Complexity Diagnostic

Is Your Challenge Complex?

Most leaders reach for the same tool for every challenge — and wonder why nothing sticks. Misread the challenge, apply the wrong tool, get the wrong outcome. In that order. This diagnostic maps your challenge to its complexity type — and tells you what kind of intervention it demands.

The tool maps each challenge across two dimensions drawn from complexity science — how much the people who must act hold competing incentives, and how well the available solutions are understood. The combination determines what kind of intervention your challenge actually requires.

How this model works → Takes approximately 5–8 minutes

Step 1 of 3

Select your sector

Select your challenges

Choose up to 10 challenges you are currently navigating. You can also add up to 4 of your own below.

0 of 10 selected

Add your own (optional — up to 4)

Step 2 of 3 — Rate each challenge

How the scoring works

Social Complexity — how fragmented the stakeholder environment is. Are the people who must act on this challenge aligned? Or do they hold competing mandates, different incentives, or the structural ability to block progress independently?

Solution Knowability — how well the answer is understood. Has expert analysis already been applied? Have obvious solutions been tried and either failed or failed to hold?

A third dimension — six-month priority — determines the size of each challenge bubble on your map.

Your challenges will be plotted across four zones: Clear (low complexity, known solution), Analytical Territory (knowable with expertise), Contested (answer exists but stakeholder fragmentation blocks it), and The Village Problem (no playbook exists — the right people must build the answer together).