Is a pilot run with participants/stakeholders necessary?

A pilot run should be part of the study setup. In a pilot run, the study is executed with a small set of participants, which may be stakeholders or people that match the required profile. The aim is to validate that the discussion guide/script is ready to be used in the actual study, or else to identify how to improve it.

A pilot run influences the schedule because it needs to be planned and executed, and also because it might require an update to the discussion guide/script and subsequent approval by the stakeholders. In unmoderated studies, the UX researcher may run through the survey by themselves, instead of inviting participants or stakeholders to do so, reducing the required time.