Our History
Kelly Sears Consulting Group was co-founded by Michael Kelly and Garry Sears, who had been long-time partners with KPMG Consulting in Ottawa.
Kelly Sears Consulting Group was federally incorporated in December 2001. In the first few years, the firm specialized in “management diagnostics”. This stemmed from the experience of Michael Kelly who, in the late 1990's, while with KPMG, developed the "Capacity Check" diagnostic methodology in partnership with Treasury Board Secretariat. This tool enabled organizations to assess their capabilities in each of some 33 management practices (e.g., leadership, planning, performance measurement, risk management, information management, external reporting). The tool was subsequently used in over 90 federal departments and agencies, under the Modern Management/Modern Comptrollership initiative, which evolved into the Management Accountability Framework (MAF). Today, Kelly Sears continues to support federal organizations in carrying out their MAF assessments and developing the resulting action plans.
Kelly Sears also specializes in the conduct of expenditure reviews, evaluation studies, strategic/business planning, and the development of performance measurement frameworks. As federal departments and agencies have faced increasing pressure to reduce expenditures and increase efficiency, Kelly Sears has undertaken a number of assignments to help departments to identify cost savings, using a well proven capacity assessment methodology and expenditure review checklist. Driven by a consultative approach that provides for extensive employee input, we prepare baseline assessments for specific functional areas based on benchmark information and conduct an in-depth evaluation of opportunities.
Kelly Sears also continues to be active with the small agency community in facilitating their strategic and business planning, and supporting their performance measurement and reporting.
Finally, evaluation remains a core business of Kelly Sears. We have particular expertise in the cultural sector, having conducted many large-scale evaluation studies for such organizations as the Department of Canadian Heritage. Garry Sears has conducted over 100 evaluation studies during his consulting career.