This is a summary of the book titled “Project Management Step-by-Step: How to plan and manage a highly successful project” written by Richard Newton and published by Pearson Business in 2024. The author reminds readers that a project is an undertaking with clear endpoint and while it can be as small as cooking for a dinner party to as big as launching a business, he advises on how to get it done on time and on budget. The skill is both significant and worthwhile for people starting out on their professional journey and comes in all-the-handier as projects grow in size and complexity. Projects emerge in stages and with multiple dimensions including scope, quality and risk. Someone with this skill should know everything that the project seeks to achieve. So, working backwards from the objective and coming up with a clear project definition and project plan is helpful. Continuously monitoring the progress at every stage of the project, and completing the fit and finish at the end are good practice. Stakeholders and customers must be made aware of the deliverables and the project manager must remain flexible in how to get there.

Project management is essential for those starting professional careers, as it involves a series of stages and multiple dimensions, including scope, quality, and risk. A specialized approach is necessary for complex projects, such as launching a rocket or a company. Projects typically go through at least five stages: Project Definition, Project Plan, Execution, Checking Deliverables, and Closing Down. A project manager must state the project's scope and target, work with their team to fulfill goals, and determine acceptable risk levels. They must also understand standard details like completion time, staff and materials requirements, and costs. A specialized approach is necessary for complex projects with high stakes, as countless details can go wrong.

Project managers must understand the purpose and goals of their projects to ensure successful completion within financial and time constraints. They should ask simple, structured questions to understand the project's "why" and "what." They should also consider potential conflicts with other ongoing projects and potential stumbling blocks. Client-driven constraints like time and budget should be considered, and a broader definition should be agreed upon. Project managers must communicate with clients to ensure they understand the potential implications of changing plans.

A clear Project Definition and Project Plan are essential for project managers, outlining the project's purpose, responsibilities, and potential timelines. A Project Plan outlines the necessary work, tasks, and resources needed to complete the project. Estimating the time each task takes is a challenging aspect of formulating a project plan, but it is essential to estimate the time each task typically absorbs. Consultation with experienced individuals or comparing tasks with existing time frames can help clarify the process.

Project managers must stay actively involved throughout a project's life cycle to ensure it is completed on time and on budget. A solid Project Plan should allocate resources and provide leadership to move the project forward. A project manager's primary daily task is to manage and measure progress according to the Project Plan. Regularly assess progress, monitor budget allocation, and anticipate repercussions of running over budget.

Successful projects end with all loose ends tied up, and the Project Plan should include completion time, details, and expenses. The project manager is responsible for the project's final deliverables, and they must test them themselves to ensure they function as expected and meet the client's needs.

After completing a project, continue to support the client and stay updated on how the current project operates to learn how to perform even better on the next project.

To ensure customer satisfaction and high-quality standards, it is essential to test and integrate deliverables. Integration is a separate task that requires time and resources and should be included in the project plan. It is crucial to line up with people who can handle the integration process. Once the deliverables are complete, they need to function in the project's targeted environment. Change management issues must be addressed, and employees must be trained to demonstrate that the new deliverables will work for them. Project management is dynamic, and quality managers should stay open to alternative approaches. Agile project management, for example, focuses on experimentation and continuous improvement. A daily stand-up is a common practice in many organizations, where team members report on their progress, plans, and challenges. This helps team members help each other in a timely manner, leading to a productive agile project team.

#Codingexercise: tilesandfloor.docx

 This is a summary of the book titled “From pessimism to promise” written by Payal Arora and published by MIT Press in 2024. The author is a digital anthropologist who reconciles diverse take on the digital future where the Global South are eager for it and the West is mostly apprehensive. Western policymakers are focused on breaking up large tech companies and regulate AI and social media. She contends that AI design should focus on relationships and how people can develop technology for positive ends. She asks us to imagine the possibilities of a creative economy that engages young people, especially when these technologies encourage pleasure and intimacy. It can be used for surveillance in a police state but can also be used to care for others. And it could support a green economy. In fact, AI cannot stand apart from the physical multicultural world. We must just design AI such that it avoids the Global South’s colonial past.

Western users have negative attitudes towards digital technologies, viewing platforms as traps and algorithms as manipulative. This has led to a "pessimism paralysis" where Westerners are more likely to accept the status quo than try to change it. However, young people in the Global South, including China and India, see digital culture as a source of joy, inspiration, and liberation. Nearly 90% of youth worldwide live in the Global South, and they are optimistic about the future and eager to use digital platforms to change their lives and the world. AI design should focus on relationships and how people can develop technology for positive ends, rather than grandiose plans to "save the world." Tech designers should focus on the relationships between real people, concrete circumstances, and actionable policies, rather than looking at things in black-and-white or binary ways. The real world is messy, and technology that will benefit humans in their daily lives requires designing with the on-the-ground contexts and experiences of users in mind.

