Effective Date: May 27, 1998

Sunset Date: May 27, 2002

1.1. This director's order revises and replaces the policies and guidance included in chapter 2 of the National Park Service Management Policies (1988) and the NPS-2 Planning Process Guideline (1982) as they relate to park planning. Policies and guidelines concerning the studies of potential new additions to the national park system, the national wild and scenic rivers system, and the national trails system outlined in the Management Policies, NPS-2, and Special Directive 92-11 will remain in effect until revised by future actions.

1.2. This director's order documents the decision-making processes that result in the goals and actions specific to each unit of the national park system and those units of the national trails system administered by the National Park Service. Park planning is a vital intermediary step that links servicewide planning and decision making to park operations.

1.3. Coordinating and integrating all the various types of park planning is essential. The planning and decision-making framework presented here compiles and integrates all servicewide directives related to park planning, regardless of whether they are associated with the general management planning program, the resource management programs (including compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act), the visitor services program, the construction program, or the performance management system that is being implemented to comply with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). This order will be closely coordinated with other director's orders and updated and revised every two to four years to ensure that direction for park planning remains consistent across the National Park Service.

1.4. The associate director for professional services is delegated the authority to establish program standards for park planning. Together Director's Order 2 and its program standards provide the information needed by park superintendents and other managers throughout the National Park Service to direct effective and efficient park planning in cooperation with the public and our partners. More detailed information about specific procedures, techniques, and tools will be compiled in a separate sourcebook (scheduled for distribution in 1998). The sourcebook will constitute the level three guidance for park planning under the new NPS directive system.

This director's order is issued pursuant to 16 USC 1 through 4 (the National Park Service Organic Act).

NPS management policies are hereby revised to read as follows.

3.1.1. The National Park Service will take a comprehensive approach to planning for how resources, visitors, and facilities will be managed to carry out the mission of the National Park Service and each individual park. The National Park Service has a mandate in its Organic Act and other legislation to preserve resources unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. NPS park planning will help define what types of resource conditions, visitor uses, and management actions will best achieve that mandate.

3.1.2. The National Park Service will use planning to bring logic, analysis, public involvement, and accountability into the decision-making process.

• Logic - Park planning and decision making will be conducted as a continuous, dynamic process that extends from broad visions shared with the public to individual, annual work assignments and evaluations. Each park will be able to demonstrate to decision makers, staff, and the public how decisions relate to one another in terms of a logical, trackable rationale.

• Public Involvement - Public participation in planning and decision making will ensure that the National Park Service fully understands and considers the publics' interests in the parks as part of their national heritage, cultural traditions, and community surroundings. To the maximum extent possible, the National Park Service will actively seek out and consult with existing and potential visitors, neighbors, people with traditional cultural ties to park lands, scientists and scholars, concessioners, cooperating associations, other partners, and government agencies. The Park Service will work cooperatively with others to improve the condition of parks, to expand public service, and to integrate parks into sustainable ecological, cultural, and socioeconomic systems.

• Accountability - Management teams will be held accountable for identifying and accomplishing long-term goals and annual goals as incremental steps toward fully carrying out the park mission. Such planning will be a critical and essential part of the National Park Service performance management system that is designed to improve the agency's performance and results.

3.2.3. This director's order recognizes that many parks will initially lack some elements of a logical, trackable rationale as described here and that updating plans to bring them into conformance will take time. In the interim, parks will work off the information in their current approved plans and identify and fill gaps in the overall framework as quickly as feasible.

3.3.1. The elements necessary for a logical, trackable rationale for decision making will be created and updated through four closely interrelated planning processes: general management planning, park strategic planning, implementation planning, and annual performance planning. The order of these processes will generally flow from broad-scale general management planning through progressively more specific strategic planning, implementation planning, and annual performance planning and reporting. When scoping a plan, it will be important to distinguish which issues can most appropriately be addressed by general management planning and which will most appropriately be addressed by more detailed strategic or implementation planning. The results of planning and decision making will be monitored by the park staff, and information will be fed back into the processes at appropriate junctures. If goals are not being met, management teams will seek to understand why and to identify appropriate actions for moving closer to goals. Occasionally the broadest level decisions about ultimate goals will be reassessed to reflect new knowledge or previously unforeseen circumstances, then the cycle will resume.

