Rocky Mountain Evidence: Using Data to Drive Colorado State Government

• Published date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12885
• Author: Ann Renaud Avila
• Date: 01 January 2018

156 Public Administration Review • January | February 2018

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 1, pp. 156–159. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12885.

This manuscript was originally submitted

and accepted as an

Evidence in Public

Administration

article. The feature

editors, Kimberley R. Isett, Brian W.

Head, and Gary VanLandingham, are

gratefully acknowledged for their work

in soliciting and developing this content.

Effective with Volume 78, the Evidence

in Public Administration feature has been

discontinued.

Ann Renaud Avila is director of

research and evidence-based policy

initiatives in the Colorado Governor’s Office

of State Planning and Budgeting. She has

more than 10 years of experience working

on human services and criminal justice

issues in the legislative and executive

branches in Colorado and Florida. She holds

a master’s degree in public policy analysis

and public financial administration from

Indiana University’s School of Public and

Environmental Affairs.

E-mail: ann.renaud@state.co.us

Viewpoint

Steve Condrey,

Associate Editor

T he State of Colorado has been a national

leader in using data to inform decision

making. With support from the Colorado

General Assembly, Governor John W. Hickenlooper’s

administration has implemented several data-driven

policy initiatives, including the SMART Government

Act and performance management program, the Pew-

MacArthur Results First Initiative, Lean Performance

Improvement, and Pay for Success. The state is also

exploring the use of behavioral economics approaches.

Each of these efforts is intended to improve the

effectiveness and efficiency of state government, and

collectively they have been successful in informing

policy and budget decisions, targeting resources

to evidence-based interventions, streamlining

agency operations, and improving customer service.

Colorado’s experience has shown the importance of

creating a comprehensive and coordinated system,

and how this requires significant effort and resources.

Further, there is a critical need to build a foundation

for continuing and sustaining this work as elected

leaders change.

Colorado’s Good Government Initiatives

Since taking office in 2011, the Hickenlooper

administration has placed a priority on using data

and evidence to guide its policy, budgeting, and

management processes, and it has aligned internal

resources to promote this work. Additionally, the

Governor made this work his central priority as chair

of the National Governors Association from 2014 to

2015 with the Delivering Results initiative, which

focused on encouraging states to harness data and

management tools to strengthen government results.

As shown in figure 1 , Colorado has implemented

a series of good government initiatives that are

collectively intended to establish the following:

• A process improvement initiative to increase

efficiency and reduce costs

• A strategic planning and performance

management framework to guide state operations

• A program assessment process to target funding

to evidence-based programs

• A pay for success process to use private sector

capital to meet social service needs

Lean Process Improvement

Colorado implemented Lean in 2011, and its success

helped establish the state as a national leader in

performance improvement. Utilizing a customer-

focused, bottom-up approach, Lean supports state

employees in streamlining processes and delivering

efficient and effective customer services. The

Lean initiative is coordinated by a Performance

Improvement Team that was created within the

Governor’s Office. To date, the team has supported

more than 500 projects in 19 agencies and trained

more than 3,000 state employees in Lean tools

and practices as well as project selection, customer

experience, and vision development.

The Lean initiative has been successful in empowering

the state’s workforce to focus on continuous

improvement of processes serving Colorado’s citizens

and customers. It has achieved notable customer

satisfaction improvements, including halving the

average wait time for driver’s licenses from 40 minutes

to less than 20 minutes; significantly reducing the time

to license pharmacists from 188 days to 14 days; and

increasing the percentage of oil and gas complaints

addressed within 30 days from 22% to 70%. In 2015,

Harvard University recognized Colorado with an

Innovations in American Government Award for the

state’s process improvement initiatives.

SMART Strategic and Performance Management

Building on the success of Lean, Colorado next

developed a strategic and performance management

system to set the mission, vision, and goals for all state

agencies. All departments must create a performance

plan that outlines the strategies and processes they

will undertake to achieve these goals as well as the

metrics they will use to track progress. In 2013, this

system was formalized when the Colorado legislature

Ann Renaud Avila

Colorado Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting

Rocky Mountain Evidence:

Using Data to Drive Colorado State Government