I'm planning some usability testing at work and have a few questions that I can't seem to find good answers for anywhere else.

Firstly I'm relatively new to usability testing and have never planned or conducted it in a professional setting however the client doesn't have a huge budget for this so we're taking a diy approach.

I've been influenced by Steve Krug's 'Rocket Surgery made Easy' and would like to use a script similar to his 'Usability Test Script' <http://www.sensible.com/downloads-rsme.html>

The problem is that we'd like to ask a lot more interview style questions beforehand to inform the development of our user personas however this is starting to feel like a different exercise and I'm wondering wether it's a good idea to combine design research and usability testing in the same session?

Another concern is that the production team want to conduct the usability tests themselves having been provided with a script because of concerns about impartiality. Is this a better alternative to having the same UX team that will be working on the website conducting the session?

Let me know your thoughts,

Many thanks