Critical Success Factor #1: The Need for Internal DAM Masters

Almost every successful digital asset management (DAM) installation (hosted/SaaS DAM or on premise) has a resident DAM expert or “DAM Master”. Depending on the size and breadth of the organization this person or sometimes a team of 2-3 people, provides oversight of the DAM system from a combined business use and technical implementation perspective.

In most organizations, this role is often divided between several people (e.g. technically focused vs. business focused) who work as the DAM Masters or governing council, to make sure the organization has smooth and ongoing system operation.

They are not necessarily IT people, because they need to understand how the DAM is applied to the business and across groups including potentially external agencies, partners, and users. Nor are they strictly marketing folk assigned to babysit the DAM, as they also have to understand, sometimes technically, how the DAM works and how to get things accomplished with it. The DAM Master is thus a core person or team, and needs to be able to understand both the business needs, workflows and processes of the DAM’s various stakeholders, as well as the technical architecture and capabilities of the DAM system. In essence, these people “own the DAM” and are responsible for its proper function, use, maintenance and success within the organization.

Their key responsibilities are:

• Solicit, vet and resolve all enhancement requests and modifications to the system
• Expand and update the metadata model and definitions (assuming the system supports the capability to update the metadata model after it has been established)
• Enforce consistency of metadata (“metadata quality assurance”) – are people using the same terms, controlled vocabulary, keywords, etc. to describe the assets so they can be found later?
• Implement and update the folder/collection/catalog hierarchy for consistent access
• Implement new business rules, policies, and in some cases automated workflows within the system to facilitate business processes around the system
• Function as more than a librarian or governance provider for the assets
• Potentially manage user organization and access to functionality in the system
• Potentially provide internal training and problem resolution as well

With this lengthy but essential introduction, the key question is: Do you have the right people in your organization to serve as DAM Masters in the first place? You must ask and assess this critical question. It’s very important, because it directly affects three of the hidden costs of DAM: initial training, ongoing training and business support.

If your organization is like most, you don’t have these key people on staff and instead have to hire them. Or perhaps you do have some people with relevant skill sets, but they’ll need to be “grown” and trained. In some cases organizations outsource these skills/roles from a third-party (e.g., a system integrator), or from the DAM vendor.

Once you identify who is going to be your DAM Master(s), you can identify this hidden cost – whether it will be new headcount, outsourced headcount or service, or purely training fees for those few key people in your organization. Establishing the DAM Master role is critical success factor for your organization’s use of a DAM – without it, it is highly likely your DAM project will wither and die, because no-one “owns” the DAM along with the requisite skills to manage and expand its use.

For more on calculating the total cost of DAM and finding out more about some of the hidden costs of DAM, download the North Plains’ white paper “The 13 Cost Areas for a Digital Asset Management System”.