Humanizes the entire process

Founder of FiftyThree, Georg Petschnigg, once shared a beautiful insight in a Bēhance interview regarding the creation of their iPad app, Paper:

“When we released additional colors, our deadline was dependent on nature, so as we were writing code, we were noticing the temperature change and were racing to finish before the leaves changed color. It was thrilling to have this reminder all around you, and it also humanizes the entire process, rather than just working towards milestone 1.3. This episodic approach means that the product experience is incomplete if the narrative isn’t being fulfilled.”

The Narrative vs. The Milestone

Most of us work in a world dominated by “Milestone 1.3” or “Q4 Deliverables.” These are artificial constructs. They are necessary for business, perhaps, but they mean nothing to the human spirit. They are sterile markers on a Gantt chart.

Georg’s approach flips this dynamic. By tying a release to the changing leaves, he turned a deadline into a narrative. The team wasn’t just shipping code; they were racing nature.

• It turns a process into a natural flow.
• It brings emotion and stakes to the engineering team.
• It breathes life into the product before it even launches.

The “Unprocess” Paradox

There is a tension here between the romantic idea of “flow” and the hard reality of scaling a business.

Companies like GitHub have famously promoted the idea of “unprocess” and self-management. It sounds idyllic. But as any team grows, the lack of structure inevitably leads to chaos. There must be process within an organization to enable scale.

However, there is a distinct difference between enabling process and bureaucratic waste.

• Bad Process is assigned without context. It is a checklist that exists for the sake of the checklist. It creates friction and waste.
• Good Process is empirical. It eliminates cognitive load for the development team. It solves a specific problem that prevents the team from moving fast.

The takeaway isn’t to abolish deadlines or Jira tickets. The lesson is to constantly review why we are doing what we are doing.

Does the process serve the product, or does the product serve the process?

If we can align our rigid engineering milestones with a human narrative—like the changing of the seasons—we stop being assembly line workers and start being craftsmen. We stop building “Version 2.0” and start building a story.