Preparing a Moderator’s Guide To ensure that the actual focus group session is productive, a moderator’s guide must be prepared. A moderator’s guide is a detailed outline of the topics and questions that will be used to generate the spontaneous interactive dialogue among group participants. Probes or follow-up questions should appear in the guide to help the moderator elicit more information. Moderator’s guides must be developed and used for both face-to-face and online focus group sessions.