And bad requirements or missing requirements can triple the length of the project. Worse, they can kill a project altogether due to time or budget (or both) issues.
I just had a simple home project for my wife go south because I failed to get the requirements fully defined before starting. I thought I had everything right, but I made some assumptions without asking certain questions. Keep in mind she is my very organized wife who hates it when I ask too many questions before starting a project for her. But our project customers have a potential to be problematic, stubborn, demanding or even uncooperative, right?...