# TRL2 - Possible application formulated TRL2 is where people speculate about the possible uses of a technology. On its surface TRL2 seems like the easy rung of the TRL ladder - you don’t need to do any actual work! You can just sit around and smoke some cigars and come up with these ideas. This is doing TRL2 terribly. TRL2 is secretly hard because it’s very easy to just check the box and go on. TRL2 is the design step. To truly be at TRL2, you need to talk about the constraints on the applications that you’re formulating. You need to actually break it down into a framework that then informs further work. What are the limitations? What does the roadmap look like ([[Adam Marblestone Podcast 2020-03-31]])? Without TRL2, [[TRL3 - Proof of Concept]] is worthless because TRL2 needs to say what the crux pieces of the technology *are* which TR3 then needs to derisk. Perhaps another way to frame TRL2 is the step where you convert the unknown unknowns into known unknowns? ([[Unknown Unknowns]]) Another possible way to think about TRL2 is that it is the step where you say “X can be used for Y” - essentially describing the effect observed in [[TRL1 - Basic Principles Observed and Reported]] in an inventive manner. [[Describing an effect in an inventive manner is important for separating invention and discovery]]. <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/TRL2+-+Possible+application+formulated) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/TRL2+-+Possible+application+formulated)