About John Maher

Hi, I’m John Maher. I’ve been bumping around the planet for about 60 years, 30 of them working with software and technology-related organizations.Throughout my career, I’ve been characterized by two phrases: “catalyst” and “safe harbor”. Although they originated with someone else, I have to admit that the two phrases pretty well reflect my overall approach to making and managing change. I’ve been a change agent for nearly 35 years, in a variety of venues, from education to medical technology, to air and space technology, to financial institutions.

I was lucky enough to be in on the ground floor with the development of the CMM for Software and all the subsequent models at the Software Engineering Institute. I think it was a result of not ducking when early SEI clients came back from a process assessment screaming, “Help us get better, please!” As a result of our early work in implementing improvement the SEI’s IDEAL model was developed to describe how to change large monolithic organizations.

Meanwhile, in my other life at the SEI, I had the chance to build and manage the SEI’s organization change management consulting practice. The training that came from that venture included Managing Technological Change, Consulting Skills Workshop, and Team Training. These were all based on solid implementation strategies that we had adopted, developed, tried out, and translated for use in high-technology organizations (i.e., technical folks who are mighty suspicious of social scientists and management types). I was tapped to help the SEI redesign itself 1994, and then focused on implementation for the next three years in my role as Quality Director.

I left full-time work for the SEI in late 1997, and am now in private practice in a New York suburb. From time to time, I still get called by the SEI on to help senior management teams come to grips with the leadership issues in process improvement, as well as to lead assessments and conduct occasional training in CMMI. All this on top of my full-time job, which is consulting.

I specialize in implementation: helping clients master the art of crafting business improvements within their own context, including shifting the work culture, creating more effective management approaches, and implementing cross-functional organizational alignment. My focus ranges from small-scale team-based improvement to company-wide efforts and transformation of organizations. I also coach executives, managers, and teams to get the most effective outcomes they can.

So far, I have over 35 years of training experience and nearly 30 years of experience implementing improvement in organizations.