Oh, I see, but I haven't seen that in my experience. At our company it's fairly normal to have a task that sounds like "Investigate..." or "Research..." especia

Oh, I see, but I haven't seen that in my experience. At our company it's fairly normal to have a task that sounds like "Investigate..." or "Research..." especially at the beginning of a project, with an expected result being zero lines of code, understanding of some important concept and a decision made that will govern which way the project will move from that point on. I personally had to explain to our PM that we can't just take whatever tools we used in a project that has been just completed and lasted over a year, because lots of things could have changed during that period, and taking time to research for better alternatives is always worth it. He agreed.