Converge Consulting Group Background

Converge Consulting Group Inc. (Converge) applies system thinking in bringing people, process, and performance together to achieve results. We are a boutique consulting practice with a reputation for excellence and an ability to handle the most challenging of projects.

Based in Calgary, Converge has had 20 years of continuous operation, originally as the Gerst McLean Group Inc. and later as Converge Consulting Group Inc. The two founding partners are and remain:

• Shelley McLean – President. Shelley leads the Change Management & Leadership Development practice. She is the founder of the Practitioner of Change (PoC) learning journey and author of the PoCKit Guide to Experiential Learning.
• The late Robert Gerst – Vice President. Bob led the Operational Excellence and Research Methods practice areas and is the author of The Performance Improvement Toolkit: The Guide to Knowledge-Based Improvement.

Converge also has three employees who support the business and they are:

• Jonathan White – Operational Excellence & Research Practice Leader. Jon heads up the Operational Excellence & Research Team and has been with Converge for over 10 years.
• Dave Marcial – Research Coordinator / Data Scientist. Dave has been with Converge for over 5 years and plays an integral role in the Operational Excellence & Research Team.
• Kurt Briggs – Project / Office Manager. Kurt has been with Converge for over 5 years and plays a large role in managing Converge’s ongoing projects largely in the Change Management & Leadership Development space.

Converge is dedicated to the application of systems thinking to the problems and opportunities of our clients. We engage in:

• operational excellence, improving process and organizational performance through technologies such as Lean, Lean Six Sigma, Performance Measurement & Analysis(Process Physics), Improvement Science  and Evolutionary Operations.
• customer and employee analytic research using Voice of the Customer (VoC) and Voice of the Employee (VoE) to identify real and practical improvement opportunities,
• policy and program research emphasizing knowledge-based methods and statistical science in the measurement and analysis of results.
• community & stakeholder engagement processes providing people with a real opportunities for change,
• strategic and operational planning using hoshin (management by policy) to manage large, complex system planning and change projects,
• change management, including our Practitioner of Change program

reputation for excellence

Our reputation for excellence is recognized by such independent sources as:

Quality Digest Magazine recognizing The Performance Improvement Toolkit (PiT), as Quality Product of the Year, 2004 and selected by SPC Press as one of the 11 Recommended Books on Quality. At over 800 pages, the PiT is one of the most exhaustive authoritative sources on performance measurement, analysis and improvement.

The International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management recognition of the Converge approach to designing public services as a Global Best Practice as described in the article Large Scale System Change using QFD. The paper details the way to properly measure the performance of public services and use that information for driving redesign.

Industry Canada Advanced Manufacturing recognizing Converge as a Lean Enterprise Advisor, the first such recognition for any consulting firm operating in western Canada.

converge partial client list

We provide consulting support to manufacturing, mining, healthcare, public sector, finance and service industry clients in Europe, the United States, Australia and Canada including: