In 1988 Tom Devane left Big Six Consulting to start his own firm, dedicated to building internal client capabilities for High-Performance and continual improvement. Prior to that he worked for Accenture, Tosco Corporation and Coopers & Lybrand. He founded his own firm in response to numerous client comments that they would prefer external consultants to train internal client personnel in best practices in performance improvement, instead of having senior consultants train junior consultants and then leave without having built any internal client capabilities. (In many cases, external consulting firms just come in to solve a particular problem, and then leave. This is definitely beneficial in some instances. However, for areas such as continual performance improvement, collaborative methods, and organizational transformation, Tom Devane & Associates believes it is best if clients build internal capabilities.)

Tom Devane has worked with a variety of clients in different industries in both the public and private sector. Representative clients include Microsoft, AT&T, StorageTek, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, the U. S. Forest Service, and the government of South Africa.

Tom has spoken at conferences for the American Management Association (AMA), LINKAGE, the Institute for Quality and Productivity (IQP), the Health Industry Distribution Association (HIDA), the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), the Organization Development Network, the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS), the Institute for International Research (IIR), the International Society for Performance & Instruction (ISPI), and the Association for Descriptive Psychology.

Tom's newest book is Integrating Lean Six Sigma and High-Performance Organizations: Leading the Charge Toward Dramatic, Rapid and Sustainable Improvement (Pfeiffer/A Wiley Imprint, 2004, ISBN: 0-7879-6973-7, $45.00) can be ordered on amazon.com. It offers the principles, tools, and guidance you need to solve common problems and create an environment that fosters high-performance. It is available both paperback and electronic formats. An overview of the book and reviews can be found by clicking on either format. He is also co-author and technical editor of The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future, a collection of collaborative methods that systematically involve groups of people to improve performance (for an overview and for reader reviews of The Change Handbook see amazon.com at click here.) In addition, Tom has been published by McGraw-Hill and Jossey-Bass on the topics of team-based strategic planning, designing high-performance organizations, organizational transformation, and integrating strategy, business processes, people, and technology. He has authored articles in Executive Excellence Magazine on the ten cardinal sins of strategic planning and what senior leaders need to do when implementing technology-based initiatives such as SAP, Oracle, and Documentum.

Tom also stays active in the academic environment. He is an adjunct faculty member and guest lecturer at Cornell University, the Daniels College of Business, and Sonoma State University. He is a four-time recipient of the Diamond Award for Teaching Excellence at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver for his work in the Executive MBA program.