This report offers practical design advice to public managers and political leaders who are facing complex, dynamic public challenges involving multiple stakeholders on issues or problems where there is no clearly defined solution. In these situations, open project approaches have the potential to spark large-scale activity that could fundamentally change society.

Understanding the difference between a complicated problem and a complex one is important for today’s leaders. They require different strategies and tools that are largely not interchangeable. Sometimes a problem will morph from one state to the other—either from complicated to complex, or vice versa—so you’ll need to be ready to adapt your strategies and tools accordingly. So what are the differences? A recent Harvard Business Review article by Gokce Sargut and Rita Gunther McGrath offers these distinctions:

These types of challenges run the gamut from the 2008 meltdown of the global financial system to the Y2K challenge, pandemics, and natural and man-made disasters. Many are more difficult to anticipate, get out in front of, and handle. In most manifestations, they don’t follow orderly and linear processes.

The space shuttle was a remarkable technological creation— perhaps the most complex machine ever built. It was also an extraordinary government program. It began officially in 1972, when President Richard Nixon authorized its start. It ended in July 2011 when the last shuttle landed safely. The lifetime cost of the program was $209 billion.