5 Warning Signs Your DAM Project is at Risk

Chris Lacinak: 00:00

Hey, y'all, Chris Lacinak here.

If you're a listener on the podcast, you know me as the host of the DAM Right Podcast.

You may not know me as the Founder and CEO of digital asset management consulting firm, AVP.

I founded the company back in: 2006

And I have learned what the early indicators are that are likely to make a project successful or a failure.

And I'm gonna share with you today five warning signs that your project is at risk.

So let's jump in.

Number one, there is no internal champion to see things through, or there's an over-reliance on external parties.

Now, what's that sound like pragmatically?

That sounds like, "that's why we're hiring a consultant", or "between the three of us, I think we should be able to stay on top of things."

You might think it's funny that myself as a consultant is telling you that you should not have an over-reliance on external parties, but the truth of the matter is, is that if you are over-reliant on us, and you are dependent on us, we have failed to do our job.

Chris Lacinak: 01:06

That is a sign of failure.

But let's talk about the champion.

What's the champion look like?

Well, first and foremost, it's someone who has the right expertise and experience.

We wanna set this person up for success.

They need to have an understanding of the domain.

They don't have to be the most expert person, but they need to understand, they need to be conversant, they need to understand the players, the parts, how things work.

They need to be knowledgeable enough that they're able to do the job.

Second, they need to have the time.

This can't be, you know, one of ten things that this person is doing, part of their job.

It needs to be dedicated.

And it can't be something that's shared across three, four, five people.

That's not gonna work either.

Things will slip through the cracks.

Now, why is this important?

Well, it's important because it mitigates the reliance on external parties, as I've already said.

But what's the other significance?

The other significance is that once the consultant leaves, or once the main project team is done doing what they're doing, whether that's an internal project team or external project team, this person is gonna be the point person that is going to maintain the knowledge, the history, the context of the project.

Chris Lacinak: 02:14

They're gonna have an understanding of what the strategy, what the roadmap is, what the plan is, and they're gonna help execute that.

They're gonna be the point person for coordinating the various resources, the people.

And, you know, it's gonna depend what this position looks like as to what authority they have, what budget control they have, things like that, about exactly what it looks like.

But more or less, this person is either gonna be, you know, the main point of recommendations and influence, or they might even be the budget holder and actually be making the calls and decisions.

But one way or another, you need somebody that is gonna see this through, that's internal to your organization in order for it to be sustainable and for it to succeed.

Number two, not enough organizational buy-in or poor socialization.

What's that sound like in practice?

Well, it might sound like "leadership doesn't understand, they just don't get it."

Or "there's issues with that department that we don't need to go into here, but we don't need to include them.

They'll have to fall into place once we do this."

Or "we haven't talked with folks about this yet, but we know it's a problem that needs to be fixed.

It's obvious."

Chris Lacinak: 03:14

Those are all signs that there's poor socialization and that you haven't gotten the appropriate buy-in from the organizational key stakeholders.

Now, who are the key stakeholders?

Well, let's start with executive sponsorship.

It's critically important that there's an executive sponsor.

Now, executive can mean a number of things.

It could be director level, it could be C-level.

Essentially, it's someone who is making decisions, is a key part of fulfilling strategy for the organization, the department, the business unit, has budget and is making budget calls.

So why is this important and how do you respond to this?

Well, it's important because executive sponsorship is looking out for the vision, the strategy, the mission, and the budget of the organizational unit.

Chris Lacinak: 03:59

You can't be sneaky and successfully slip a DAM into an organization, right?

There's no such thing as a contraband dam.

It's not like that bag of chips you sneak into the grocery cart when your significant other is looking the other way.

It's an operation, it's a program.

It requires executive sponsorship.

It requires budget.

It requires a tie-in into the strategy, the vision, and the mission.

It's not a bag of chips.

It's all that and a bag of chips.

Who are the other key stakeholders?

Well, your key stakeholders are gonna be the other people that are either contributors, users, or supporters of the DAM in some way.

'Cause it is an operation.

A dam has implications to workflows, to policies, to behaviors.