3.3.2. Each process will have its own particular requirements; however, to the maximum extent possible, these processes will accommodate the overarching goal of minimizing duplication and confusion in park planning. This will be accomplished by establishing uniform definitions for decision-making elements shared by more than one process and by explaining how all the elements interrelate in a single park planning and decision-making framework.

3.3.3. Elements that were previously included in other planning processes (e.g., statement for management) are now included in the four NPS park planning processes described below.

3.3.1.0. General Management Planning

3.3.1.1. The National Park Service will maintain an up-to-date general management plan (GMP) for each unit of the national park system. The purpose of this plan will be to ensure that each park has a clearly defined direction for resource preservation and visitor use. This basic foundation for decision making will be developed in consultation with servicewide program managers, interested parties, and the general public. It will be based on an adequate analysis of existing and potential resource conditions and visitor experiences, environmental (including natural, cultural, and socioeconomic) impacts, and costs of alternative courses of action.

3.3.1.2. General management planning will constitute the first phase of tiered planning and decision making. It will focus on why the park was established and what resource conditions and visitor experiences should be achieved and maintained over time. The general management plan will take the long view, which may be many years into the future when dealing with the time frames of natural and cultural processes. The plan will consider the park holistically (in its full ecological and cultural contexts) as a unit of the national park system and as part of a surrounding region. It will identify the importance of partnerships with others in protecting park resources and providing appropriate visitor services. The general management plan will also identify connections among the various park programs and park management districts. This will help avoid inadvertently creating new problems in one area, while attempting to solve problems in another. Decisions about site-specific actions will be deferred to implementation planning. More detailed, site-specific analyses of implementation plan alternatives will be required before any major federal action is undertaken.

3.3.1.3. General management plans will contain the following decision-making elements: mission, mission goals, and management prescriptions (refer to the program standards for a detailed description of each element). The management prescriptions will meet all of the GMP legal requirements contained in the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 and will address the preservation of the park resources, the types and general intensities of development, visitor carrying capacities for all areas of the unit, and the indications of potential boundary modifications (the program standards for management prescriptions address these GMP legal requirements in detail).

3.3.1.4. General management planning will be conducted by an interdisciplinary team, including park managers and technical experts, who will consult with other knowledgeable persons inside and outside the agency and with the general public. Decisions will be based on a scientific and scholarly understanding of the park ecosystems and cultural contexts (both internal and external to the park boundaries). If information is inadequate, planning and decision making will be deferred until adequate information is available for the type of decisions to be made.

3.3.1.5. During general management planning, resource values and land uses will be systematically analyzed using the best information available, and alternatives and their impacts will be rigorously explored. In reaching decisions concerning future management of park resources, planning teams will seek, to the extent possible, to reach agreement among the park staff, the NPS leadership, other agencies with jurisdiction by law or expertise, and the public.

3.3.1.6. The analysis of GMP alternatives will meet the program standards for NPS implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and related legislation, including the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). An environmental impact statement (EIS) will be prepared for general management plans. In a few cases, after completion of scoping and where initial analysis of alternatives and impacts clearly indicate that there is no potential for significant impact by any alternative, an exception to the general rule may be made by the associate director, natural resources stewardship and science, after consultation with the Environmental Quality Division. Where both the National Environmental Policy Act and sections 106 and 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act apply, NEPA procedures will be used to inform the public about undertakings with the potential to affect properties listed on or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, in conjunction with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation's regulatory provisions on coordination with NEPA. (Refer to the director's orders related to compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and to cultural resources management.)

