Look for the middle ground

Q: “Stakeholder approaches the UX team to design high-fidelity screens of a new product but insists on skipping generative and evaluative research.

Stakeholder says:
We have no time for research as this will entail multiple iterations of our MVP. We believe we can learn from our users during the MVP stage itself and make the necessary iterations after.

How do you, as the UX Researcher/Designer/Lead, respond?”

A: I say we can do better than that. We can do both! Let’s get feedback on some paper prototypes while the high-fidelity mocks are being created. Everyone wins.

NOTE: This question and my response (above) were reposted from a FB group. We can do better. Look for the middle ground people :)