The concept of the "creative class" has evolved, with the next big movement in digital culture and the creative economy likely coming from the tens of millions of young people in the Global South. These young people, weighed down by social and political pressures, are eager to define their digital futures and are looking to their people as creative assets, legitimate markets, and content partners. Social media apps like TikTok and Bigo have thrived in the Global South due to their focus on the poor and marginalized, allowing them to gain greater visibility and engage in the creative economy.

Digital technologies should be designed to encourage pleasure and intimacy, as 35% of internet downloads are connected to pornography, with one-third of the porn-viewing audience being women. In countries where open discussion of sex and sexuality is taboo, young people often turn to digital pornography as a form of sex education. Countries in the Global South, like India, are proactive in controlling access to online sexual content, but NGOs have embraced social media campaigns and apps to broaden access to sex education.

Digital innovators are exploring ways for young people to build ties online that prioritize romance and relationships over sex. Platforms like Soulgate and FRND aim to create an open, pleasurable, and safe environment for young people to connect. Digital technologies can be used for surveillance in a police state, but they can also be used to care for others. A surveillance system of care that moves away from watching each other as a form of policing to watching over one another as a form of recognition and compassion is needed to rebuild social trust.

Design AI in ways that support a green economy is crucial for promoting environmental and social goals. Over half of a product's environmental impact is shaped by decisions made at the design phase. Indigenous communities in the Global South have developed four categories of design approaches: frugality, collectivity, subsistence, and repair. These approaches focus on reimagining power relations, valuing diversity, and repurposing existing structures.

AI cannot stand apart from the physical, multicultural world, as it is a human activity that is incorporated into people's lives. To promote sustainable, green design, it is essential to evaluate the material costs of incorporating AI and digital automation into human life. The digital future must promote the health of the environment and human societies, and companies, entrepreneurs, and designers must adopt a multicultural and multilingual approach.

AI design must move past the colonial past and "decolonize" AI and its datasets and algorithms. Businesses and institutions must not only state moral and political principles but also work towards a more inclusive and equitable digital culture.

 Air-borne UAV swarm prefers formation in many cases. There are several factors that play into this but primarily a formation ensures all fleet units go through the waypoints with minimal overhead and computation as long as constraints permit. They reach a common objective together and complete the main mission in the most energy efficient manner and with high throughput. Formation also provides mutual protection, enhanced defense and support against threats. Communication and co-ordination, although not cheap, ensures that all units are easily accounted for and their telemetry indicates continuous progress for everyone. There is efficient use of resources like fuel or battery power and some of the drones internal to the formation can conserve their sensors.

Conversely, when they break up it is most likely that no size for the formation is tolerated by the constraints of the landscape. For example, flying under a bridge with an absolute restriction on the height forces the formation to fly one-by-one through the space under the bridge. The transformation from the formation to a queue of solo flying units and subsequent regrouping can be both easy and smooth in anticipation of the constraint and its subsequent relaxation after the constraint is overcome. These tactical manoeuvres are part of the constraints and thresholds based decisions. Similarly, splitting of a few units from the formation to parallelize the throughput across multiple arches of bridges is also possible just as much as wind and weather conditions might dictate making it safe to fly one unit at a time through one arch. The overall adherence to the trajectory is not sacrificed and the splitting of a fraction of the UAV swarm provides more sensor information via scouting. Equipment malfunctions also might cause the units to break from formation and regroup when permissible.

A previous article described the formation of a UAV swarm when aligning to a point, line and plane. While the shape formations in these cases are known, the size depends on the number of units in the formation, the minimum distance between units, the presence of external infringements and constraints and the margin required to maintain from such constraints. The article also described the ability to distribute drones to spread as close to the constraints using self-organizing maps which is essentially drawing each unit to the nearest real-world element that imposes a constraint. This establishes the maximum boundaries for the space that the UAV swarm occupies with the core being provided by the point, line, or plane that the units must align to. Given the minimum-maximum combination and the various thresholds for the factors cited, the size of the shape for the UAV swarm at a point of time can be determined.

#Codingexercise: Codingexercise-02-06-2025

Friends of appropriate ages:

There are n persons on a social media website. You are given an integer array ages where ages[i] is the age of the ith person.

