Managing for Results

1. Strategic Goals

Does the Governor have public statewide strategic goals?

The state has statewide strategic goals that are public, quantitative, published regularly, customer oriented, aligned, equity oriented, and publicly informed.

Colorado

Leading Example

Launched in 2019, Colorado’s Governor’s Dashboard outlines four high-priority strategic goals: tax reform and economic development, energy and renewables, health, and education and the workforce. Progress toward each strategic priority, set by cabinet working groups, is displayed on the publicly available Governor’s Dashboard, established in 2019, with data updated monthly. The strategic priorities are aligned goals, metrics, and actions contained within agency performance plans. The governor’s annual budget request also links these goals to specific agency activities and outcomes. In developing annual performance goals, agencies are advised to consider the impacts of their goals on broader equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts, by both setting performance goals consistent with those efforts, and by collecting and analyzing demographic data to hold themselves accountable for equitable outcomes.

In response to new challenges identified during the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado launched the Reimagine State Government Initiative in 2020, which identifies six pillars of operational excellence across state agencies. These pillars are tied to specific, quantifiable goals, including: reducing the state’s physical footprint by one million square feet by 2025; improving employee engagement by five percentage points by 2025; increasing access to virtual services by 100,000 transactions by June 2021; and others aimed at making the government more efficient and effective to better serve state residents.

Issue Areas: COVID-19, Economic Mobility, Education, Equity, Health, Workforce

Promising Examples

Arizona

Since 2017, the Arizona Governor’s Office has developed and updated the Governor’s Fundamentals Map, which identifies statewide priorities under key goal areas. All cabinet agencies are required to complete an annual strategic plan and to make it available to the public on their agency’s website. The plan includes annual objectives, initiatives, and performance metrics that are tracked in My Agency Scorecards. In 2020, the Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting hired a statewide Strategic Planner to further support the multi-year planning and performance data management processes. Now, in 2021, Arizona is focused on objective metric hierarchy and performance measurement options that reflect outcomes, efficiency, and quality.

Issue Areas: Child Welfare, Criminal Justice, Economic Mobility, Education, Health, Workforce

North Carolina

The North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) recommends that state agencies complete a two-year strategic plan each fiscal biennium. The agencies’ strategic plans include agency or department-wide goals, objectives, and strategies; performance and outcome measures and milestones; existing best practices and areas for collaboration; and more. OSBM provides strategic planning guidance and facilitation services to support this process. Further, FY21-23 budget instructions included the governor’s four budget priorities: positioning North Carolina to create new jobs and recover from pandemic economic losses; making North Carolina a top-10 educated state; promoting healthier and safer communities; and ensuring an effective and efficient state government.

Issue Areas: Child Welfare, Economic Mobility, Education, Health, Workforce

Oregon

The Oregon Governor’s Office published a series of strategic initiatives directly related to the coming biennium (2021-2023), and specifically helping Oregon “build back better” after the COVID-19 pandemic. These strategic initiatives include a 10-point action plan for economic recovery, informed in partnership with the Governor’s Racial Justice Council, as well as a strategic direction for guiding Oregon’s recovery from COVID-19 within a framework of racial equity and social justice. The 10-point action plan includes concrete priorities and critical investments related to fostering economic growth and recovery in a post-pandemic Oregon.

Issue Areas: Economic Mobility, Education, Equity, Health

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Governor has three statewide priorities: Jobs that Pay, Schools that Teach, and Government that Works. For each of the goals, the Governor’s Office developed 15 subgoals with key performance measures sourced from the state’s open data platform to track the progress in all three strategic areas. Governor’s Goals metrics track outcomes such as employment and labor force participation rates; high school graduation rates; rates of health insurance coverage; drug overdose deaths; traffic crash fatalities; and customer experience indicators such as call wait times, abandoned calls, and customer satisfaction. The formation of these goals was guided by advisory commissions established by executive order, including: Advisory Commissions on African American, Asian Pacific American, Latino, Women, and LGBTQ affairs.

Issue Areas: Economic Mobility, Education, Equity, Health, Workforce

Tennessee

The Tennessee Governor has five priorities: education and workforce development, iobs and rural economic development, transparent and efficient government, Healthier Tennessee, and public safety and criminal justice reform. Specific metrics tied to the success of each priority area are publicly displayed on Transparent TN. The Governor’s five priorities set the foundation for each cabinet-level department to create their strategic plans, which will drive department operations through December 2023. In addition, through Tennessee’s Office of Customer Focused Government (CFG), statewide and agency goals are aligned in a deliberative operational planning process. CFG plans serve as the operational plans tracking key customer service areas and operations for each department. Each department’s operational goals and subsequent performance measures must focus on key service offerings (customer-facing services); budget, finance, and accounting; human capital and talent management; technology systems and equipment; and legal, audit, and risk management.

Issue Areas: Economic Mobility, Education, Workforce

Utah

The Utah Governor and Lieutenant Governor released a plan for the new administration’s first 500 days, the One Utah Roadmap. The Roadmap includes dozens of action items within six strategic priorities: economic advancement, education innovation and investment, rural matters, health security, equality and opportunity, and streamlining and modernizing state government. As a dynamic plan, it is regularly assessed and refreshed as committees assigned to each strategic priority report to the governor on their progress. The 250-day update divides action items by those overseen by the Governor and those now overseen by agencies. The public may sign up for the governor’s #OneUtah Weekly Update email newsletters. Quantitative data related to goals on the One Utah Roadmap are tracked and will be published using a new tool managed by the state Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) in the Governor’s Office.

Issue Areas: COVID-19, Economic Mobility, Equity, Health, Workforce

Vermont

Vermont’s 2018-2023 Strategic Plan includes four statewide goals: the economy, affordability, vulnerability, and modernization. These priority areas were established by a 2017 Vermont executive order, which required all agencies “to establish the following cornerstones as their strategic and operational goals: growing the Vermont economy; making Vermont an affordable place to live, work, and do business; and protecting vulnerable Vermonters.” As required by a 2014 law and a related executive order, the state’s Chief Performance Officer annually reports data related to the state’s goals and fiscal transparency.

Issue Areas: Child Welfare, Economic Mobility, Education, Equity, Health, Workforce

Washington

A 2013 Washington State Executive Order established Results Washington to strengthen performance management and continuous improvement throughout Washington State government. At that time, the Washington State Governor’s Office issued five overarching goal areas with aligned outcome measures: world-class education; prosperous economy; sustainable energy and clean environment; healthy and safe communities; and effective, efficient, and accountable government. Results Washington (Results WA) is responsible for developing a system of work that supports these five goal areas as well as ongoing state initiatives.

In 2021, Results WA began a significant strategic planning effort to develop an updated approach integrating continuous improvement (including Lean) and performance management. The goal is a feasible, attainable, and sustainable approach that is guided by feedback gathered from agency partners. Iterative implementation is set to begin in January 2022. The five goal areas will remain the same, but how they are defined for the future and operationalized will be updated as a part of this planning process.

Issue Areas: Economic Mobility, Education, Health, Workforce

Back to all Criteria