Description:

In October 2021 New Mexico released its economic development strategic plan. In early 2022 the New Mexico Economic Development Department contracted with HatchForm to develop an implementation plan. The original plan was lengthy and cumbersome to navigate and implementation had been largely stalled as stakeholders debated the best place to start. Prior to launching the original strategic planning project the state legislature created two committees:

• Sustainable Economy Task Force (SET Force): Group of cabinet level representatives convened to inform and implement portions of the strategy from within the state government

• Sustainable Economy Advisory Committee (SEAC): Group of community leaders from across the state including pueblo and tribal representatives convened to inform the implementation of the plan at the community level.

Staff at NMEDD charged with facilitating SEAC and SET Force meetings and implementing the strategic plan (along with their normal duties) were finding the process difficult. HatchForm was brought in to develop a framework where all of the entities charged with strategy implementation could work together to achieve common outcomes.

HatchForm’s Role:

We designed an overarching implementation model outlining the roles, responsibilities, and relationships that the New Mexico Economic Development Department, the Sustainable Economy Task Force, and the Sustainable Economy Advisory Council all had to one another and to the tasks of implementing the priorities and recommendations contained in the plan. The model outlines an iterative process divided into three stages: Assessment, Alignment, and Action. All of the bodies involved in the implementation of the plan had separate but complementary roles in each stage of the model.