Inside Virgin Blue’s IT transformation

Inheriting an aging infrastructure that was being stretched to the limit posed a technical challenge for Harvey and his staff, but his bigger challenge was arguably transforming the culture of the IT department itself.

Even before the transformation could take place, Harvey battled against internal perceptions to secure funding for the required changes.

"The culture in IT was that we'd never get the amount we asked for because we were a low cost airline, but we got some quick wins down and that helped," Harvey said.

Harvey was also keen to change the perception that the IT team had to do everything in-house. He acknowledged that "everyone was doing an amazing job" keeping things together but that it wasn't a sustainable approach in the long-term.

"We had to stop doing things that others could do for us," he said.

"That's a very difficult message to take to a young team who think they're invincible and say they can build things faster than a third-party - and probably can.

"We spent a lot of time with the people we thought could help us add value in the longer term, worked out what their career drivers were and their aspirations.

"One thing that played into our hands was that a lot of them are getting engaged or married and have young families. They were already getting tired and the thought of jumping out of bed at 3am to fix something isn't that appealing. Work-life balance was a big play for us."

Harvey also formalised project management and "made it a recognised discipline" in the business by employing a German project manager. Harvey described him as one of the most process-driven people he had ever met - and someone that was immediately at odds with Virgin Blue's free-flowing organisational culture.

"A lot of my executive team had a lot of trouble with this guy at the start, but now they all sit on a portfolio committee prioritising projects using a single tool that he managed to drive in the first 12 months," Harvey said.

"In some cases you just have to ride out the criticism."

Harvey himself was also forced to make some tough decisions within months of coming on board.

"When I interviewed [for the role, Virgin Blue] was two years into replacing its reservation system which, for an airline, is a bit like open heart surgery," Harvey said.

The system had been earmarked to be completed when Harvey came on board, but when he arrived it was still incomplete.

"We aborted that project within three months," Harvey said. "It was a hard decision because I didn't have the full context of the project."