Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Definition

Digital Asset Management (DAM)
(a.k.a., Asset Management (AM))

the activity consisting of the cohesive collection of all tasks that are primarily performed to manage an organization’s digital assets

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Digital Asset Management is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Abstract
• Superclass: Management Activity
• Subclasses:
  • Brand Resource Management (BRM)
  • Content Management (CM):
    • Marketing Content Management (MCM)
  • Document Management (DM)
  • Media Asset Management (MAM):
    • Entertainment Media Asset Management (EMAM)

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of Digital Asset Management are to:

• Manage the acquisition and creation of an organization’s digital assets.
• Store an organization’s digital assets.
• Maintain and repurpose an organization’s digital assets.
• Publish (reproduce) an organization’s digital assets.
• Deliver an organization’s digital assets to the correct audiences (i.e., individuals, roles, teams, and organizations) in the correct form via the appropriate channels (e.g., digital, print, and Web) in a timely, scalable, and cost-effective manner
• Archive or dispose of an organization’s digital assets.
• Thereby improve the workflow of digital assets.
• Thereby maximize the value of the digital assets to their stakeholders.

Preconditions

Digital Asset Management typically may begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The business strategy phase has started.
• The digital asset management teams are initially staffed and adequately trained in digital asset management tasks.

Completion Criteria

Digital Asset Management is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

• Varies with the type of digital asset and its usage. This activity continues as long as digital assets exist to be managed.

Tasks

Digital Asset Management typically involves the following producers performing the following tasks:

• Digital Asset Management Team, which performs:
  • Digital Asset Management Planning
  • Digital Asset Acquisition
  • Digital Asset Creation
  • Digital Asset Storage
  • Digital Asset Maintenance
  • Digital Asset Publication
  • Digital Asset Delivery
  • Digital Asset Archiving
  • Digital Asset Disposal

Environments

Digital Asset Management is typically performed using the following environment(s) and associated tools:

• Digital Asset Management Environment:
  • Content Management System
    (for the publication and workflow management of digital assets)
  • Configuration Management System
    (for the configuration management of digital assets)
  • Documentation Tools
    (for the development and maintenance of textual digital assets)
  • Multimedia Tools
    (for the development and maintenance of multimedia digital assets)
  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Tool
    (for the creation of textual digital assets from textual printed assets)
  • Database Management System(s)
    (for the storage, metadata indexing, searching, checking in and out, and versioning of the digital assets
  • Workflow Engine
    (for the design and support of the workflow of digital asset usage)

Work Products

Digital Asset Management typically results in the production of the following work products:

• Digital Asset Management Plan
• Digital Assets:
  • Documents:
    • Development documentation
    • Application domain-specific business (e.g., advertising, entertainment, government, health care, and insurance) documentation
  • Rich media content:
    • Audio
    • Images
• Digital Asset Repository

Phases

Digital Asset Management tasks are typically performed during the following phases:

Guidelines

• Digital Asset Management can be used to manage the digital assets of any organization. For example:
  • During the development of a system or application, the customer, development, and subcontractor organizations can use DAM to manage the acquisition and development digital assets.
  • During the production phases of a system, the manufacturing organization can use DAM to manage the manufacturing digital assets.
  • During the usage of a system or application, the maintenance, operations, support, and user organizations can use DAM to manage their respective digital assets.
• This activity is documented using the typical configuration for large endeavors. It is intended to be configured (i.e., instantiated, extended, and tailored) to meet the needs of specific endeavors.
• As paper documents have been replaced by digital documents and as multimedia has been added to text, digital asset management has merged with and replaced traditional document management.