A Person x will not send a friend request to a person y (x != y) if any of the following conditions is true:

• age[y] <= 0.5 * age[x] + 7

• age[y] > age[x]

• age[y] > 100 && age[x] < 100

Otherwise, x will send a friend request to y.

Note that if x sends a request to y, y will not necessarily send a request to x. Also, a person will not send a friend request to themself.

Return the total number of friend requests made.

Example 1:

Input: ages = [16,16]

Output: 2

Explanation: 2 people friend request each other.

Example 2:

Input: ages = [16,17,18]

Output: 2

Explanation: Friend requests are made 17 -> 16, 18 -> 17.

Example 3:

Input: ages = [20,30,100,110,120]

Output: 3

Explanation: Friend requests are made 110 -> 100, 120 -> 110, 120 -> 100.

Constraints:

• n == ages.length

• 1 <= n <= 2 * 104

• 1 <= ages[i] <= 120

class Solution {

    public int numFriendRequests(int[] ages) {

        int[][] requests = new int[ages.length][ages.length];

        for (int i = 0; i < ages.length; i++) {

            for (int j = 0; j < ages.length; j++){

                requests[i][j] = 0;

            }

        }

        int sum = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < ages.length; i++) {

            for (int j = 0; j < ages.length; j++){

                if (i == j) continue;

                if (ages[j] <= 0.5 * ages[i] + 7) continue;

                if (ages[j] > ages[i]) continue;

                if (ages[j] > 100 && ages[i] < 100) continue;

                requests[i][j] = 1;

                sum += 1;

            }

        }

        return sum;

    }

}

 This is a summary of the book titled “Valley Girls: Lessons From Female Founders in the Silicon Valley and Beyond” written by Kelley Steven-Waiss and published by Forbes Books in 2024. The author is an HR executive and entrepreneur who investigates why women founders tend to do more to secure investors and gain respect and recognition than their male counterparts. Having been there and faced that, she proposes an abundance mindset instead and team-oriented play which she draws from other female founders. In this book, the old playbooks and establishment myths are torn apart and women’s superpowers are tapped into. “Intrapreneurship” is recommended and suggestions are made to observe the “pattern-match” that male investors are drawn to. Women’s unique skills and women founders’ advocacy groups are not realized to their full potential. Powerful women must stand by their promises.

More women are graduating from universities in various disciplines, and their presence in the professional workforce is increasing. This means that female founders launching tech start-ups must embrace reality to dispel myths about their traits. Historically, men have dominated the field, and venture capitalists remain reluctant to invest in companies founded by women. However, women are well-suited to entrepreneurship as they are cooperative dolphins, nurture allies, are made, creative, and manage risk. Human resources executives should offer opportunities to challenge and engage their staff, such as access to assignments and projects that suit their skills and goals. Women entrepreneurs have hidden superpowers that grant them advantages, such as a collaboration mindset, leading from values and purpose, seeing value in teamwork, and identifying the win-win mindset. To persevere, women need a great team, nurture their input, share wealth, and invest in their future.

Intrapreneurship is a strategy that allows entrepreneurs to experiment with another organization's money and network, overcoming the lone-wolf stereotype among male entrepreneurs. This approach is particularly beneficial for women who struggle to attract venture capital, as it allows them to experiment with other organizations' resources and networks. For example, Steven-Waiss, a former chief human resources officer (CHRO), collaborated with HERE Technologies to launch her start-up, Hitch, which provided her with a lab, expertise, technology, and a large client base.

However, obstacles to women's success include a toxic culture and leaders who resist change. To overcome these, women should remain authentic and demonstrate a win-win abundance mindset. To pitch, women should learn how to pitch and tap into their network of friends and investors. Despite knowing the statistics, only 3% of US business owners receive venture capital, and only 17.2% have a man on their team.

Women investors often lack the experience and power to make big investment decisions in venture capital (VC) firms, as they are often junior staff members hired to fulfill diversity requirements. The top VC echelon is overwhelmingly male, and general partners often need 10 years of proven ROI success to advance within VC firms. Female VCs may not always prioritize the best interests of female founders, and companies that raise initial funding exclusively from female VCs are two times less likely to receive funding from male VC partners in the second round of financing. During the COVID pandemic, businesses struggled to adapt to volatile situations and remote work models, affecting both start-ups and female founders. Female founders may find greater success if they seek VC funding first from male investors. As women chart their course in leadership roles, their unique skills may find more appreciation and respect. Women executives have exceptional knowledge and expertise, but men tend to discount them as entrepreneurs due to their lack of a male CEO's profile.

