Workshop Prep¶

Read before the microhack | Scenario brief and team role cards

The Scenario: Nordic Fresh Foods¶

Your Challenge: Design and deploy Azure infrastructure for a farm-to-table delivery platform.

The Business¶

Nordic Fresh Foods is a growing farm-to-table delivery company based in Stockholm, Sweden. They connect local organic farmers with restaurants and consumers across Scandinavia.

Fact	Details
Founded	2022
Partner Restaurants	500+
Active Consumers	10,000
Current Tech	Spreadsheets, WordPress, manual processes
Funding	€2M Series A (just secured)

The Problem¶

The CEO has secured €2M in Series A funding and needs to modernize operations before peak season (3 months away). Current pain points:

Order chaos: Staff manually enters orders from phone, email, and web forms into spreadsheets. They lose ~8% of orders to errors.
No real-time inventory: Farmers update stock levels via WhatsApp. The team often oversells products that are no longer available.
Delivery scheduling: Routes are planned manually. Drivers often arrive at farms when produce isn't ready, wasting time and fuel.
Customer visibility: Restaurants have no way to track orders or see estimated delivery times. They call constantly for updates.
Seasonal scaling: During summer and December, order volume triples. They currently hire temp staff and work overtime — it's unsustainable.

The Vision¶

The CTO (newly hired) has outlined a vision for "FreshConnect" — a cloud-based platform that will:

Accept orders from a web portal and mobile app
Show real-time inventory from connected farms
Automatically schedule and optimize delivery routes
Provide order tracking for restaurants and consumers
Scale seamlessly during peak periods
Generate analytics for business decisions

Your Mission¶

Design and deploy the Azure infrastructure for the FreshConnect MVP (Minimum Viable Product).

⚠️ You are NOT building application code. You are designing and deploying the cloud infrastructure that the development team will use.

MVP Requirements¶

Functional:

Capability	Description
Web Portal	Restaurant and consumer order entry (expect 500 concurrent users at peak)
API Backend	RESTful APIs for mobile apps and integrations
Database	Store orders, customers, inventory, delivery schedules
File Storage	Product images, invoices, delivery receipts
Secrets Management	API keys, connection strings, certificates
Monitoring	Application health, performance metrics, alerts

Constraints:

Constraint	Value	Notes
Budget	~€500/month	Infrastructure only (increases to €700 after Challenge 4)
Compliance	GDPR	Customer PII must stay in EU
Region	`swedencentral`	Primary region (Stockholm proximity)
Timeline	3 months	MVP for peak season
Team	3 devs, 1 DevOps	Small team, needs managed services

Out of scope (MVP):

Mobile app infrastructure (Phase 2)
AI/ML for route optimization (Phase 2)
Multi-region disaster recovery (initially — see Challenge 4!)
Real-time IoT from delivery vehicles (Phase 3)

Non-functional:

Requirement	Target
SLA	99.9%
RTO	4 hours (initially)
RPO	1 hour (initially)
Peak Load	500 concurrent users
Seasonal Spike	3x normal volume
Authentication	Azure AD (internal), Azure AD B2C (external)
Network	Public endpoints acceptable for MVP

Key stakeholders:

Role	Priorities
CEO	On-time delivery, budget control
CTO	Scalability, modern architecture
CFO	Cost optimization, ROI
Operations	Reliability, easy maintenance

The Microhack Journey¶

8 challenges across a 1-day hackathon:

Requirements — Capture business needs using the Requirements agent
Architecture — Design Azure solution aligned with Well-Architected Framework
Implementation — Generate Bicep templates for deployment
DR Curveball — Adapt to multi-region disaster recovery requirements
Load Testing — Validate performance under stress
Documentation — Create operational guides and runbooks
Diagnostics — Build troubleshooting procedures
Partner Showcase — Present your solution professionally

Not all teams will complete all challenges — the goal is mastering the agentic workflow.

Begin with Challenge 1: Requirements.

Team Role Cards¶

Print and distribute to each team member (up to 5 per team).

Team Structure¶

Aspect	Details
Team Size	Up to 5 members per team
Number of Teams	Maximum 4 teams

Note: With 5 members, one person can float across roles or two can share the Architect role (one on security, one on cost).

🚗 Driver¶

Primary Responsibility: Hands on keyboard

You Will:

Type all commands and code
Navigate VS Code and Azure Portal
Execute agent prompts when team agrees
Run deployments and tests

Tips:

Share your screen so team can follow
Verbalize what you're doing: "I'm about to invoke the Architect agent..."
Pause before executing — wait for team consensus
Ask "Should I run this?" before deployments

Collaboration is Key:

Don't make decisions alone — this is team-based discovery
Embrace pauses for discussion — silence means thinking!
When stuck, ask: "What question should I ask the agent?"

🧭 Navigator¶

Primary Responsibility: Guide strategy and next steps

You Will:

Read challenge instructions aloud
Guide Driver on what to type/click next
Watch for errors and typos
Keep team focused and on time

Tips:

Have the challenge doc open on your device
Call out the next step before Driver finishes the current one
Track time per challenge — 8 challenges in one day means the pace stays tight
In Challenge 4 (DR Curveball): Help team pivot quickly

Coaching Mindset:

When team is stuck, ask questions: "What are we trying to achieve?"
Guide exploration: "Have we considered...?"

🏗️ Architect¶

Primary Responsibility: Technical decisions and quality

You Will:

Review agent suggestions before team approves
Validate architecture against WAF pillars
Make SKU and service choices
Ensure security best practices

Tips:

Have the quick reference card handy
Question each agent recommendation: "Why this service?"
Check: "Does this meet our NFRs?"
Watch the budget! (€500 → €700 after Challenge 4)

Critical Questions to Ask:

"Is this the right SKU for our SLA?"
"Are we using managed identities?"
"Does this handle the DR requirement?"
"What's the cost impact of this choice?"

📝 Documenter¶

Primary Responsibility: Capture decisions and prepare showcase

You Will:

Note key decisions and rationale
Track which challenges are complete
Document blockers and solutions
Prepare for Challenge 8: Partner Showcase

Tips:

Keep a running log in a text file or notepad
Screenshot interesting outputs and architectures
Prepare 2-minute summary for final presentation
In Challenge 4: Document ADR (Architecture Decision Record) reasoning
In Challenges 6-7: Lead documentation agent interactions

Capture These Details:

"We chose X because..." (business justification)
"The agent suggested Y but we changed to Z because..."
"We got stuck on... and solved it by..."

Role Rotation (Optional)¶

For 8 challenges, consider rotating every 2 challenges:

Challenges	Driver	Navigator	Architect	Documenter
1-2	A	B	C	D
3-4	B	C	D	A
5-6	C	D	A	B
7-8	D	A	B	C

Suggested Leads:

Challenge 6 (Documentation): Documenter leads
Challenge 7 (Diagnostics): Architect leads
Challenge 8 (Showcase): Documenter presents, everyone supports

Team Agreement¶

Before starting, agree on:

[ ] Who plays which role initially
[ ] Will we rotate roles? After which challenges?
[ ] How do we make decisions when we disagree? (Vote? Discuss? Architect decides?)
[ ] Break strategy (together or staggered? Lunch 11:30-12:00, Break 13:30-13:45)
[ ] How do we support each other when stuck?

Team Name: ________________

Role	Name
🚗 Driver
🧭 Navigator
🏗️ Architect
📝 Documenter
🔄 Floater (opt.)

Coaching Philosophy: We discover solutions together through questions, not by following prescriptive steps!