Learn Russian: Вместо старого плана нам нужен совершенно иной подход. - Instead of the old plan, we need a completely different approach.

While другой can mean either "another (one like this)" or "a different one," иной specifically emphasizes a fundamental difference in nature, quality, or essence. By saying иной подход, the speaker means they don't just need a second plan, but a fundamentally different kind of approach. The phrase совершенно иной is also a highly natural and widely used collocation in Russian.

Why is it нам нужен instead of a construction starting with мы?

To express "to need" in Russian, you use a flipped structure that literally translates to "to us X is necessary." The person who needs something takes the dative case (нам), and the thing needed is the grammatical subject in the nominative case (подход). The short adjective нужен is in the masculine singular form to agree with подход.

Why are старого плана in the genitive case?

They are the object of the preposition вместо (instead of). This preposition always requires the noun and any adjectives modifying it to be in the genitive case.

Why is the grammatical subject (подход) placed at the very end of the sentence?

In Russian word order, the most important new information (the focus or "rheme") usually goes at the end. The speaker establishes the known context first ("Instead of the old plan, we need...") and saves the punchline for the end: "...a completely different approach."