The National Planning Frameworks, including the National Protection Framework, explain the role of each mission area in national preparedness. The concepts included in the Frameworks are used to guide operational planning, which provides further information regarding roles and responsibilities. Operational planning also identifies the critical tasks in executing the core capabilities. Additionally, operational planning identifies resourcing, personnel, and sourcing requirements across the whole community.

Planning across the full range of Protection activities is the responsibility of every level of government as well as the private and nonprofit sectors. This planning is used to determine jurisdictional priorities, objectives, strategies, and resource acquisitions and allocations needed to protect against potential threats. In doing so, the operational plan helps provide the right resources at the right time to support local, regional, state, tribal, territorial, insular-area, and Federal operations.

Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101 (http://www.fema.gov/plan) provides further information on the various types of plans and guidance on the fundamentals of planning. Additional information can be found on planning at this website.

On the following screens, we’ll take a look at two types of operational plans: Department-level Operational Plans and Federal Interagency Operational Plans (FIOPs).