The paper describes a situation within an R&D project in the Town Planning Department of a small municipality. The situation concerns the first of three evaluations in a gradual, iterative systems development process. The evaluation provides the basis for deciding whether the prototype should be thrown away or developed further. The questions raised are methodological. Although gradual, iterative development is well known in practice, it is not equally well known as a development model. Few proven methodologies exist, and we need to tryout different techniques and methods. The challenge of this situation is to design and carry out an evaluation which will give us the information we need regarding the process and the product on the one hand, and regarding the IT system and the organization on the other hand. The situation is seen from the researchers' perspective, and the first part of the paper illustrates their reasoning before the evaluation. The last chapter reflects on some of the results. Contrary to expectations, evaluating the prototype turned out to be the difficult part, evaluating the process the easier part. An important conclusion concerned the futility of evaluating the prototype if one wants to understand how the prototype supports the users' work. Systems in use can only be evaluated in terms of relations . An important aspect of the evaluation was its function as a search forum. Discovering new goals contributed considerably to the dynamics of the process.
