Establishing the requirements of a project up front plays a huge role in strategic business planning. It sets expectations, saves time, and improves the overall quality of the end product and yet, the importance of this oh-so-crucial step is frequently overlooked or skipped entirely. I can't blame people for wanting to overlook the requirement gathering and documentation step as it can often be tedious and time consuming, but I can assure you that the effort will be well worth it.