  By contrast to design meetings, design evaluation meetings (DEMs) have
generally been considered as situations in which, according to DEMs
methodologies, design activities are quite marginal. In a study of DEMs in
software development, i.e. in technical review meetings following a particular
review methodology, we showed: (i) the occurrence of design activities as part
of an argumentation process; (ii) the relative importance of cognitive
synchronisation as a prerequisite for evaluation; (iii) the important role
played in evaluation by argumentation that makes explicit the underlying design
rationale (DR). On the basis of our results, we discuss the potential for using
DR methodologies in this kind of meetings.