3.3.1.7. Public involvement will be adequate to learn about the concerns, issues, expectations, and values of existing and potential visitors, park neighbors, people with traditional cultural ties to lands within the park, concessioners, cooperating associations, other partners, scientists and scholars, and other government agencies. Through public involvement the National Park Service will share information about the planning process, issues, and proposed management actions; learn about the values placed by other people and groups on the same resources and visitor experiences; and build support among local publics, visitors, Congress, and others for implementing the plan.

3.3.1.8. General management planning will be conducted as part of cooperative regional planning whenever possible. NPS participation in cooperative regional planning will be undertaken in the hope of better coordinating and focusing the independent and autonomous efforts of multiple parties. NPS participation in such planning efforts will not be intended to prevent reasonable uses of private lands and will acknowledge the rights and interests of other landowners. While being consistent with NPS management policies and park goals, plans will identify and consider potential effects outside as well as inside the park boundaries and will identify ways to enhance beneficial effects and mitigate adverse effects to the maximum extent possible.

3.3.1.9. General management plans will be reviewed and revised as necessary to keep them current. It is anticipated that such reviews will be needed every 10-15 years or sooner if conditions change more rapidly. Even in parks with strong traditions and entrenched patterns of use and development, decision makers will benefit from occasionally stepping back and reassessing their overall goals, particularly if resources are threatened, sites are crowded, or the park's built environment requires extensive rehabilitation or maintenance. This will give everyone with a major stake in the park an opportunity to revalidate the park's role in the nation and in the region and to reconfirm that the kinds of resource conditions and visitor experiences being pursued are the best possible mix for the future. An approved general management plan may be amended, rather than revised, if conditions and management prescriptions over most of the plan area remain essentially unchanged from those present when the plan was originally approved.

3.3.2.1. Strategic planning, required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, will be conducted for the National Park Service as a whole, and every park, program, and central office will have its own strategic plan. Parks, programs, and central offices engage in strategic planning to achieve better results in their mission of protecting resources and providing for visitor enjoyment. Performance management is a way to measure real progress and the level of accomplishment related to specific park, program, or central office goals.

3.3.2.2. To fulfill the purposes for implementing the Government Performance and Results Act in the National Park Service, park strategic plans will contain the following decision-making elements: mission, mission goals, long-term goals, and resource assessment (the elements marked with an asterisk in the chart above; refer to the program standards for a detailed description of each element). Park strategic plans will be based on the servicewide strategic plan, incorporating and reporting on the progress made toward meeting the servicewide mission goals and long-term goals.

3.3.2.3. Park strategic plans will be developed according to the eight-step performance management process developed by the National Park Service for compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act. At the park strategic planning level, analysis will be focused on understanding the park's capability to set and meet long-term goals through a resource assessment of its fiscal and human resources. This resource assessment will also include a description of the condition of the natural and cultural resources in the park and the condition (capability) of the park's infrastructure in meeting long-term goals. Managers will consider how the park mission and long-term goals might be pursued in the foreseeable future, and the answers to that question will determine the park's workload, budget, and staffing allocations for the next two to five years.

3.3.2.4. Park strategic plans need to contain all of the components required by the Government Performance and Results Act, including a description of the operational processes and resources required to meet the goals, an identification of key factors external to the park and beyond its control that could significantly affect the achievement of general goals, a description of program evaluations used in establishing or revising goals, and a record of consultation. Because information in park strategic plans is extracted for compilation into the servicewide strategic plan, these plans need to contain similar information.

3.3.2.5. Ideally, the park strategic plan will tier from the general management plan, building on the GMP mission, mission goals, and management prescriptions included in that plan, and rewriting them to be stated as outcomes, if necessary. This director's order recognizes that many parks lack a current general management plan upon which to base their initial GPRA strategic planning effort. An anticipated result of this new director's order will be a general management planning program that will support all parks in developing and maintaining this foundation for decision making. In the interim, parks will work from the information in their existing plans and identify and fill gaps in their overall planning framework as quickly as feasible.

