A few months ago, I attended a coffee roasting workshop at MONTISTA, and since then I have often thought about the parallels with our work in IT.
Just as a master roaster transforms green beans into perfectly developed coffee, we transform raw business requirements into software architecture (functional, if possible).
Each bean reacts differently depending on its origin. Each component of our stack has its own specific characteristics. A bad setting can ‘burn’ the architecture or leave it ‘underdeveloped’.
The roaster knows exactly when to stop the roasting process. We need to know when to stop optimising in order to deliver on time, or when to modernise before the ‘technical debt’ becomes unmanageable.
Both professions combine science and art, technique and intuition.