Speaking the same language

Last week, I wrote about something that surprised me early on.

Going deeper didn’t create clarity.

There was something else that slowed me down just as much.

The part I underestimated

Every industry has its own language.

Its abbreviations.
Its shortcuts.
Its assumed knowledge.

And once you zoom in further, every company adds another layer.

Internal terms.
System names.
Process labels.

As a newcomer, the challenge isn’t just learning what these terms mean.

It’s understanding which role each term belongs to
and how those roles relate to each other.

What I didn’t see at first was how closely language and structure are connected.

Many discussions sounded technical on the surface. But underneath, they were really about how different parts of the system relate to each other.

Without orientation, even precise terms can add more noise than clarity.

This isn’t specific to eMobility

You see this in many industries where IT systems are involved.

It took a while until I could tell which roles were actually central in a charging scenario, and which ones were supporting.

At first, everything sounded equally important.

Only later did I start to see where my company fit into this picture and what role we were actually playing in the larger system.

Shared language matters more than it seems

I won’t introduce a glossary today.
And I won’t explain terms.

That will come later.

What matters more right now is understanding why a shared understanding is so important.

Across companies.
And within them.

The same role can be referred to by different terms.
And the same term can mean different things depending on context.

In the best case, this leads to short misunderstandings.

In the worst case, it leads to meetings and emails that quietly carry those misunderstandings forward.

Simply because it was never fully clear who or what was actually being talked about.

What would have helped me earlier

What would have helped was a simple picture.

A simplified view of who is involved in an EV charging scenario and how those roles interact directly and indirectly.

Not complete.
Not perfect.

Just enough to distinguish main actors from supporting ones.

Once I had that first picture, a version 1.0, everything else became easier to place.

Adding more roles felt natural.
Processes and responsibilities made more sense.
Even protocols started to fall into place.

Not as details to memorize.
But as elements you could finally locate.

Finding your own place

That first simplified picture did something else.

It helped me understand where I stood.

Which role I was playing.
And how my work connected to the bigger picture.

That’s why I believe orientation has to come before terminology.

Before depth.
Before detail.

In the next issues, I’ll slowly build on this.

For now, it’s enough to notice how much clarity already comes from knowing who is actually involved and how those roles relate to each other.

We’ll continue from here.

Do you remember the first term you learned, before you knew where it fit?