Ethann Castell
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Toptal member since April 21, 2020
Ethann is an Agile coach and Atlassian specialist with 20+ years delivering transformation across the Australian government, enterprise, and education sectors. Recently, he's led a 7-month Jira redesign for Queensland DPI (42+ teams, 300+ projects), coached BP's distributed teams to achieve 65% time/cost savings, and designed Agile operating models for organizations of 900–1,200 people. He is a published author of two Agile books, an ICAgile Authorized Instructor, and a SAFe Practice Consultant.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Agile Coaching
- Business Analysis
- Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
- Delivery
- Design Thinking
- Jira
- Remote Team Leadership
Work Experience
Senior Trainer
cPrime
- Delivered the ICAgile Agile Fundamentals and Product Ownership courses publicly and in-house across Australia and internationally, consistently achieving NPS scores of up to +70.
- Delivered a bespoke Ways of Working program to around 250 participants across China, ANZ, and Asia-Pacific for FNZ, covering org design, roles, and end-to-end value flow.
- Conducted Jira training for clients, including Barclays (UK), the Australian Department of Defence, and an Australian superannuation fund.
Independent Consultant - Agile & Atlassian Specialist
WorkLabs
- Redesigned Jira across 42 teams and 300+ projects for a government department, standardizing architecture and workflows to enable executive-level reporting for the first time.
- Built a Twilio–Jira Service Management integration automating call triage with AI transcriptions — live and maintained for 12+ months.
- Coached a first-time PO and SM from baseline to confident practice across a globally distributed team spanning the UK, Europe, Asia, and ANZ.
Online Course Facilitator - Business Innovation & Agile
RMIT University
- Facilitated postgraduate and undergraduate business and innovation subjects online, supporting cohorts of around 30 students across 6–10 week courses with three assessments each.
- Delivered five distinct subjects spanning Product Innovation, Design Thinking, Digital Leadership, and Agile — across both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
- Monitored student progress proactively, identifying at-risk students early and implementing support strategies to maintain engagement and outcomes.
Enterprise Agile Coach
Accenture
- Coached a BP senior leadership team to deliver a business-critical EV strategy using Agile methods — recognized by BP's President as the best example of Agile ways of working he had seen, delivering a 65% time/cost saving.
- Developed a bespoke Agile Mindset training program deployed across the global workforce of 70,000+ people, based on my published book.
- Conducted an Agile audit of Scrum implementation for a Japanese financial giant, delivering 107 documented improvement recommendations across the organization.
Enterprise Agile Coach
Western Sydney University
- Guided 7 teams from novice-level to Agile-proficiency within 4 months through a tailored program of coaching, training, and mentoring.
- Educated 40 executives and managers in a 2-day SAFe training course, resulting in an over 80% pass rate across the group in the SAFe certification exam.
- Launched an Agile Community of Practice to improve Agile skills and knowledge across the broader organization continually.
PMO Lead
SVDP
- Delivered 17 Agile projects on time and within budget across digital, cloud, and web domains to improve business capabilities and customer responsiveness.
- Cultivated an Agile portfolio of 15+ concurrent projects to deliver ongoing business value to the society's 20,000-strong user base.
- Constructed a cohesive Agile PMO team from scratch by recruiting top talent, forming a robust social contract, and practicing true servant-leadership.
- Embedded design thinking into all application development projects through facilitating 2 IDEO U training sessions and ongoing coaching.
- Introduced fortnightly Agile governance and reporting, providing visibility and transparency of the portfolio at the executive level.
Project History
Domino Synchronizer for a SuperOffice CRM
Led a remote team to deliver a real-time synchronizer (commercial product) which was sold to 100 European organizations. IBM had declined the project labeling it as"too difficult," but our success proved them wrong.
This project started as a “mission impossible” type of situation.
Although containing IBM technology, IBM and several of their leading global business partners, all declined the project because it was “unachievable.”
Never one to give up so quickly, I identified five potential stumbling blocks for the project, key tech risks which none of the global experts we contacted could confirm were technically possible to achieve.
Leading a remote team based in Europe, we developed a proof of concept that verified all five of the technical risks could be overcome. After demonstrating this to the executive team, we secured funding to develop the full product.
Synchronizing calendar info sounds deceptively easy, but connecting repeating appointments between systems with almost incompatible data models presented a nearly endless supply of challenges.
Collaboration and rapid experimentation were the keys to our success as I led the remote team to iteratively overcome these challenges and develop product features in two-week sprint cycles over the next ten months.
