Project: Qantas A380

Crowd pleaser

It comes as no surprise that Qantas, consistently named in the top five of airlines in the world for its service, placed a high value on feedback from both passengers and staff to gauge the success of the project. From the A380’s maiden flight, the airline has encouraged customer feedback. Compared to other fleets, “it has been a great success, the feedback has exceeded our expectations across all classes in the aircraft,” confirms Paolella.

Additionally, as part of a post-implementation review, the organisation conducted an extensive internal survey of people who had worked on the project and integral stakeholders affected by the project in some way.

“We looked at the nine areas of project management and there were clearly some lessons learnt, things we could have done better, but overwhelmingly, the feedback was above average and we were very happy with that,” Paolella reports, adding that the lessons have since found their way into other Qantas projects.

“The A380 program is seen as benchmark for other large internal projects. The many best practices and lessons learned are being selectively applied to other projects, and also to everyday operational practices.” And some of its tools, such as status reporting, the steering group agenda and approach, the governance model, and internal communication and staff engagement methods, he adds.

Asked if he would do anything differently, Paolella nominates co-location of the project team. “Qantas is a big organisation and we’re spread out from a functional point of view, so people are in different business units, and a geographic point of view, with people in different buildings. Since this was going to impact almost every business unit, clearly getting the core team together was very important.”

Paolella did manage to overcome logistical constraints for some sub-projects, but expresses regret that his co-location objectives were never fulfilled for the entire A380 program. “That would have been useful and would have helped with our integration issues. During some of those difficult periods, having everyone together could have helped with some of the demotivating aspects of having a delay.”

Still, he says they developed a sense of integration through team sessions and a team room, as well as placing importance on celebrating internal milestones: “When things happened we tried to have a mini-celebration so that people could see things were moving forward.”

Ready to launch

Standing in the hangar at Toulouse, France, taking delivery of the first Qantas A380 was a great feeling for Paolella, and that only intensified when the aircraft reached Sydney and staff and their families witnessed the landmark moment. “You could tell it was a big deal for the people who worked on the project and the culmination of a lot of work,” he reports. “It probably only happens once a generation that you get a new aircraft type entering the fleet.”

Both the team’s efforts and the subsequent delivery of the iconic aircraft into service are an immense source of pride for Paolella. He recognises that the Qantas people who made the project a success, who “did their job with immense pride and passion”, led to the success of the A380: “Combined with Qantas’ cabin product and service offering, the A380 has redefined international travel.”