Mary Poppendieck is a seasoned leader in operations and product development with more than thirty years of IT experience. She has led teams implementing solutions ranging from enterprise supply chain management to digital media, and built one of 3M's first Just-in-Time Lean production systems. Mary is the president of Poppendieck LLC, which specializes in bringing Lean techniques to software development.

Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst, architect, and agile process mentor with more than twenty-five years of experience developing and implementing complex systems. He currently assists organizations in applying Lean principles and tools to software development processes.