It touches so many different parts of the organization.

So it's critically important that your key stakeholders are included as early on in the process so that they feel heard, they feel included, they feel represented.

And when it's time to roll out that DAM, you don't have people going and looking backwards, right?

Chris Lacinak: 04:57

Everybody has an understanding of where you are, why you've arrived there, and how you're moving forward.

And even if they don't agree, they understand and they're on board.

And you want concerns and objections.

You want those, as I said, not at the point at which you're trying to do the thing, but you want it early on.

You wanna be able to respond to those.

You wanna be able to address them.

You hope they come out as early as possible so that you can build allies and trust as early on in the process as possible.

Now, do not confuse this with getting consensus and doing everything by consensus.

That is not what I mean.

And in fact, that could stand on its own as a major warning of potential failure here.

So doing everything by consensus is a huge downfall.

Do not go that route.

You want a robust, diligent system and a process for planning and executing the project that uses and addresses feedback of people along the way, but not one that requires everybody to agree on something.

Chris Lacinak: 06:01

And not one where everybody's wants and wishes are treated equally, right?

That's just not how organizations work.

If you do that, you're gonna end up with a system that makes nobody happy 'cause you're not doing anything particularly well.

So it's a setup for failure.

So do not do that.

And you might think, well, if I don't give people what they want, if I tell people no, if we say their issue is a priority three instead of a priority one, they're gonna object to the system or the program.

And that's not true.

Actually, what people want, they wanna feel heard, right?

They wanna be able to raise their concerns, their objections, their wishes.

Then they wanna know that you hear them.

They want to understand why whoever's making the decisions are making the decisions the way they are.

So if their issue or their wish or their request is number three instead of number one, people can live with that.

Chris Lacinak: 07:02

If they understand why you've made that decision, you've addressed it, it's transparent, and it serves the greater mission, vision, or purpose of what you're trying to do.

So that is critical.

You need to lay out that mission, vision, purpose early on.

And again, if you look at our DAM operational model, that is at the center of the operational model.

Once you have people on board with that, then you can start to get people to organize around that.

And even if they don't get everything they want, they're willing to be on board and be a productive member of obtaining that greater goal.

Number three, unable to clearly articulate the pain points.

So what's that sound like in practice?

Well, it sounds like something like, "we're just a mess.

My friend works at such and such organization, they have their act together, we need to be like them."

Or "we definitely just need a new DAM.

Jerry was in charge of getting the one we have now and nobody likes Jerry."

Chris Lacinak: 08:01

So that's not often a good place to start.

You know, well, and maybe you do start there.

It's not a good place to end.

You don't act off of that point.

That begs more questions.

And here's what I'll say, you know, and I've been, I'm a buyer of services where I'm not an expert.

So there are things that I know I don't know.

And I might have trouble talking to, you know, a service provider for me, not understanding what the landscape of service offerings are or exactly what I need, right?

You don't need to know what you need or what the solution is.

It's okay that you don't know what you don't know.

That's not the problem.

That's something where you can get, you know, the service provider that I'm talking to, or if you're talking to AVP, we can guide you on that.

We will get enough context and understanding to be able to guide you on that.

Chris Lacinak: 09:02

What we need to know is what your pain points are.

So imagine going to the doctor, you have a hurt knee and maybe that hurt knee has you worried.

So your stomach's upset with worry and you're feeling down in the dumps because you're not feeling well.

You need to be able to articulate the relevant pain points to the doctor, right?

You can't just go in and say, "Oh, I feel awful."

"Well, what's wrong?"

"Everything."

No, that's not gonna help anybody.

You need to be able to say at least my knee is hurting.

That's the main problem.

If there's information and context on what caused that, that's great and useful.

You know, "I had a fall."

"I twisted it when I was on the trail", whatever the case may be.

That might be helpful information, but you don't need to know why your knee hurts and you don't need to know what the solution is.

You just need to be able to point the doctor in the right direction of where the pain is.

Similarly with DAMS, right?

So let me give you a tip for identifying pain points.

I talked about, I gave those examples of what it sounds like up front.

