The National Mapping Division (NMD) has developed this comprehensive strategic plan to chart its course over the next decade. To meet the challenge of the future, the NMD is changing its program emphasis, methods of responding to customer need and business practices. The NMD Strategic Plan identifies the new direction for the Division through a series of goals and actions for managers to use in formulating plans, establishing program emphasis, and determining resource needs and allocations into the next century.

The Plan refines the NMD mission on the basis of several key issues that are expected to face the Division in the next decade. Th first of these is the continuing advances in technology and telecommunications. Related to this is the growth in the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and the demand for data to use in GIS's.  Also, a trend exists toward decreasing cost of both the data and the systems, leading to even more demand for and use of data and technology by more users. Another is a changing customer base and increasing demand for NMD products and services. Finally, the financial resource available to the NMD are anticipated to remain relatively static.

The Plan assumes that a much greater reliance on partnerships with other government agencies and the private sector for production activities will be permanent. It calls for significantly greater emphasis on the inherently governmental information management responsibilities and on geographic research to support the Division's mission. Multipartner consortia and shared funding agreements will constitute the basis for meeting most mapping needs in the future, with the NMD appropriation focused on map revision in areas of importance to the Federal Government. Mapping Centers will be encouraged to increase partnership agreements to meet mission requirements. The Division will continue to constrain employment, targeting new hiring to specific skills needed to support the revised mission in areas such as quality assurance, data standards development and maintenance, contract management, and information management. Retraining opportunities for current employees will be a high priority.

The Bureau Strategic Plan was reviewed carefully to assure that the NMD Strategic Plan would be consistent with it. The Division planning team built on the conclusion of the Bureau Plan regarding the political, economic, societal, and global force that will affect our program in the future. The NMD Strategic Plan also embraces all of the core competencies and business activities.