3.3.2.6. Although it shares some elements in common with a general management plan, a park strategic plan will not be a substitute for a general management plan because it does not reflect the comprehensive resource analysis, consultation, and compliance required for a general management plan. Through strategic planning, park staffs will continuously reevaluate the adequacy of the park's general management plan as a foundation for addressing issues, and they may identify the need for a new or revised general management plan. Should a park decide, through its strategic planning process, that a major shift in direction or emphasis is needed, then the strategic plan will identify the need for a

new general management plan or a GMP addendum or amendment. Strategic plans may also identify the need for more detailed implementation plans. General management planning and implementation planning are the appropriate processes for incorporating the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act to consider impacts on the natural, cultural, and socioeconomic environments.

3.3.3.0. Implementation Planning

3.3.3.1. Implementation planning focuses on how to implement an activity or project needed to achieve a long-term goal. The contents of implementation plans may vary widely, depending upon whether the plan is directing a specific project (such as a project to reintroduce an extirpated species or to develop a trail) or an ongoing activity (such as maintaining a historic structure, managing fire within a natural system, or setting and maintaining a standard for a quality visitor experience). Developing a plan of action for dealing with a complex and sometimes controversial issue often requires a level of detail and thorough analysis that goes well beyond that which is appropriate at the general management planning or strategic planning levels. (For more information about specific types of implementation plans, see the director's orders and related guidance for each program area.)

3.3.3.2. Implementation planning will generally be deferred until the activity or project under consideration has sufficient priority to indicate that action will be taken within the next two to five years. Therefore, implementation planning will usually tier off one of the long-term goals identified in the park strategic plan, and it will analyze and describe how the long-term goal will be achieved. Deferring implementation planning until the action has been given sufficient priority to anticipate funding in the next two to five years will help ensure that decisions about how to best achieve a certain goal are relevant, timely, and based on current data.

3.3.3.3. Implementation plans for actions with the potential to significantly affect the human environment will require formal analysis of alternatives in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and related legislation, including the National Historic Preservation Act. Since many issues involving environmental quality and cultural resources will be resolved through implementation planning rather than general management planning, the NEPA and NHPA section 106 processes begun during general management planning will need to continue as part of implementation planning.

3.3.3.4. Implementation planning for one or more projects or activities may overlap general management planning and strategic planning if it is appropriate for the purposes of planning efficiency or public involvement. However, the decisions needed at the general management planning level and the strategic planning level will precede and direct the more detailed decisions about projects and activities. Major actions or commitments aimed at changing resource conditions or visitor use in a park, and major new development or rehabilitation, will be consistent with an approved general management plan and will be linked to a long-term goal in a current strategic plan. Even if they are conducted simultaneously, the general management plan and implementation plan(s) will be contained in separate documents or separate parts of a single document, because the general management plan needs to remain intact after the implementation plans are out of date and no longer needed for reference.

3.3.4.0. Park Annual Performance Planning and Annual Performance Reporting

3.3.4.1. Each park will prepare annual performance plans articulating annual goals for the upcoming fiscal year and annual performance reports describing the progress made in meeting the annual goals.

3.3.4.2. Annual performance plans will contain the following decision-making elements: (1) annual performance goals (the outcomes expected to be achieved that fiscal year), which are tiered from the park's long-term goals, (2) an annual work plan (inputs and outputs for the fiscal year) that breaks out park activities to achieve the annual goals and includes FTEs and budgets, and (3) linkages to budget formulation and executive budget documents (refer to the program standards for a detailed description of each element). Because they incorporate decisions made through other planning processes, annual plans do not require public involvement.

3.3.4.3. Annual performance reports will consist of two main parts: (1) a report on the progress made toward meeting the last fiscal year's annual performance plan, and an analysis of the present fiscal year's annual performance plan. The analysis will identify the continuing goals (carryovers) from the last fiscal year and discuss why the park did not accomplish one or more of its annual goals in the past fiscal year. The park annual performance report will relate to the servicewide annual performance report where applicable in order to aggregate park results at the servicewide level.

