to create your DAM governance structure

Governance is often overlooked or forgotten when setting up a new digital assets management system. You are already managing system configurations, legal compliance and user permissioning. Are you concerned about governance?

Yes. Governance touches all of these things and more. Your DAM could cause more chaos than order over the long-term without it. Do not leave it unfinished or rush it. From the beginning of your DAM journey, a DAM governance structure must be in mind.

What is DAM Governance?

A DAM is not able to run itself, as you probably know. It is not a “set-it-and forget-it” system.

Governance is the process of maintaining and improving standards, policies, and best practices in a DAM. It includes the people, processes, and technology involved in digital asset management within your company.

Governance documentation is the documentation that provides stability and maintains the DAM’s smooth operation over the long-term. This framework will keep your DAM from becoming a junk drawer as your business evolves and your stakeholders and end-users make changes.

Documented governance policies help to manage risk and keep you aligned with your business goals. DAM governance includes collaborating with stakeholders to adapt, modify and manage your system to meet your company’s needs. It ensures that all stakeholders are in constant communication to achieve DAM success.

Where should I begin?

Many of the questions that you ask during the launch and set-up of your DAM are also questions you should be asking when you create your governance policies. Multi-task! You can avoid having to re-examine those questions later on by clearly defining and documenting your answers right from the beginning.

Governance documentation is a living document and should be reviewed and updated as your business changes and priorities change. It is not like the DAM. You will regret it later.

These are the questions that your governance plan should address:

• What is the DAM?
• Who can access the DAM? What content areas can they view with this access? What are their rights to the content they see?
• What are the required naming conventions for your product?
• Who is responsible for applying metadata? What standards and requirements must they follow?
• What will the procedure be for versioning?
• What are your regulatory and licensing requirements?
• How do you dispose of expired assets? What is the archiving procedure?
• Who is responsible to provide training?
• Who is responsible to enforce and update the DAM standards?
• How will you communicate changes and updates to your users?
• What happens if something goes wrong? Who is responsible to resolve which types of issues (legal, technical, content, etc. ).

Do you find this list overwhelming? Start with a simple purpose statement, and then build on it as you go. What is the purpose of your DAM? What purpose does it serve and what are its goals?

Dig deeper: A 12-step guide for implementing a digital asset management system

Peacekeeping: Working with DAM stakeholders

The hard part is putting your DAM policies on paper. The hard part is getting buy-in and enforcing these policies and requirements. If your governance documentation isn’t implemented and enforced, it has no value.

Your DAM will likely be an enterprise-level system that meets the needs of different and sometimes competing departments and divisions within your company. If your DAM is to be successful, these departments must have a voice.

You also have stakeholders from business areas who aren’t directly involved in managing the assets in and out your DAM, but have an interest in the overall success and management of the system. Along with your creative and marketing teams, IT and legal departments need to be heard. Your DAM’s success depends on the buy-in of all levels of your organization, from leadership to end users. To provide the best DAM experience, you must consider all aspects of the user experience. Communication is the key to all of this.

When defining roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders, be thorough. Set clear expectations about their involvement in the DAM’s success. Active and engaged stakeholders are desirable. If someone doesn’t live up to their expectations, it is time to find a replacement.

In your documentation, refer to roles and not individual personnel names. There will be people who leave the company, or who take on new roles within the company. Org charts will also change. It will be easier for new members to join the DAM team if they have well-defined roles.

Be aware that everyone has a right to a voice. It can be hard to resist the temptation to listen to the loudest voice or to defer to the stakeholder who represents the largest number of end-users when you have strong personalities in your DAM stakeholders team.

To give everyone an equal chance to influence the direction of the future, you might consider creating a voting policy that applies to major decisions regarding the DAM. Engagement will be affected if everyone feels heard.

Your DAM journey will be successful if you engage regularly with your stakeholders. Before your DAM is available to end-users, it’s a good idea to hold meetings. Review and address the feedback of users, evaluate if you need to make changes to your policies or processes, and assess the possibility that technical upgrades are necessary. It is much more difficult to get governance to stick with an active system. It is not impossible but it can be difficult.

You can’t address governance issues with users or stakeholders until the system is launched. Then, all major decisions will be made. Participating from the very beginning encourages ownership of the DAM, and continues investment in its success.

Your DAM will move from planning to launch and maintenance. However, you won’t lose your meetings. You should hold meetings so your stakeholders and users are involved. Once the DAM is implemented and governance documentation has been created, their value does not diminish.

As the DAM grows and evolves, decisions will still be needed. They should remain involved in these decisions. Although the current governance policies will guide future decisions it is still a living document. Always provide clear channels for stakeholders and end users to give feedback and suggestions to improve workflows and processes.

Your governance documentation should not be kept in a safe place. It should be easily accessible for all users and available to them at any time. Be open to feedback and questions about the documentation.

Learn more: This is why you need a DAM workflow – and how to map it

Governance is not necessary for me: I have a DAM Manager

Do not assume that a DAM manager is your governance. They may have a degree or diploma in DAM management, and they are well-versed on all aspects of DAM best practices. They meet with users to understand their needs and take into consideration their opinions. They are ultimately responsible for making all decisions. They are experts in managing DAMs. That’s why they were hired.

Sorry, no. It’s not ideal to have a single system manager making all decisions without any governance policies. This is not the best way for users to feel ownership and buy-in to the system. Even though the DAM manager might know the best practices, they don’t use the DAM every day. This is because your users aren’t all using it.

While best practices may be best practices, they are not always the best for all situations. If it’s not the best option for your users and their business, you can’t force them to use it.

While the DAM manager will guide you and keep you on track, they will also acknowledge that you may need to be flexible about best practices. If sometimes being best-practice-adjacent makes the end-users’ lives easier and doesn’t introduce risk or disorder, you have to be willing to give an inch or two.

Happy DAM users are active DAM Users who stay engaged in the DAM’s long-term success. Stakeholder and end-user participation are just as important as the leadership of the DAM Manager.

MarTech first published the post How do you define your DAM governance scheme.