Clarifying Internal Jargon and Acronyms: Stop Technical Assumptions From Quietly Diverging

Every organisation has its own language. “The platform” might mean a data warehouse in one company and a customer portal in another. “Tier two” might be a support level, a storage class or a group of suppliers. When a Solution Engineer nods along instead of asking, two sets of assumptions start to diverge, and the gap usually stays invisible until a proposal, a scope document or a proof of concept shows that both sides meant different things.

This article covers an atomic discovery skill from the SE Ignite catalog: clarifying internal jargon by asking prospects to define organisation-specific terminology early, so technical assumptions never diverge.

The problem this solves

• Problem: shared words hide different meanings. The SE designs and scopes against their own interpretation, and the mismatch appears late as rework, scope disputes or a failed evaluation step.
• Reader: Solution Engineers and presales consultants in discovery and scoping.
• Stage: first call onward, and especially before writing anything the customer will sign or test against.
• Decision it supports: whether you understand the requirement well enough to design, size or scope it.
• Success test: every term that appears in your proposal or success criteria has a definition the customer has confirmed in their own words.

Why SEs do not ask

Most SEs avoid asking because they fear looking inexperienced. In practice the opposite is true. Asking “When you say the platform, which systems does that include?” signals precision. Experienced buyers know that vendors who assume are the ones who get the scope wrong.

A simple method: the living glossary

1. Catch the term. Listen for internal names, acronyms, project code names and everyday words used in a specific way, such as “customer”, “environment” or “release”.
2. Ask for a definition at a natural break. “Quick check so I don’t assume: what does tier two cover for your team?” Ask once, early, rather than interrupting every sentence.
3. Ask for boundaries. Definitions matter most at the edges: “Does that include the regional instances?” “Is the test environment part of that?”
4. Write it down in their words. Keep a short glossary in your discovery notes: term, their definition, who gave it, and date.
5. Replay it in writing. Include the glossary in your discovery summary or scope document and ask the customer to correct it.
6. Use their language back. Once confirmed, use the customer’s terms in your demos and proposals, not your product’s names for the same things.

Terms that cause the most trouble

• Counts: “users”, “accounts”, “transactions” and “records”. Each can be counted many ways, and sizing depends on which one.
• Time words: “real time”, “daily”, “near-instant”. Ask for the actual tolerance.
• Scope words: “the platform”, “the stack”, “production”.
• Status words: “done”, “live”, “migrated”. Ask what has to be true for each.

Adapting it to the situation

• A cross-functional call: security, infrastructure and analytics teams may use the same word differently with each other. Asking for a definition can surface a disagreement they had not noticed.
• A regulated environment: terms such as “sovereign”, “air-gapped” or “restricted data” often have formal internal definitions. Ask for the policy wording.
• A multi-region rollout: the same term may differ by region or by legacy version. Confirm per region.
• A merger or acquisition: two companies now share one vocabulary with two meanings. Build a glossary for each side and mark the conflicts.
• A rapid-growth assessment after outages: agree what counts as an “outage” or “incident” before discussing frequency or impact.

Common mistakes

• Translating into vendor terms too early. Mapping their word to your product’s feature name hides the difference you are trying to find.
• Keeping the glossary private. A definition only protects you if the customer has confirmed it.
• Asking too often. Save it for the terms that affect design, sizing or success criteria.

Where this skill sits

A confirmed glossary supports validating stated versus actual requirements, makes baseline metrics measurable, and protects you later in technical contract review, where undefined terms become disputes.

Practising the 80%

Asking for definitions is one of the simplest vendor-neutral habits in the 80% of Solution Engineering that SE Ignite teaches. Practise it by replaying a recorded call and listing every term you assumed. The SE Ignite curriculum is free to use.