And I said, you know, that might be an okay place to start.

I mean, it might be.

Chris Lacinak: 10:01

Sometimes you're just frustrated, you're overwhelmed, right?

And that's the thing that comes out.

But that's not the place you end.

So there's something called the five whys.

It comes out of a root cause analysis that I think can be really useful here.

And I'll give you as a tool to use for kind of drilling down on what the pain points are.

So let's give an example.

Let's state a problem.

And then you ask why five times to get down to the core of the problem.

So let's say we start at, "we're just a mess."

Well, why?

"Well, we're losing money."

Why is that?

"Because we keep missing deadlines and going over budget on production expenses."

Well, why is that?

"Well, because people continuously have to recreate assets that we've already created in the past, and that just takes more time and more money."

Well, why is that?

"Because people can't find what they're looking for.

They have to recreate it.

Or maybe it's lost and we have to recreate it."

Well, why?

"Well, because when they search for things using the terms that are meaningful to them, they don't get the right results.

Chris Lacinak: 11:00

They don't get the things they are looking for.

And it takes too much time and it's too hard."

Now that is extremely useful, right?

That's where we get down to the pain points.

People can't find what they're looking for.

That gives us something to work with.

And remember here too, you put humans first.

Pain points are not technology problems, they're human problems.

And we're aiming to solve human problems.

Now, technology has a role to play in solving these problems, but technology problems are not what we're aiming to solve.

The problem is not that you don't have a DAM.

The problem is that the digital assets can't be found easily.

Digital assets are being lost and recreated.

Licensed content is being misused.

Brand guidelines are being violated.

All of these things cause pain to people in the way of time, money, frustration, excellence, et cetera.

So one solution to this may be a DAM technology, but there's more to it than just that.

And again, I'm gonna point you to the DAM Op model.

Number four, you're unable to understand what success looks like or what the impact of solving the problem would be.

Chris Lacinak: 12:01

And that sounds like, (crickets chirping) crickets.

I always like to ask, if you could solve all of these pain points and problems, and if this project is a total success, imagine, what does it look like?

What are you able to do that you couldn't do before?

What do you have that you didn't have before?

And this ties back to pain points ultimately, and you put them together to make what's called a business case.

And while it's always a great idea for a business case to get down to dollars, it doesn't have to.

So don't be distracted by the money.

Let's go for the money, that's important, and I'll talk about why.

But don't be distracted by that.

Let's talk about the other things too, 'cause there are qualitative factors that are meaningful and important as well.

For instance, you might say, "if we could solve the search problem, we'd be able to come in on or under deadline and budget.

The team would have a much better work experience, people would feel happier, less frustrated.

The CEO or executive director would be ecstatic because we'd be able to support three of their five key strategies over the next year.

We'd be able to reduce storage costs by 200%.

Chris Lacinak: 13:01

We could cut the legal budget for license fee violations by 90%", right?

And I'm gonna link to a business case post and slide deck template that we have for you to help you there.

And I'm gonna encourage you to go and check that out.

But the point here is that you need to be able to articulate what success looks like.

And tied into the vision and strategies of the organization and leadership, that puts so much wind in the sail of your DAM project.

Less pain is one thing, but more joy is even better.

If you don't have a strong business case and you can't speak to what success looks like or what the impact will be, I'm gonna say it's unlikely that you truly have the buy-in of leadership.

Or that there's even a sustainable path forward that is at least clear today.

Why?

Well, because leadership, whether it's at a Fortune 500 or a nonprofit or higher ed institution, prioritizes where they spend their resources based on how well it supports their vision, strategies and mission.

Chris Lacinak: 14:04

If you can't convince them and demonstrate how your DAM project will do that, then you're not going to get anything more than play money.

What do I mean by play money?

It's something that keeps you busy and out of their hair while they go about realizing their vision, strategy and mission.

It's not a sustaining revenue source.

It's not a sustaining funding source, I should say, in order to support a DAM project and program.

Also, if you don't know what you're aiming for, how can you measure, track, report, prove, and improve?

In order to keep the attention of leadership, you need to be able to consistently demonstrate the value of the DAM program.

