Two clocks in the same proposal
An energy-storage discussion can begin with two carefully stated numbers and still be framed around the wrong customer task. Power and stored energy tell us different things. Their relationship helps describe a nominal duration, but the customer arrives with a period during which something needs to happen. I want to put that operating period into the conversation before the proposed product acquires a name broad enough to sound suitable for everyone. Otherwise, the equipment specification can become the frame within which customers are expected to restate their needs.
In our fictional 2023 review at Norvelen Power, the proposal combined 10 MW power with 20 MWh nominal energy capacity. The simple ratio is two hours. Eight customer operating profiles were being discussed: five had a two-hour peak window and three needed six hours. These were not slightly different expressions of an identical use case. They described different periods over which the service would need to be useful. The product team had a legitimate reason to examine the first five, but that did not give it a reason to let the same proposal imply that the other three had also been addressed.
The technical conversation still had to continue for the shorter window. A nominal ratio is not an independently established service duration under every condition. Usable energy, operating reserves and the circumstances at the site belong in engineering evaluation. Product leadership does not become more commercially effective by leaving those questions unstated until a later phase. It becomes more precise by describing the use case that is being investigated and the evidence needed before stronger claims can be made. The development decision can be worthwhile without pretending to be the final performance decision.
Owen Carvelen wanted to retain the eight-profile opportunity within one product family while the alternatives were explored. There was a practical attraction to that approach. A broader opportunity could help secure attention and preserve conversations with all prospective customers. My objection concerned the language of the proposal rather than a desire to stop those conversations. If the same family was allowed to stand for both two-hour and six-hour requirements, we would be carrying an unresolved product difference inside a convenient commercial label. That difference would eventually have to be paid for, designed around or explained to a disappointed reader.
The value of an excluded use case
I supported C$14 million feasibility work around the five shorter-window profiles and excluded the three longer-duration profiles from that proposition. Exclusion did not mean those customers were unimportant. It meant they needed another development account. This is a distinction I would like product teams to make more often: an opportunity can remain strategically interesting while being outside the scope of the proposal currently seeking resources. We should not have to turn interest into apparent coverage merely to keep the opportunity visible. A portfolio can hold several questions without presenting one provisional answer as though it resolves them all.
Keeping feasibility distinct from a service commitment
There is also a discipline in describing what the expenditure buys. In this case it funded feasibility. It did not purchase the right to report eight installations, a completed engineering approval or revenue from future orders. When a product narrative jumps directly from identifying a need to announcing a large result, the intervening decisions disappear. A reader cannot see what was actually learned or which responsibilities remain. I prefer to state the current decision and its limits, then show the next question clearly enough for the responsible team to answer it. That makes progress assessable without requiring every story to end in deployment.
The excluded use case is particularly informative because it exposes a choice. It tells a reader what we refused to let the equipment rating imply. A product account that contains only suitable customers can make a narrow proposition appear broadly proven. Including the three six-hour profiles shows the edge of the decision and the commercial simplicity we gave up. It also helps the sales conversation: people can identify the point at which they need a different proposal rather than stretch a familiar product description to keep a discussion moving. Clear limits can therefore improve coordination even before the engineering work is complete.
I do not suggest that every product should be designed for a single fixed operating pattern. Variation can be legitimate, and an adaptable system may serve several situations. But adaptability is itself a claim requiring an account of what changes, what stays within the intended scope and which conditions must be examined again. The existence of a configurable setting does not erase a fundamental duration requirement. Product teams should be able to explain the variation they intend to support in ordinary operational terms, without asking a prominent capacity number to carry the entire explanation on its own.
For a senior decision-maker, the question is not whether the proposal contains enough technical detail to impress a specialist. It is whether the relationship between the customer task, the planned development and the remaining responsibility can be understood. The executive team needs that relationship to judge resource allocation. A board may need it to assess a strategic investment without taking over design work. Commercial colleagues need it to keep the customer account accurate. Each audience can receive a different level of detail while retaining the same underlying distinction between the intended use and the work still required to support it.
The two clocks should therefore remain visible. One is the period suggested by the nominal equipment relationship. The other is the period for which the customer’s operation requires a service. When they differ, the product decision should acknowledge the difference before a larger market story makes it inconvenient. When they appear to align, the specialist evaluation still matters. My role is to help the organisation choose the proposition it can responsibly investigate and describe that choice honestly. I would rather fund a narrower question whose answer will be useful than a broader promise whose missing conditions are left for someone else to discover later.