CP-2(1): Coordinate with Related Plans

CP-2(1) is a small enhancement with outsized audit impact because it tests whether your continuity program is run as a coordinated capability or as disconnected documents. Most failures are not technical; they are organizational. The contingency plan says one thing about recovery roles, the incident response plan says another, and business continuity assumes a different set of priorities and timelines. That mismatch is what CP-2(1) is designed to prevent.

For a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead, the fastest path to operationalizing CP-2(1) is to treat “coordination” as a controlled workflow with explicit inputs, outputs, and recurring evidence. You are building a coordination record that shows (1) who owns each related plan, (2) what dependencies must align, and (3) when you verified alignment.

This requirement is part of NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 contingency planning expectations and commonly applies in federal information systems and contractor environments handling federal data ¹. Your objective is assessment readiness: a clean crosswalk from the contingency plan to related plans, backed by artifacts that prove coordination happened.

Regulatory text

Requirement (verbatim excerpt): “Coordinate contingency plan development with organizational elements responsible for related plans.” ²

What the operator must do:
You must run contingency plan development as a coordinated activity with the owners of other plans that touch the same systems, teams, facilities, suppliers, or recovery steps. “Coordinate” is not satisfied by having all plans stored in the same repository; it requires evidence that plan owners reviewed assumptions and reconciled conflicts.

Plain-English interpretation (what CP-2(1) really expects)

CP-2(1) expects three things in practice:

1. You identified the related plans. You can name them, name owners, and explain why each plan is related to the system contingency plan.
2. You aligned key content across plans. Roles, escalation paths, recovery sequence, communications, and dependencies do not contradict each other.
3. You can prove you coordinated. You can show meeting notes, review sign-offs, change tickets, and version history showing cross-plan reviews occurred.

Coordination is especially important where an operational decision in one plan triggers obligations in another (example: IR declares an incident; contingency activates alternate processing; communications issues statements; IT operations restores from backups; third parties provide failover services).

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

CP-2(1) is most relevant for:

• Federal information systems operating under NIST SP 800-53 control baselines ³.
• Contractor systems handling federal data (including environments supporting federal contracts) where NIST 800-53 controls are flowed down contractually ².

Operationally, you should treat CP-2(1) as “in scope” when any of the following are true:

• Your system depends on shared infrastructure (identity, network, cloud platform, data centers).
• You have multiple response and recovery documents owned by different leaders.
• You rely on third parties (cloud, managed services, SaaS) for continuity or recovery activities.
• You perform exercises or tests where multiple teams participate.

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

Step 1: Define “related plans” for your environment

Create a short list of plans that must align with the contingency plan. Typical examples (adjust to your organization):

• Incident Response Plan / Cybersecurity Incident Response
• Disaster Recovery Plan (technology recovery)
• Business Continuity Plan (business process continuity)
• Crisis Communications Plan (internal/external communications)
• IT Operations runbooks (backup/restore, infrastructure rebuild)
• Physical security/emergency management plans (if facilities matter)
• Third-party continuity plans or contractual recovery commitments (where you depend on them)

Deliverable: Related Plans Register (one page is fine).

Step 2: Assign owners and coordination authority

For each related plan, record:

• Plan owner (role + name)
• Backup owner
• Approval authority
• Review cadence trigger (for example: “review when contingency plan updates”)

Also assign a CP-2(1) coordinator (often the BC/DR lead, contingency program manager, or GRC control owner) who is responsible for collecting evidence and driving reconciliation.

Deliverable: RACI for contingency planning coordination.

Step 3: Build a cross-plan dependency and consistency map

Create a table that forces alignment on the items auditors probe first:

Alignment topic	Contingency plan source	Related plan source	Decision/standard	Owner sign-off
Activation criteria	Section X	IR/BC section Y	Single definition	Yes/No
Roles & escalation	Appendix A	IR playbook	Single on-call path	Yes/No
Recovery sequence	Step order	DR runbook	One “gold” sequence	Yes/No
Communications	Notifications	Comms plan	Who says what	Yes/No
Third-party dependencies	Vendor list	DR contracts	Same assumptions	Yes/No

Deliverable: Plan Coordination Crosswalk (this becomes your audit anchor).

Step 4: Run a structured coordination review (and document it)

Hold a review with plan owners. Keep it tight:

• Confirm scope and system boundaries
• Walk the crosswalk table
• Identify conflicts and decide the authoritative source for each topic
• Log actions with owners and due dates

Evidence matters more than polish. Save calendar invites, attendee lists, notes, and action logs.

Deliverable: Coordination review packet (agenda, minutes, actions, attendance).

Step 5: Reconcile conflicts through formal change control

Do not “agree verbally” and leave documents inconsistent. Track updates through your normal governance:

• Document change requests
• Version updates
• Approvals
• Publication to the controlled repository

Deliverable: Change tickets + updated plan versions.

Step 6: Integrate CP-2(1) into ongoing operations

Make coordination repeatable:

• Trigger a coordination check whenever any related plan changes materially.
• Add a mandatory cross-plan reviewer list to your plan templates.
• Tie exercises/tabletops to plan updates: the exercise is an efficient forcing function to validate alignment.