Powerful women must stand by their promises and support one another to change the business world. Boards of directors prioritize financial skills over people skills, but change can be achieved by promoting mutual support and investment among female tech entrepreneurs. Three tech-industry female founders helped Hitch founder, Steven-Waiss, during the acquisition process, aiming to optimize workforces and earn back investment. ServiceNow hired Steven-Waiss to run Hitch, and she finds gratification in the results and the ability to earn and promote mutual support among female technology entrepreneurs.

#Codingexercise: Codingexercise-02-03-2025

 Friends of appropriate ages:

There are n persons on a social media website. You are given an integer array ages where ages[i] is the age of the ith person.

A Person x will not send a friend request to a person y (x != y) if any of the following conditions is true:

• age[y] <= 0.5 * age[x] + 7

• age[y] > age[x]

• age[y] > 100 && age[x] < 100

Otherwise, x will send a friend request to y.

Note that if x sends a request to y, y will not necessarily send a request to x. Also, a person will not send a friend request to themself.

Return the total number of friend requests made.

Example 1:

Input: ages = [16,16]

Output: 2

Explanation: 2 people friend request each other.

Example 2:

Input: ages = [16,17,18]

Output: 2

Explanation: Friend requests are made 17 -> 16, 18 -> 17.

Example 3:

Input: ages = [20,30,100,110,120]

Output: 3

Explanation: Friend requests are made 110 -> 100, 120 -> 110, 120 -> 100.

Constraints:

• n == ages.length

• 1 <= n <= 2 * 104

• 1 <= ages[i] <= 120

class Solution {

    public int numFriendRequests(int[] ages) {

        int[][] requests = new int[ages.length][ages.length];

        for (int i = 0; i < ages.length; i++) {

            for (int j = 0; j < ages.length; j++){

                requests[i][j] = 0;

            }

        }

        int sum = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < ages.length; i++) {

            for (int j = 0; j < ages.length; j++){

                if (i == j) continue;

                if (ages[j] <= 0.5 * ages[i] + 7) continue;

                if (ages[j] > ages[i]) continue;

                if (ages[j] > 100 && ages[i] < 100) continue;

                requests[i][j] = 1;

                sum += 1;

            }

        }

        return sum;

    }

}

 

How AI influences DevSecOps?

DevSecOps professionals have Artificial Intelligence (AI), security and automation as top priorities in most organizations. Both resources and data are veritable assets for guarding actions by actors and the degree to which an organization is invested in either determine the fine-tuning of the allocations within the pie-chart of priorities for these professionals. Most would use Agile methodologies to improve and secure their assets. AI would follow that in the list as it is still catching up on Software Development Lifecycle. Organizations realize that it is essential to adopt AI to avoid falling behind. The key challenges they face are security, safety, and experience. Others include privacy and data security, the right set of AI tools, upskilling requirements, and concerns about vulnerabilities. Although these challenges are not new, what makes it difficult for DevSecOps professionals, as cited in industry reports from reputed sources, is the low turnover in their population combined with a tendency to ramp up gradually. As such this discipline has room for improvement when compared to software development in customer-facing products.

DevSecOps are eager to adopt the Generative AI for its transformative potential. Many cite use cases in forecasting productivity metrics, identifying anomalies, vulnerabilities explanations and remediations, and chatbots for interactions. Machine data including telemetry unlike sensitive data like Personally identifiable information, are both voluminous and difficult to search without friendly operators and curated queries. As products, solutions and services for this data make AI more built-in to their offerings, the integration becomes even more complex than it was earlier, not to mention the eccentricities, nuances, and defects to overcome. Consequently, some in-house solutions to directly explore the data and respond to typical queries for preliminary investigation report comes in handy.

Most of the code for automation comes from open-source software libraries. Capabilities like a software bill-of-materials aka SBOM – a list of all the components, libraries and modules that make up an application are essential for maintaining the security of the software supply chain, especially as the amount of code pulled from open-source libraries increases. Unfortunately, SBOMs aren’t maintained as code sprawls the landscape. When it comes to hosting and executing logic in containers for scaling on demand, many fail to guard against their programmability interfaces such as web APIs by mitigating OWASP threats with request-parameter inspections and web-application firewalls. Dynamic application security testing, and fault injections-based testing are also insufficient. There has always been a cultural gap around security with DevSecOps professional often depending on development teams to resolve vulnerabilities defects. Many don’t even have the proper role-based access control.

A further list of AI safety and security practices is also available which puts the efforts required from DevSecOps professionals in perspective.

Reference: previous articles