, the default verdict is "Insufficient evidence. Do not proceed." This prevents the common failure mode of extending spikes indefinitely. Every spike produces its required output artifact.

5. Review verdicts and feed into planning

The PM and tech lead review all spike verdicts in a single session. Proceed verdicts become backlog items with effort estimates informed by the spike findings. Abandon verdicts remove the associated feature or approach from consideration. Pivot verdicts generate new, narrower spikes for the next cycle.

When to Use This Template

Technical spike roadmaps fit whenever your team faces uncertainty that blocks planning. Use this template when:

Engineering estimates vary wildly because the team does not know whether an approach is feasible, signaling a need for time-boxed investigation
You are evaluating new technology (databases, frameworks, APIs) and need evidence before committing to a migration or integration
Architecture decisions are stalled because nobody has tested the options. Spikes produce the data to break the deadlock
Sprint velocity is unpredictable because unplanned research keeps interrupting delivery work
Stakeholders want confidence that a proposed feature is technically viable before it enters the product roadmap

If the uncertainty is about user behavior rather than technical feasibility, the Hypothesis Testing Roadmap template is a better fit.

Featured in

This template is featured in Technical and Engineering Roadmap Templates, a curated collection of roadmap templates for this use case.

Key Takeaways

Every spike needs a specific research question, a time-box, and measurable decision criteria. Without these, exploration becomes drift.
The default verdict for an expired time-box is "do not proceed." This prevents spikes from expanding indefinitely.
Spike outputs (benchmarks, trade-off matrices, POC branches) become artifacts that inform backlog estimation and architecture decisions.
Separating spike capacity from feature velocity gives PMs an honest view of how much research the team is absorbing each cycle.
Structured spikes reduce total engineering time spent on uncertainty by converting open-ended exploration into binary, time-limited experiments.
Compatible with Google Slides, Keynote, and LibreOffice Impress. Upload the .pptx to Google Drive to edit collaboratively in your browser.

Technical Spike Roadmap Template for PowerPoint