Deliverable: Standing operating procedure (SOP) for plan coordination.

Step 7: Prepare the “exam ready” story

Auditors will ask: “Show me you coordinate.” Your story should be:

• Here are the related plans and owners
• Here is the crosswalk
• Here are the meeting artifacts and approvals
• Here is the change history that resolved conflicts

Tools like Daydream are helpful here because they make it easy to map CP-2(1) to a clear control owner, a written procedure, and recurring evidence artifacts so you are not rebuilding the evidence pack each audit cycle ².

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Keep artifacts that prove coordination occurred and was effective:

• Related Plans Register (plans, owners, scope link to the system)
• Plan Coordination Crosswalk (alignment mapping table)
• Meeting artifacts: invites, agendas, minutes, attendance, decisions
• Action log with resolution dates and owners
• Version history: redlines, document control logs, approvals
• Change management records: tickets, pull requests, CAB approvals (as applicable)
• Exercise/tabletop outputs showing cross-plan validation and follow-up actions
• Repository controls: where the “current” approved plans live and how access is controlled

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Auditors and assessors often focus on:

1. “What are the related plans?” If you can’t list them and justify inclusion/exclusion, you look ungoverned.
2. “Who owns each plan and who approved coordination?” Missing ownership breaks accountability.
3. “Show evidence of coordination, not just documents.” They want artifacts of review and decisions.
4. “Are assumptions consistent?” Example hangups: different recovery roles; inconsistent escalation; mismatched dependencies on cloud regions or third parties.
5. “How do you keep them aligned over time?” A one-time meeting is weaker than a defined trigger and cadence.

Frequent implementation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

• Mistake: Treating coordination as an email CC.
  Fix: Require a crosswalk table and decision log for each review cycle.

• Mistake: BC/DR writes everything without operations buy-in.
  Fix: Make IT operations and incident response co-authors for shared steps (backup/restore, failover, rebuild).

• Mistake: Conflicting definitions (incident vs disaster vs contingency activation).
  Fix: Maintain a shared glossary and “activation criteria” section that all plans reference.

• Mistake: Third-party dependencies missing from continuity planning.
  Fix: Include third-party contacts, SLAs, recovery commitments, and escalation paths in the crosswalk and confirm contract alignment.

• Mistake: No evidence package.
  Fix: Standardize an “audit binder” folder structure per system and per plan cycle, with required artifacts listed.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source catalog for this requirement, so you should treat CP-2(1) primarily as an assessment and operational resilience risk rather than an enforcement-led requirement. The real exposure is practical: misaligned plans cause delays, duplicated effort, and decision confusion during an incident or outage. In federal contracting contexts, control failures can also create assessment findings that affect authorizations and customer trust ³.

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

Next 30 days (stabilize and inventory)

• Name the CP-2(1) control owner and publish a short SOP for coordination.
• Build the Related Plans Register and identify plan owners.
• Collect current plan versions and confirm where the authoritative copies live.
• Draft the Plan Coordination Crosswalk (even if incomplete).

Next 60 days (coordinate and reconcile)

• Run coordination reviews with each related plan owner group.
• Log conflicts, assign actions, and drive updates through change control.
• Add cross-plan reviewer requirements to plan templates.
• Build an evidence pack structure (folders + checklist) and backfill missing artifacts where possible.

Next 90 days (operationalize and prove repeatability)

• Run a tabletop or exercise that forces cross-plan execution (IR + IT ops + comms + BC/DR).
• Capture after-action items and update plans accordingly.
• Confirm ongoing triggers: what events require a re-coordination (material system change, third-party change, major plan update).
• Prepare an “assessor-ready” packet that ties CP-2(1) to owners, crosswalk, meeting artifacts, and version history.

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a “related plan” under CP-2(1)?

Any plan that shares roles, dependencies, decision points, or recovery actions with the contingency plan counts. If two plans would be executed in the same outage or incident, treat them as related and coordinate them.

Do we need one combined plan to satisfy CP-2(1)?

No. CP-2(1) requires coordination, not consolidation. Separate plans are fine if you can show they align and you can prove ongoing cross-owner review.

What’s the minimum evidence an auditor will accept?

Keep a related plans list with owners, a crosswalk showing key alignment points, and artifacts of review (meeting notes or sign-offs) plus the resulting updated versions. If you only have the documents and no review artifacts, expect a finding.

How do we handle coordination when third parties own parts of recovery (cloud/MSP/SaaS)?

Treat third-party continuity commitments as dependencies that must be consistent with your contingency plan assumptions. Keep contracts, support escalation paths, and third-party continuity documentation (or attestations) as supporting artifacts.

Our incident response and disaster recovery teams disagree on activation criteria. What do we do?

Force a single definition and explicitly document the decision, the owner, and where the authoritative wording lives. Then update the conflicting plan sections through normal change control so the inconsistency is removed.

How should a GRC team operationalize CP-2(1) without becoming the bottleneck?

Make GRC the coordinator and evidence custodian, not the author of every plan. Use a standard crosswalk template, require owner sign-off, and track actions in the same system you use for control testing and evidence collection.

Footnotes

1. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON; NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

2. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON

3. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5