And aside from leadership, it also creates direction orientation for the organization.

Number five, wanting to skip critical steps or predetermining that you need something you don't.

What's this sound like in practice?

It might sound like, "We did discovery a couple of years ago.

We'll use that so we can do this faster or cheaper."

Or, "We know we just need a new DAM.

Let's just focus on that."

Chris Lacinak: 15:03

Or it might sound like, "We're just a mess.

My friend works at such and such organization and they have Acme DAM and it works great.

And nobody likes our DAM vendor anyway.

We just need a new DAM."

Well, let's start with the discovery part.

So the reality is that discovery serves multiple purposes.

One purpose is information, right?

And in six months or twelve months or two years, things change and can change dramatically.

So for just informational purposes, you're setting the foundation up here for your strategy, your plan, your implementation, whatever it is, you don't wanna take a risk on getting that wrong.

Make sure that your information is up to date, it's accurate, it's robust, right?

I wouldn't use information from six months ago or two years ago as a stand-in for today for that reason.

But discovery serves other purposes.

Discovery gets stakeholders, key stakeholders specifically, sitting down at the table and engaging.

Chris Lacinak: 16:07

That's critically important for change management, for buy-in.

Earlier, we talked about getting those objections and concerns out on the table as early as possible.

It does that.

It gets people talking, people feel included, they feel part of the process.

It greatly increases from a human and organizational perspective, the success probability.

So you wanna get people down and engaging in this process early on.

The other funny thing about this is that someone is coming, when they've predetermined, we just need a new DAM.

Someone's coming to an expert that they have sought out, seeking their expertise and their experience.

And they are, in that regard, they have acknowledged that they don't have the appropriate expertise and experience.

On the other hand, they are sure that they know best, better than the person's expertise and experience that they've sought out.

Chris Lacinak: 17:02

So let's start with, "we're just a mess.

My friend works at such and such organization and they have Acme DAM."

They might go on to say, "we know we need Acme DAM and we just need you to convince procurement that we need Acme DAM and get them to get it for us."

This is like going to your doctor with a hurt knee and saying, "my friend got a knee replacement and it did them wonders.

I know I just need a knee replacement and I need you to convince the insurance company to pay for it."

Now, it's possible you need a knee replacement, just like it's possible that this organization needs a new DAM.

And it's within the realm of possibility that this organization would benefit from Acme DAM and you would benefit from a new knee.

But if that doctor says, "okay, let's look at the surgery schedule, how's noon today work?"

You should run.

Well, maybe don't run.

You do have a hurt knee after all, walk briskly out of there and don't go back.

Similarly, if a consultant says, "okay, let's get to work on getting you that Acme DAM" after that conversation, you should run, which is okay in this scenario because you don't have a hurt knee as far as I know.

Chris Lacinak: 18:03

The real deal is that there are lots of reasons that DAM operations and programs don't work.

That experienced doctor is gonna look at your gait, at how you hold your body, ask questions about your activities, look at whether it's a bone or a tendon issue, et cetera.

They're gonna look systematically and holistically before making a judgment call in the best course of action.

And that's exactly what you or your DAM consultant should do in this scenario in order to stand the best chance of getting to success in the fastest and most cost-effective manner.

Because the disaster scenario is that you get the new knee or you get the new DAM and not only does it not make things better, but it makes them worse.

In the knee situation, you've only hurt yourself.

It's still unfortunate, but you've only hurt yourself.

In the DAM scenario, you've likely wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You stand to lose more.

You've lost trust.

You've hurt morale.

You've possibly put your job at risk.

So there's a lot to lose.

And I'm gonna link to a blog that we wrote about the cost of getting it wrong, just so that you can understand a little bit better why you don't wanna go that route.

Chris Lacinak: 19:02

So those are the five warning signs that your DAM project is at risk.

I hope that you have found this extremely helpful.

Please email me at damright@weareavp.com.

Leave comments, like, and subscribe.

Let me know how you liked it.

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Thanks for joining me today.

Look forward to seeing you at the next DAM Right Podcast.