The results were outstanding: a fully functional off-the-shelf product that was eventually deployed to over 100 organizations and supported thousands of users.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree in Business
Macquarie Graduate School of Management - Sydney, Australia
Certifications
Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (ATE40116)
HBA Learning Centres
Foundations in Design Thinking
IDEO U
Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Certified Scrum Professional (CSP)
Scrum Alliance
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
Project Management Institute
Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
Scrum Alliance
Six Sigma Green Belt
6Sigmastudy
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute
Professional Scrum Master I
Scrum.org
Skills
Tools
Jira, Trello, Office 365, Visio, Canva, Zoom, Slack, Canvas, Skype, Google Hangouts, Lotus Notes, Lotus Domino, Google Docs, Microsoft Project, SQL, TeamViewer, IBM Rational ClearQuest, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Confluence, Microsoft Excel, Assembla, Basecamp, Balsamiq, Balsamiq Mockups, Google Workspace, Google Analytics, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Yammer, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft OneNote, Visual Basic, Visual Studio .NET, Big Room Planning, Miro, MURAL
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Agile Delivery, Agile Project Management, Servant Leadership, Agile Leadership, Design Thinking, Kanban, XP, Agile Software Development, Iterative Development, Planning Poker, DevOps, Team Development, Waterfall Delivery, Six Sigma, Testing, Azure DevOps, Object-oriented Design (OOD), PMBOK, Requirements Analysis, Software Testing, Iterative Delivery, Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Agile Workflow, Agile UX, Waterfall Development, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Acceptance Testing, Lean, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Test-driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI)
Industry Expertise
Telecommunications, Higher Education, Nonprofits, Insurance, Banking & Finance, Government, State Government
Platforms
WordPress, Drupal, WebSphere, SharePoint 365, SharePoint, Android, iOS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Twilio
Other
Scrum Master, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Agile Sprints, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Agile Certified Practitioner, Certified Scrum Professional, PSM-1, Remote Team Leadership, Remote Work, Delivery, Project Delivery, Projects, IT Projects, IT Project Management, Thought Leadership, User Stories, Sprint Ceremonies, Sprint Planning, Sprints, Brainstorming, Creative Thinking, Backlog Grooming, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Backlog Management, Retrospective Techniques, Agile Coaching, Scrum Coaching, Project Management Professional (PMP), Business Analysis, IT Business Analysis, Business Process Analysis, Teams, Microsoft Teams, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Cross-functional Collaboration, Coaching, Agile Transformation, Software Development, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Startups, Consulting, Story Mapping, IT Program Management, Leadership, Team Leadership, Business Agility, ICT Training, Employee Training, Project Leadership, Project Planning, Project Reporting, Project Design, Agile Program Management, Project Management, Software Project Management, Mobile/Web Project Management, Digital, Digital Project Management, Technical Project Management, Team Management, Team Mentoring, Offshore Team Management, Distributed Team Management, Multi-functional Teams, Global Team Management, Stakeholder Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Recruiting, IT Recruitment, Cloud, Critical Thinking, Cross-cultural Communication, Cross-cultural Management, Teamwork, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), User Requirements, Business Requirements, Requirements, Requirements & Specifications, Functional Requirements, System Requirements, Workshops, Workshop Facilitation, Training Workshops, Data Conversion, Offshoring, Team Building, Migration, Migration Planning, Data Migration, Mentorship & Coaching, Project Rescue, Web Platforms, Training & Training Content Development, RESTful Development, Training, C++, Java, Extreme Programming, APIs, Mobile Apps, Websites, Finance, Lean Startups, Education, Discovery, Discovery Workshops, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), Charity, .NET, Project Discovery, Programming, Solution Architecture, Six Sigma Yellow Belt, Business Processes, Business Process Flow Diagrams, Business Plan Consulting, Request for Information (RFI), RFQ, Business Planning, JavaScript, Project Tracking, Frameworks, Documentation, Technical Documentation, Writing & Editing, Blogging, Blog Posting, Hybrid Project Management, Software as a Service (SaaS), Real-time Data, Business Process Re-engineering, Quality Assurance (QA), Automated Testing, SaaS, CRM Systems, Teaching, Project Scheduling, Scheduling, User Interviews, Customer Interviews, Stakeholder Interviews, Demos, Prototyping, Wireframing, Process Mapping, Relational Data Mapping, Mapping, Jakarta EE (Java EE or J2EE), REST APIs, XML, HRIS, Use Cases, Intranets, Infrastructure, IT Infrastructure, Workflow, Agile Deployment, Cloud Migration, Website Migration, System Migration, Database Migration, SharePoint Online, Regulatory Compliance, Training Materials, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), Upgrades, Kaizen, Digital Solutions, Reviews, Node.js, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Sitecore, Portals, Stakeholder Analysis, Web Services, Content Management Systems (CMS), Risk Management, Risk, HTML, CSS, Gmail, Google, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Certified Project Manager, Native Mobile Apps, Project Estimation, Rapid Application Development (RAD), Apps, Microsoft 365, Project Design & Management, App Development, Social Media, Public Speaking, Presentations, PowerPoint Design, Conflict Resolution, Software Development Management, Microsoft SQL Server, Creative Problem Solving, Innovation, Software Innovation, ServiceNow, Client Relationship Management, Client Relations, Motivation, Vendor Management, Vendor Selection, Collaboration, Facilitation, Feature Roadmaps, Burn-down Charts, Cumulative Flow Diagrams, Release Management, Waterfall Methodology, Jira REST API, Jira Service Management, ISO 27001, ITSM, Twilio API, Jira Administration, Agile DevOps, Product Management, Product Ownership, New Product Development, Operating Models, Organizational Design, Portfolio Management
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