Business organizations are highly successful at delivering 'business as usual'; the day-to-day tasks of managing customer transactions, marketing and production activities, and motivating employees. But there is a growing requirement for such organizations also to deliver business change projects successfully. 'Business as usual organizations' represent a particularly challenging environment for achieving this because of the fundamentally different mindset and culture required to deliver projects in this context. Tim Carroll's book provides an authoritative guide to improving project delivery in such organizations by: ¢ building a project management capability and culture that is appropriate to BAU organizations; ¢ aligning projects more closely with the strategic agenda of the organization, through the use of programmes; ¢ using portfolio management to improve this alignment and ensure the effectiveness of project investments; ¢ demonstrating the business context for projects and their contribution to the organization's agenda of strategic change. The author argues convincingly that project management hasn't travelled well from its traditional roots in construction and engineering to business-as-usual organizations. New approaches are called for, in particular to embed project delivery capabilities more deeply within the organization rather than treat it as a specialist discipline. This is a 'must-read' book to help managers responsible for strategy and change in all business-as-usual organizations (such as banks, insurance, business and consumer service companies, hospitals, local and national government) to realize the value that project management can bring to the long-term development of their organization.

Tim Carroll is a Programme Director at Standard Chartered Bank. Tim has 30 years of industry experience, the vast majority directly involved with the delivery of large and complex projects. In recent years he has focused on the delivery of business-change projects and on building project management competencies within organizations. He has a master's degree in project management.

1: Introduction; 2: Business-as-Usual Organizations; 3: Building the Organization's Project Delivery Capability; 4: Projects as Agents of Strategic Change - Programme Management; 5: Projects as Agents of Strategic Change - Portfolio Management; 6: Conclusions