3.3.4.4. The development of the annual performance plan and report will be synchronized with NPS budget development. The annual performance report will specifically address park performance affected by budget change. Annual performance reports may also be used as the basis of personnel appraisals. Accountability for results should be within an employee's ability to affect results.

4.1. Park superintendents will be responsible for identifying planning needs, prioritizing planning work as part of unified priority setting for the park, and for securing funding. The superintendent and regional director will be accountable for accomplishing planning projects and for ensuring that they are consistent with all legal mandates, NPS management policy, generally accepted preservation standards and practices, and servicewide direction. The regional director will ensure that the general management plan is prepared in consultation with the associate directors and program managers in the Washington Office and will recommend further consultation with officials in the Department of the Interior on issues that may be of special interest to the secretary. Program managers in the headquarters office will be responsible for formulating and advising on NPS management policy and for managing servicewide program funds to support the planning and information needs of parks in ways that provide the most benefit for the national park system as a whole. The National Leadership Council will approve priorities for servicewide planning program funds. The national program centers and regional support offices will be responsible for completing assigned projects and for providing technical support and consulting services. Refer to table 1 for a complete listing of roles and responsibilities in NPS park planning.

4.2. Project agreements will be developed for each general management planning project and for complex implementation plans. Through these agreements the parties involved in the project, both the client and the provider of the product, will define and agree from the beginning on the scope of the planning project, the information requirements, the products and services to be produced, the roles and responsibilities for production, consultation, and review, and a project schedule, including major milestones. Project agreements will also include a cost estimate that specifies salary costs by contributing office and other costs for travel, contracts, and printing. The cost estimates will be subtotaled according to the major milestones to help determine if the project is starting to significantly exceed the cost estimate during any particular phase. Project agreements for general management plans will be recommended by the superintendent and the principal planning office(s), cleared for policy compliance by the program manager for park planning and special studies, and approved by the regional director. Project agreements for implementation plans will be agreements among the superintendent and the principal planning offices involved.

4.3. Park planning activities will be funded through a variety of sources. The key sources for each kind of planning are identified below:

• General management planning and analysis will be funded primarily through GMP project funds, although salaries of base-funded staff in regions, support offices, and parks are also expected to be a significant source of support for general management planning. GMP funds will not normally be used to collect basic inventory information about natural and cultural resources or visitor use.
• Planning data needs will be scoped in advance of an anticipated start-up to allow for the coordination with resource management and visitor service programs and the completion of an adequate database to support decision making.

• Park strategic planning and annual performance planning and reporting will be funded primarily out of the park operating base.

• Implementation planning will be undertaken using all appropriate and available NPS and non-NPS sources of funds, equipment, services, and personnel. Implementation planning generally will be funded through project funding available for the specific type of project addressed by the plan. If project funds are not available, other sources will be sought. Within the National Park Service this includes park base, regional base, challenge cost-share program, construction project planning, and the volunteers-in-parks program. Outside the National Park Service this includes collaborative projects with other federal agencies, state agencies, local governments, Indian tribes, scientific and educational institutions, and conservation and preservation organizations. Collaborative projects with partners might involve joint funding, sharing personnel and equipment, and providing services at little or no cost to the National Park Service.

4.4. Planning for imminent resource management, visitor services, or construction projects may overlap with general management planning, so long as decisions needed at the general management planning level precede and direct the more detailed decisions about projects and activities. However, only the GMP portion of this decision making will be funded through the GMP program. An exception may be granted for very small historic sites and monuments (a historic home, possibly with grounds, is a good example) if they have no major GMP issues and simple implementation planning needs (costing up to $25,000). For these parks the advantages to the National Park Service of completing implementation planning with GMP funds will be considered in computing the overall cost-effectiveness of the projects.