Answers & Outcomes

At Hostile Sheep, we believe insight is only useful if it leads to action. Answers & Outcomes is where we explore how research, design, and systems thinking can help organizations do exactly that. The blog is part of our broader practice, one that supports teams in making sense of complexity, designing for people, and delivering outcomes that matter. If you’re facing a big question or a stuck system, we can help.

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Strategies for the Long Haul: Navigating Complexity Over Time

August 19, 2025

“One of the leader’s most important roles is to build a team and culture that intentionally outlasts them.” - Peter Greer & Doug FagerstromI think about that a lot when it comes to the work our...

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Trust-Based Design: Starting with Broken Trust

August 18, 2025

I’ve spent most of my career asking the same question: “What do people need?” It’s the starting point for almost every design process. From there, we gather insights, map needs, co-create solutions, and (on our...

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Research that sees the system

August 13, 2025

If you stand on a bridge at night, you might just notice the towers, the cables, and the road. But slow things down and the scene changes. Light trails start to show the movement, the...

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One Hot Moment

August 12, 2025

As I breathe new life into Hostile Sheep, I find myself looking back before I look forward. I want to pause and acknowledge a place, and a group of people, who left their mark on...

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What it means to be a Hostile Sheep

Design builds trust or it erodes it. It includes people, or it leaves them behind. It makes power visible, or it hides harm in plain sight.We’ve seen what happens when design is treated like decoration....

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Directing and managing systems

Hostile Sheep has worked with dozens of organizations to design systems their customers love. After a decade of working with a wide spectrum of organizations, from fortune 100 companies to startups to charities, we’ve identified...

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Continuous improvement is not a straight line

Continuous improvement (often called continual improvement, more on that later) is commonly misperceived as being a process intended to move the needle in a positive way regarding a system, product or service. The misperception is...

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It begins with a single step.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” My grandmother used to reassure me using this quote when I was growing up. When things seemed so big that I couldn’t possibly make...

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How LinkedIN supported my career, until it didn’t.

LinkedIN changed me and I started to hate who I became. I reluctantly joined LinkedIN in 2007, about four years after it was first launched. At first it was more of a digital rolodex; a...