PL-2(3): Plan and Coordinate with Other Organizational Entities

PL-2(3) requires you to explicitly plan for, and coordinate your system security planning activities with, other organizational entities that affect or depend on your system (for example: enterprise security, privacy, legal, procurement, HR, facilities, and external mission partners). Operationalize it by defining coordination touchpoints, assigning accountable owners, and retaining evidence that coordination occurred and changed plans when needed. ¹

Key takeaways:

• Coordination is a control requirement: you must show who you coordinate with, when, and what decisions changed as a result. ¹
• Treat coordination as planned governance with named interfaces, not ad hoc meetings. ²
• Your audit win condition is repeatable evidence: schedules, minutes, approvals, and updated plans mapped to owners. ¹

PL-2(3): plan and coordinate with other organizational entities requirement is easy to “think” you do and hard to prove you do. Most security programs already interact with enterprise teams, but the requirement is about disciplined, planned coordination that can be demonstrated during an assessment. In practice, this is where system-level planning (your SSP, security architecture decisions, boundaries, shared services, and inherited controls) meets the rest of the organization’s governance reality: privacy, procurement, legal, HR, facilities, IT operations, and mission owners all influence what the system is, what data it processes, and what “security” can realistically be enforced.

For a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead, the fastest path is to convert “coordination” into a small set of defined interfaces: who must be consulted, what triggers require coordination, what artifacts get produced, and where that evidence is stored. This page gives you requirement-level implementation guidance you can apply immediately, with an emphasis on assessor-ready artifacts and the operational cadence that keeps the control working between audits. ²

Regulatory text

Control: PL-2(3) “Plan and Coordinate with Other Organizational Entities.”
Provided excerpt: “NIST SP 800-53 control PL-2.3.” ¹

What the operator must do (requirement meaning):
You must build your system security planning approach so it intentionally coordinates with other organizational entities that (a) provide common controls/shared services you rely on, (b) set policies you must follow, or (c) create dependencies that change your system’s security posture. Your evidence needs to show coordination is not accidental: it is planned, repeatable, and produces decisions that flow into your system security plan and related planning artifacts. ³

Plain-English interpretation

PL-2(3) expects you to answer, and document, three questions:

1. Who else in the organization can affect your system’s security and compliance outcomes?
2. How will you coordinate with them (cadence + triggers + decision rights)?
3. How will you prove coordination occurred and was reflected in system planning? ²

Think of it as “SSP as a team sport.” Your system team cannot claim controls are implemented, inherited, or enforced if the owning entity for those controls is not aligned and you cannot show the coordination that established responsibilities and interfaces. ²

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

Applies to:

• Federal information systems and the organizations operating them. ¹
• Contractor systems handling federal data (common in regulated federal contracting environments where NIST 800-53 is the baseline). ¹

Operational contexts where PL-2(3) becomes “high friction”:

• Systems inheriting controls from enterprise SOC, IAM, network, endpoint, or cloud platforms.
• Systems with third-party hosted components or managed services where procurement and legal set contractual constraints.
• Systems processing regulated data types where privacy and records management impose planning requirements.
• Multi-team SDLC environments where engineering can change boundaries and dependencies faster than GRC can update plans. ²

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

Step 1: Define the coordination scope for the system

Create a one-page Coordination Map for the system:

• Internal entities: Enterprise Security, IAM, Network, SOC, Privacy, Legal, Procurement, HR, Facilities, Records, Data Governance, Business Continuity/DR, Internal Audit.
• External entities (as applicable): mission partners, shared service providers, key third parties, authorizing officials or customer security teams.
  For each, record: why they matter, what they own, and what decisions they can block or must approve. ²

Step 2: Assign coordination ownership and decision rights

For each entity in the Coordination Map, set:

• Accountable owner on your side (system owner, ISSO, product security, GRC analyst).
• Named counterpart (role or group mailbox is acceptable if it is stable).
• Decision rights: consult, approve, inform; and what happens on disagreement (escalation path).
  If you do nothing else, do this. Assessors look for clear accountability more than perfect formatting. ²

Step 3: Build the “coordination cadence” into your planning calendar

Convert coordination into scheduled governance:

• A recurring System Security Planning Sync (cross-functional) with a standard agenda: boundary changes, inherited controls changes, exceptions, risk acceptances, upcoming releases, third-party changes.
• A quarterly (guidance cadence) alignment check with enterprise control owners for inherited controls and shared services.
  If your org already has change advisory boards (CAB) or architecture review boards (ARB), integrate PL-2(3) evidence capture into those meetings rather than creating new ones. ²

Step 4: Define coordination triggers (the practical part)

Write a short list of events that must trigger coordination and evidence capture:

• System boundary changes, new integrations, new data types, new environments/tenants.
• Changes in identity model (SSO, MFA enforcement, privileged access).
• Third-party onboarding/offboarding that affects data flow or hosting.
• Logging/monitoring model changes that affect SOC visibility.
• Incident response plan changes that affect roles, contacts, or notification paths. ²

Step 5: Update planning artifacts so coordination is visible

Make coordination “show up” in the documents assessors read:

• SSP sections for roles/responsibilities, control inheritance, and system environment.
• A RACI or responsibility matrix for controls that are shared between system and enterprise teams.
• A list of inherited controls and where you validate them (attestations, reports, tickets, runbooks).
• Interfaces to privacy, legal, procurement, and HR where they shape requirements (for example: contract clauses, data handling rules, onboarding/offboarding). ¹

Step 6: Operationalize evidence capture (make it hard to forget)

Set a simple rule: every planned coordination point produces at least one durable artifact. Examples:

• Meeting invite + agenda + minutes with decisions and action items.
• Approval in a ticketing system for boundary change or exception.
• Email thread archived to the system’s GRC evidence repository.
• Updated SSP revision history noting what changed and why. ²

Daydream fit (natural use): If you struggle to keep this evidence consistent across systems, Daydream can act as the control workspace: map PL-2(3) to a control owner, a procedure, and recurring evidence artifacts so coordination outputs land in one place and are assessor-ready. ¹

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Keep artifacts that prove planned coordination and outcomes:

Evidence type	What “good” looks like	Where auditors get stuck
Coordination Map	Named entities, owners, reasons, and decision rights	Map exists but no owners/counterparts
Planning calendar	Recurring meetings + triggers	One-off meetings only
Meeting records	Agenda, minutes, actions, attendees	No decisions captured
Approvals / tickets	Approvals tied to planning events (boundary, exceptions)	Tickets exist but not linked to SSP changes
SSP revision history	Clear linkage between coordination and updates	SSP updated but no traceability
Inherited control attestations	Evidence from enterprise teams about shared services	“We inherit it” with no proof

³

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Expect these, and prepare the artifacts above:

1. “Which organizational entities do you coordinate with, and how did you determine the list?”
2. “Show me evidence of coordination for a major system change.”
3. “Which controls are inherited and what is your process to validate them?”
4. “How do privacy/procurement/legal requirements feed into system security planning?”
5. “What happens when enterprise policy conflicts with system engineering needs?” ²

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

• Mistake: Treating coordination as informal relationships.
  Fix: Put coordination in a RACI and calendar. Retain minutes and decisions.

• Mistake: Listing “stakeholders” but not documenting decision rights.
  Fix: Record who approves what (exceptions, boundary changes, inherited control assertions). ²

• Mistake: Over-relying on “inherited controls” with no validation loop.
  Fix: Require periodic attestations or evidence pulls from control owners; store them with the SSP evidence set.

• Mistake: Coordination happens, but artifacts live in inboxes and chats.
  Fix: Use a single evidence repository per system; enforce a naming convention and link evidence to PL-2(3).

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided for this specific requirement in the source catalog, so you should treat PL-2(3) primarily as an assessment readiness and control effectiveness risk. The practical risk is predictable: poor coordination creates incorrect system boundaries, broken control inheritance claims, missed dependencies in incident response, and “paper controls” that do not match operational reality. ²

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days (Immediate)

• Build the Coordination Map and confirm counterparts.
• Add PL-2(3) to your control matrix with an owner, procedure, and evidence list. ¹
• Stand up an evidence repository folder structure for coordination artifacts.

By 60 days (Near-term)

• Run the first cross-functional System Security Planning Sync and capture minutes.
• Document triggers for mandatory coordination and embed them into change management or SDLC gates.
• Update SSP sections that reflect coordination outcomes: responsibilities, inheritance, boundary, dependencies. ²

By 90 days (Operationalized)

• Demonstrate at least one end-to-end example: trigger → coordination → decision → SSP update → evidence stored.
• Put inherited control validation into a recurring task and collect initial attestations.
• Prepare an “assessor packet” for PL-2(3): map, calendar, minutes, example change record, SSP revision notes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does PL-2(3) require coordination with third parties or only internal teams?

The control is framed as “other organizational entities,” which commonly includes internal entities, but you should also coordinate with external mission partners or shared service providers when they materially affect your system plan. Document your rationale in the Coordination Map. ²

What is the minimum evidence an auditor will accept for “coordination”?

A repeatable coordination cadence (calendar), proof meetings occurred (invites/minutes), and proof outcomes changed planning artifacts (SSP revision notes or linked tickets). One strong end-to-end example often resolves most challenges. ²

How do we handle coordination when teams refuse to attend meetings?

Move coordination to existing governance bodies (CAB/ARB) or require written approvals in tickets. If a dependency owner will not engage, document escalation paths and capture risk acceptance decisions. ²

We inherit many enterprise controls. Do we still need PL-2(3)?

Yes. Inheritance increases the need for coordination because you must align with control owners on what is covered, what evidence exists, and what your system team must still do. Store inherited control attestations alongside your SSP. ¹

How do we keep PL-2(3) from becoming a paperwork exercise?

Tie coordination triggers to real operational events: releases, integrations, third-party changes, and boundary updates. If coordination does not result in decisions or documented action items, tighten the agenda and require ticket-based outcomes. ²

What’s the fastest way to make this assessor-ready across many systems?

Standardize the Coordination Map template, meeting agenda, and evidence checklist, then map PL-2(3) to an owner and recurring artifacts per system. Daydream can centralize those mappings and evidence requests so every system produces the same proof set. ¹

Footnotes

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

2. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

3. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5; Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON