Focus Group Script Template: A Moderator's Step-by-Step Runsheet

A focus group script has five phases, opening, warm-up, core discussion, deep dive, and wrap-up, each with its own time budget and a small set of neutral, open-ended questions. Below is a runsheet you can copy directly, plus the moderator techniques that keep a session productive. And if scheduling six busy people into one room (virtual or not) is the part you dread, this guide shows how Koji delivers the same depth through AI-moderated 1:1 sessions that run in parallel, with none of the groupthink.

Before you write the script: define the objective

A focus group script is downstream of one decision: what do you need to learn? Write a single research objective ("understand how new users react to our pricing page") and 2-3 supporting questions. Every line in your script should serve that objective. If a question does not, cut it. For a deeper planning workflow, see the focus group research guide.

The focus group script template

Times assume a 90-minute session with 6-8 participants. Adjust proportionally for shorter sessions.

Phase 1 — Opening (5 minutes)

"Thanks for joining. Over the next 90 minutes we will talk about [topic]. There are no right or wrong answers, we genuinely want your honest opinions, including the critical ones. This session is being recorded for our notes only. Please speak one at a time, and feel free to disagree with each other, that is exactly what makes this useful. Any questions before we start?"

Cover: welcome, purpose, duration, recording consent, ground rules (one voice at a time, no wrong answers, disagreement welcome).

Phase 2 — Warm-up (5-10 minutes)

A round-robin that gets every voice into the room early. People who speak in the first ten minutes stay engaged.

• "Let us go around: your first name and how long you have used [product/category]."
• "In one word, how would you describe [topic]?"

Phase 3 — Core discussion (40-45 minutes)

Your 4-6 priority questions, ordered general to specific. Examples:

• "Walk me through the last time you [did the relevant task]. What happened?" (open_ended)
• "What is the hardest part of [task] today?" (open_ended)
• "When you hear [concept], what comes to mind?" (open_ended)
• "How do you decide between [option A] and [option B]?" (open_ended)

Probe every answer: "Tell me more." "Why is that?" "Does anyone see it differently?" The script is a map, not a railroad, follow the interesting tangents.

Phase 4 — Deep dive / stimulus activity (15-20 minutes)

Show a concept, prototype, mockup, or message and capture reactions.

• "Here is [stimulus]. Take 30 seconds, then tell me your gut reaction."
• "On a scale of 1-5, how appealing is this?" (scale — collect individually first to avoid anchoring)
• "What is confusing or missing here?" (open_ended)

Tip: have participants write or submit a private rating before the group talks. This is the single most effective anti-groupthink move in a live session.

Phase 5 — Wrap-up (10 minutes)

• "If you could change one thing about [topic], what would it be?" (open_ended)
• "Is there anything important we did not ask about?" (open_ended)
• Thank participants and explain next steps / incentives.

Moderator best practices

• Stay neutral. Do not nod harder at answers you like. Your reactions train the room.
• Manage dominance. "Thanks, that is helpful, let us hear from someone who has not spoken yet."
• Draw out the quiet. Direct, gentle invitations: "Priya, what is your take?"
• Embrace silence. Count to five after a question. People fill the gap with their real answer.
• Watch for false consensus. If everyone agrees instantly, push: "Who has had the opposite experience?"

For more on moderation craft, see how to moderate user interviews.

The structural problem with focus groups

Even a perfectly scripted session carries built-in distortions:

• Groupthink — participants converge on the first or loudest opinion.
• Dominant voices — one or two people consume most of the airtime.
• Scheduling tax — getting 6-8 right people free at the same hour is brutal, and one no-show dents the session.
• Social desirability — people soften criticism in front of strangers.

You can mitigate these with skill, but you cannot fully remove them in a live group.

How Koji scales focus-group depth without the downsides

Koji runs AI-moderated 1:1 sessions instead of one live group. You write essentially the same script, your phases and priority questions, and Koji's AI interviewer runs it with each participant individually and simultaneously. That single change neutralizes the focus group's biggest flaws:

• No groupthink or dominant voices. Every participant answers independently, so you see the true distribution of opinion, not the room's consensus.
• No scheduling. Participants join on their own time via a link; sessions run in parallel, so 40 "group" conversations can happen overnight.
• More candor. People are more honest with a private AI interviewer than in front of peers.
• Automatic follow-up. The AI probes vague answers the way a great moderator would, on every conversation, not just the ones you had time for.

Koji supports six structured question types, open_ended, scale, single_choice, multiple_choice, ranking, and yes_no, so the rating and choice activities from Phase 4 become first-class, auto-charted data instead of show-of-hands you have to interpret. See the structured questions guide for how each type renders.

When sessions finish, Koji clusters open-ended responses into themes with verbatim quotes and counts, and renders the scales and choices as distributions, so you skip the days of transcript coding a traditional focus group demands. Only conversations that pass the quality gate (scoring 3 or higher) consume credits, so disengaged responses do not pollute your synthesis. If you still want the group format specifically, see AI-moderated focus groups.

You can pilot a full study on the free tier (10 credits on signup; text conversations are 1 credit, voice 3), then scale on Insights (€29/mo) or Interviews (€79/mo).

Recruiting the right participants

A flawless script fails with the wrong room. For a live focus group, over-recruit by 20-30% to absorb no-shows, screen for genuine relevance to the topic, and avoid mixing wildly different segments (power users and first-timers in one group will talk past each other). Aim for 6-8 participants, large enough for discussion, small enough that everyone speaks.

With Koji you can be far more generous: because sessions run as parallel 1:1 conversations, you can invite dozens of people across multiple segments at once and still analyze them as clean, comparable groups, no scheduling matrix required.

Common script mistakes to avoid

• Too many questions. A 12-question script becomes a rushed survey read aloud. Cut to 6-8 and let discussion breathe.
• Leading or double-barreled questions. "How much easier is the new flow?" assumes the answer. Ask neutrally and separately.
• Stacking closed questions. A room of yes/no questions kills energy. Lead with open prompts and reserve scales for the stimulus activity.
• No time budget. Without per-phase timing, the warm-up eats the deep dive. Write the minutes next to each phase and hold to them.
• Skipping the private pre-vote. Collecting individual reactions before group talk is the cheapest insurance against groupthink, do not drop it to save two minutes.

Related Resources

• Structured Questions Guide — the 6 question types behind every analyzable session
• Focus Group Research Guide — plan the study around your script
• Focus Group Questions Examples — more question inspiration by topic
• AI-Moderated Focus Groups — run the group format with an AI moderator
• Focus Groups vs. Interviews — choose the right method for your goal
• How to Moderate User Interviews — moderation techniques that transfer to any session