As mentioned in our Thanksgiving post we are pregnant with our fourth child. One of the adventures with each pregnancy has been the various cravings that Monique will have.
One of my favourite cravings was during our first pregnancy’s second trimester. We had Monique’s pancakes, whipped cream, maple syrup, and all of the fixings _every day_ for close to four months. I gained quite a few “sympathetic” pounds during that period! ;)
Lately, one of Monique’s cravings has been for a cup of coffee in the morning. Monique was normally a tea drinker up till then. Since we generally made coffee with a stove top percolator to “cook” the coffee grinds to our preferred strength, we needed a coffee maker that would make a decent single cup of coffee on short order.
We looked at a number of coffee makers that used a pre-packaged cup or disk with the coffee grounds in it. After evaluating the various machines we ended up purchasing a Cuisinart Keurig Single Server Brewing System (SS-700C) (Canadian product site).
We chose the Cuisinart model because it has the ability to use an included My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter which meant that we were not locked into purchasing the pre-packaged coffee cups. This feature was critical because we absolutely love Tim Hortons coffee with a close second for Starbuck’s Verona or Sumatra blends.
So, after working through the various water volumes (8oz, 10oz, and 12oz) and coffee grind scoops we have managed to come up with a near perfect cup of coffee every time:
- Keurig Settings
- Water Temp: 194 Degrees Fahrenheit
- Default cup size: 8oz
- Tim Hortons Fine Grind
- 2.5 scoops of coffee.
- 8oz water setting.
- Add the required cream and sugar to taste (or black).
- Starbucks Sumatra and Verona Espresso Grind (ultra-fine)
- 2 scoops of coffee
- 10oz water setting
- Add the required cream and sugar to taste (or black).
When we purchased the bag of Starbuck’s coffee the Keurig was new so we did not know what grind level would be best. When it comes time to replace the Starbuck’s coffee will will step back the grind setting so that the grind is not so fine.
We only use osmotic water for our coffee.
IT Professionalism
So, what does brewing a perfect cup of coffee have to do with our own IT business?
Drinking a lot of coffee to figure out the needed coffee to water configuration brought us to the point where we could _document_ the required process to make that coffee _every time_ a cup of coffee was required. Thus, our “client”, Monique, was able to enjoy her morning coffee consistently.
Not only do we need to take the time to work out the best process for configuring our IT Solutions, but we also need to take the time to consult with our fellow IT professionals to see if there are ways that we can improve our IT processes and/or IT Solutions.
In the end, when it comes to implementing an IT Solution we must have the right documentation in place, checklists to guide us through the set up procedures, and key vendor representatives on-call to help us out if we get into a pinch.
These processes are an absolute must to providing our clients with a Professional long term trouble free IT Solution.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
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