Working on a "Spike"

I think this deserves a separate section as:
a) Less experienced developers don't tend to know what a spike is
b) It is, in my experience, something which has been treated with very little process and as a result, the information resulting from it is often not useable.

## What?
A spike is a _limited period of time_ (often between half a day and two days) during which you try a number of different methods to solve a problem, in order to determine what the best solution is. The code that you write during this time is not used directly in the project, but the lessons you learn are.

## How to perform one?
+ _Timebox_ your spike
+ Determine what the different methods you will try are
+ Start researching and trying these approaches _outside of the main body of code_
+ **Document all of your steps** as you go along - this is crucial, not only are you more likely to actually keep track of your findings this way, but you are also providing a very valuable resource of the _journey_ you've taken for future developers who encounter the same issues
+ A good example of doing this is https://github.com/dwyl/learn-nightwatch/issues/8
+ Determine which approach you will follow, throw the code away and open an issue in your project's repo so that you can begin the implementation.