If you've spent any time in the RUP forum, you've most likely already seen his name. As a volunteer Discussion Facilitator for the RUP discussion forum, Mark Lines monitors the forum and alerts IBM to postings that may be of special interest, such as those that require input from a Rational product manager, or those that defy acceptable use policy.
Mark's experience includes stints as a Rational Software Engineer, partner in a large services firm, Director, Lead Architect and other impressive-sounding titles. He has been a speaker at the Rational User Conference, and has been published in the Rational Edge. Currently he provides workshop facilitation, RUP kickstarts and other custom mentoring in areas such as RUP, OOAD, and Use Cases. Mark loves to teach and continues to teach many Rational courses for IBM across North America. When teaching he shares his own war stories, successes and failures that he has seen at his clients to help cut to "what really works." Mark is also a member of IBM's Portfolio and Project Management Customer Advisory Group.
Mark has been building software using RUP and IBM Rational tools for years,and he remembers the notation wars prior to UML. He's watched the evolution of software development best practices with great interest and believes that with the right culture, attitudes, and guidance, RUP can be extremely agile and complementary to other agile ideas. With the recent submission by IBM of a part of RUP to the Eclipse organization, Mark believes that there has never been a better time to be involved in the RUP community and he encourages everyone to investigate the Open Unified Process (OpenUP).
He'd like to remind folks that many of the thought leaders in the process space, including Per Kroll, Scott Ambler, Philippe Kruchten, and Ivar Jacobson watch and actively participate in the RUP Forum. He encourages anyone to post questions on any RUP topic.
When he's not sharing his expertise with other developerWorks community members, Mark spends his time on a golf course, or hiking and canoeing in the Rockies, just an hour away from Calgary.
