12. Identifying Key Outcomes and Tracking Progress

The Colorado Governor’s Dashboard, established in 2019, outlines high-priority statewide, interagency strategic goals: energy and renewables, health, crime prevention, and land use. Progress towards these goals, set by cabinet working groups led by the Governor’s Office of Operations and the Policy Office, is displayed on the publicly available Governor’s Dashboard, with updates multiple times each year. The goals are designed to supplement and contribute to agency performance plans, providing clarity on which agency is responsible for delivering on each component of interagency efforts. The Governor’s annual budget request links these strategic goals to specific agency activities and outcomes. Agencies are asked to consider equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts when developing performance metrics.

While Connecticut does not have a single statewide strategic plan with measurable outcome goals, several statewide efforts exist, including the Interagency Council for Ending the Achievement Gap in education, the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s 20 by 26 goals.

Another example is GreenerGov CT, a statewide effort to measure progress in environmental sustainability, by reducing energy use, water, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions while lowering operating costs for the state of Connecticut’s government facilities and operations. Connecticut’s state agencies have continued to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% below 2001 levels; reduce waste disposal by 25% from a 2020 baseline; reduce water consumption by 10% from a 2020 baseline; and set additional sub-goals by 2030. The state centralized collection of hundreds of thousands of utility bills from across the state’s operations and facilities to build the public-facing Data Dashboard. GreenerGovCT reports progress in the 2024 Progress Report.

At the start of 2023, the Office of Governor Josh Green produced a book highlighting the Governor’s priorities as outlined in his State of the State Address. The book highlights homelessness and housing, the Green Affordability plan, climate change, and the health care crisis as critical elements of the agenda for Hawaiʻi. These critical elements are acted on and implemented by States agencies, with each agency creating programs focusing on these priorities and tracking and report on progress.

Each year of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s term his team has released a Next Level Agenda, that reflect Governor Holcomb’s commitment to enhancing various aspects of Indiana’s governance and quality of life. Agencies are tasked to fit goals to help the state reach the Next Level goals alongside the specific agency’s goals. The Governor’s Office has agencies track goals and performance through an internal KPI application.

The Moore-Miller Administration’s mission is to “leave no one behind” in Maryland. This is also the guiding principle for the Moore-Miller Administration State Plan, which outlines the state’s strategic path forward. For each priority, the State Plan identifies the strategic goal or “problem” the state is trying to solve and the key performance indicators the state will use to track progress. The key performance indicators are a mix of measurable inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

The state tracks progress regularly and state and agency leadership report results at Performance Cabinet meetings. The Chief Performance Officer, in collaboration with the Chief Data Officer, works with agencies to collect and track this data centrally.

In 2023, Governor Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan released the One Minnesota Plan, which outlines strategic priorities for the state through 2027. Senior leaders across state agencies then worked with the Governor’s Office and the Results Team at Minnesota Management & Budget (MMB) to develop measurable goals to achieve these priorities. Now available online, these Measurable Goals articulate specific, action-orientated areas of emphasis and interagency work. They help set direction and assess progress within each priority area. Goals are designed to be observable, measurable, and have specific targets that are to be achieved by 2027. The Walz-Flanagan administration met with thousands of Minnesotans–students, parents, community members, employees, and business owners–across the state to inform them of the One Minnesota Plan and its Goals. While every community in Minnesota has its own strengths and faces unique challenges, the Plan elevates priorities that are widely shared across the state.

Each major state agency tracks several Key Performance Indicators and publishes progress on those indicators at least annually. This supplement tracking of particular initiatives that each department or agency does on its own initiative.

Each year, with agency budget submissions, specific performance metrics are picked to be tracked. These metrics allow both the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration and the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee to assess agency performance focused on both process and outcomes. The report cards are publicly available on the Legislative Finance Committee website.

While the state does not have an overall strategic plan, the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) requires that state agencies complete a two-year strategic plan each fiscal biennium. It is a bottom-up approach that fits well with North Carolina’s state government culture. 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. The strategic plans conform with the statutory requirement to collect performance information as part of the Governor’s Recommended Budget. OSBM provides strategic planning guidance and facilitation services to support this process.  

The office of the Governor has five statewide strategic initiatives to empower people, improve lives and inspire success. The initiatives focus on workforce development, Health, Education, Tribal engagement, and better governance. The initiatives are tracked and reported on a regular basis.

The Oregon Governor’s Office published a series of strategic initiatives that 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. Tracking outcomes and progress is a decentralized process managed by agencies, the Office of SIEA is tracking agency strategic plans and DEI plans that are often intertwined. Progress Report on Oregon Agency Expectations published June 1, 2023 reports on the status of agency strategic plans and DEI plans. Additionally, the Racial Justice Council worked with communities to establish Future Ready Oregon, a $200 million dollar investment in job training with a focus on health care, technology and manufacturing, and construction.

The Governor’s Office’s RI 2030 Plan: Charting A Course for the Future of the Ocean State serves as Rhode Island’s statewide strategic plan, focusing on Governor McKee’s key priorities of strengthening K-12 education, building a “rhode” to prosperity, creating a healthier Rhode Island, and advancing infrastructure and energy.

RI 2030 was informed by a series of virtual community conversations with a panel of diverse Rhode Island community stakeholders, national experts, and members of the General Assembly. These recorded conversations solicited hundreds of public comments, which were used to refine the plan. Public input continues to be welcomed.

The current 2025 version of RI 2030 features many SMART goals that are aligned with state priorities. The Office of Management and Budget, along with individual state agencies, track the measures included in the plan. A sampling of important metrics for each priority area can be found on the Rhode Island 2030 Performance Dashboard.

The Tennessee Governor has five priorities: education and workforce development, jobs 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 are publicly displayed on Transparent TN. The Governor’s five priorities set the foundation for each cabinet-level department to create annual strategic plans, which drive department operations each year from October through the following September. 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.

GOPB Results Management and Planning teams actively work with agencies to tie their strategic plan goals to performance measures that are tracked and reported to GOPB and the Legislature. Workshops delivered to agencies emphasize this effort and need.

The state’s new GRIT initiative is aimed at driving improvement on state agencies’ key programs and reporting results to GOPB.

The state’s “Built Here” is a strategic plan with the intent of building a sustainable future for generations of Utahns. The BUILD Coordinating Council works collaboratively with community partners, stakeholders, and cabinet members to realize these goals.

The statewide strategic plan was built using a community-based effort called Guiding Our Growth, where over 20,000 Utahns shared input about the direction the state should follow, and what their priorities are.  The Coordinating Council, in collaboration with the Statewide Planning Coordinator, track these initiatives and work collaboratively to help make these goals a reality.

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.” The State is currently in the process of developing a new strategic plan that is more data and outcome focused.

In 2022, the Wisconsin Interagency Council on Homelessness launched the Welcoming Wisconsin Home, which outlines strategic priorities for the state to address homelessness needs. Senior leaders across state agencies worked to develop measurable goals to achieve statewide results. Welcoming Wisconsin Home sets specific, action-orientated areas of emphasis and interagency work. The Plan helps to set direction and assess progress within each priority area and across multiple state agencies. Goals are designed to be observable, measurable, and have specific targets. The Wisconsin Interagency Council on Homelessness met with hundreds of Wisconsin residents–persons experiencing homelessness, community members, employees, and business owners–across the state to gain input and inform them of the Welcoming Wisconsin Home plan and its goals. While every community in Wisconsin has its own strengths and faces unique challenges associated with housing and homelessness, the Plan elevates priorities that are widely shared across the state