I recently watched an interview with the film director John Boorman.   He spoke at length about his experiences making the film Deliverance (1972).  The studio was nervous.   The film had no female cast members, no known big stars and the budget was being continually nibbled away.  The director’s original plan was to have a composer and full orchestra to do the film score.  As the budget came under further pressure John Boorman decided to dispense with the composer and orchestra.   It was a bold decision.

Anyone familiar with the film will remember the famous duelling banjos.  John Boorman took what was supposed to be one piece of music in the film and hired 2 musicians who were instructed to use the duelling banjo music and make a full film score from this!

“Necessity is the mother of invention” (a quote the director used in the interview).  Rather than give up and complain about a shrinking budget John Boorman saw an opportunity and took a chance and ended up with what is now recognised as a classic film score to accompany his movie.

When we work with clients we often experience a reluctance to change and do things differently.   “We’ve always done it that way” or “we do it that way because we are <fill in the organisation name here>!”  We promote and are advocates for lean processes.  We enjoy the challenge of discovering what are the minimum mandatory steps any process needs.   Not stripping it back just for the sake of it, rather re-evaluating the process to see if there is a better way of delivering it.  Over time processes can become bloated as they are tinkered with and additions and amendments made.  As we introduce Flexi-Grant® we like to try and work with our customers to “unbloat” the process.   Like Mr Boorman, we all need to remind ourselves that “necessity is the mother of invention” and even unwelcome change can often have a very edifying effect.