[richie5um]

Rant as much as you like :-)

I _think_ we are saying the same thing. I'd put 'done' in quotes for exactly the reasons you mention.

Timeboxing is merely used as a forced checkpoint; to re-assess across all activities/plans. It doesn't mean we can't follow on with more spike work.

At the end of the day, we, as a business, have to determine what we do (or don't do) and when. And we use spikes (or 'research', sic) to try to help inform those decisions.

If a problem occurs - as per your scalability example - or we identify more 'unknowns', we now need to make more decisions, and use spikes (and experience, and etc) to help inform those ... rinse/repeat.