Life with a contrarian is always stimulating, but it comes with conflict, says Sternberg. Being a contrarian can be rewarding, but it is often a risky strategy that may take a long period. In our discussion with Tom and Mary, we discussed “What contrarian means”. Mary shared her experiences and also some concepts from her book. She threw some focus on Upstream and Downstream.Tom spoke about the Mental models and he said there is nothing as Perfect Mental Model and also about Contrarian as a Model.
We discussed various aspects of being skeptical in Agile and Lean Environments. Mary said we can never say it isn’t about best practices and doing something different. Tom says it is all about Performance Improvement, Autonomy and Deadlines. Mary and Tom highlighted on Teams being Autonomous, Innovation and constraints. Both of them spoke in-detail about, Inverted U-Curve and alot more.
Interviewee: Tom Poppendieck and Mary Poppendieck
Mary Poppendieck started her career as a process control programmer, moved on to manage the IT department of a manufacturing plant, and then ended up in product development, where she was both a product champion and department manager.
Tom Poppendieck has 25 years of experience in computing including eight years of work with object technology. His modeling and mentoring skills are rooted in his experience as a physics professor. His early work was in IT infrastructure, product development, and manufacturing support, and evolved to consulting project assignments in healthcare, logistics, mortgage banking, and travel services.
Interviewer: Noopur Pathak (Chief Media Editor, INNOVATION ROOTS)