excellent comments. instead of straight waterfall, i would suggest a time boxed requirements phase, followed by incremental development with a reasonable cadenc

excellent comments. instead of straight waterfall, i would suggest a time boxed requirements phase, followed by incremental development with a reasonable cadence (dictated by the product; web might be 2 weeks, more serious domains might be 90 days). you need iteration, but having a solid grounding on what you are going to build eliminates churn.