How Do You Keep Stakeholders Aligned During a DAM Platform Evaluation?

Summary

The steps

1. 1

   Write and Publish an Evaluation Charter Before Any Vendor Contact

   The evaluation charter is the single document that prevents most stakeholder alignment failures. One page is enough. It must contain: the business problem the new DAM is being selected to solve, the decision criteria and their weights, the names of the people on the evaluation team and their roles, the name of the person with final decision authority, the shortlisting methodology, the timeline with stage-gate dates, and the definition of 'good enough to proceed' at each gate.

   Publish the charter to all stakeholders before any vendor is contacted. This sequence matters. Once vendor demos begin, stakeholders form preferences, and preferences make it harder to agree on criteria. A charter agreed before demos are scheduled is a neutral document; a charter proposed after the first demo is a political document.

   The charter is not a contract, but it should be treated like one. When a stakeholder raises a new requirement mid-evaluation, the charter is the reference point for a structured conversation about whether the process should change and what the implications are if it does. The key elements of a workable charter are:

   • Decision criteria and weights. Four to seven criteria, each assigned a weight so all weights sum to 100.
   • Decision authority. One named individual, not a committee.
   • Stage-gate dates. Scheduled before the first vendor contact: after shortlisting, after demos, after the pilot.
   • Change process. How late-breaking requirements will be surfaced and resolved (see Step 6).

   Do this

   Draft the charter in a single working session with the core evaluation team, no more than five people.,Circulate for comment for five business days, then close comments and publish a final version.,Store the charter in a shared location accessible to all stakeholders throughout the evaluation.

   Example

   A charter might state: 'The evaluation team will score three shortlisted platforms against six weighted criteria. The marketing operations director holds final decision authority. The evaluation closes with a recommendation no later than week twelve. Criteria will not be added or re-weighted after the charter is signed off.' That specificity prevents the most common sources of late-stage conflict.

   Best practice

   Name the decision-maker explicitly in the charter. 'The team will decide' is not a decision structure; it is an invitation to deadlock. One named individual with authority to make the final call does not exclude input from others; it ensures that input leads to a decision.
2. 2

   Assign a RACI for the Evaluation Process Itself

   Most organizations build a RACI for DAM implementation. Far fewer build one for the evaluation, and that gap creates the conditions for the most common alignment failures: stakeholders who believe they have veto authority when they have advisory input, or functions that are consulted too late to influence requirements that directly affect them.

   A RACI for the evaluation process should cover at minimum: requirements definition, vendor shortlisting, demo attendance and scoring, pilot design, pilot participation, final scoring, and the recommendation document. For each activity, assign Responsible (does the work), Accountable (owns the outcome), Consulted (provides input before decisions), and Informed (receives the output). No activity should have more than one Accountable.

   Pay particular attention to the boundary between Consulted and Accountable. A legal or compliance function that must approve the final vendor contract should be Consulted on non-negotiable requirements at the shortlisting stage, not Informed of the final recommendation after scoring is complete. For organizations whose DAM will manage records subject to retention and disposal obligations, the records management function should be assigned Consulted at the requirements definition stage; ISO 16175-1:2020 provides a vendor-neutral framework for what a conformant records system must support, and those requirements must be validated against vendor capability before shortlisting, not after contract signature.

   Do this

   List every evaluation activity from requirements audit to final recommendation.,Assign R, A, C, and I for each activity across all functions involved.,Review the RACI with the decision-maker before publishing; confirm that no activity has more than one Accountable.

   Example

   Legal is assigned Consulted on the non-negotiables list (data residency, contract terms, audit trail requirements) and Informed of the final recommendation. IT is assigned Accountable for integration requirements and Consulted on vendor security questionnaire responses. Marketing operations is Accountable for workflow requirements and the final scoring matrix.

   Best practice

   A function that is Informed of a decision it expected to influence will object after the fact. When in doubt, move a function from Informed to Consulted; the cost is a few extra review cycles, not a derailed evaluation.
3. 3

   Run a Joint Requirements Session with IT and Marketing

   The most persistent source of stakeholder conflict in a DAM evaluation is the gap between what marketing operations needs from a platform and what IT is willing to support. Marketing prioritizes workflow speed, user experience, and creative tool integration. IT prioritizes security posture, integration architecture, data residency, and supportability. Both sets of requirements are legitimate, and both must be represented in the non-negotiables list before any vendor is contacted.

   A joint requirements session produces three outputs: a list of non-negotiable requirements owned by IT, a list of non-negotiable requirements owned by marketing, and a ranked list of weighted criteria that both functions have agreed to. Where requirements conflict, the conflict is documented and escalated to the decision-maker for resolution before the shortlist is built.

   The session facilitator should be neutral: neither the IT lead nor the marketing lead. The goal is not consensus on which platform to buy; it is consensus on what the platform must do and what it must not do. A two-hour session with a structured template, each function listing their top five requirements ranked by business risk if unmet, is sufficient to surface the conflicts that matter. AIIM's DAM body of knowledge identifies integration architecture and metadata governance as the two requirements categories most frequently under-specified at this stage.

   Do this

   Schedule a two-hour joint session with IT and marketing operations leads before any vendor contact.,Use a structured template: each function lists their top five requirements, ranked by business risk if unmet.,Document conflicts explicitly and assign each to the decision-maker for resolution within five business days.

   Example

   IT requires that all asset data remain within a specific geographic region under applicable data protection regulation. Marketing requires a direct integration with a cloud-based creative tool that processes files outside that region. The conflict is documented and escalated: the decision-maker determines whether a compliant integration architecture exists or whether the creative tool integration must be deprioritized.

   Best practice

   Do not try to resolve requirement conflicts in the joint session itself. Surface them, document them, and assign them for resolution. Trying to negotiate technical and compliance constraints in a group setting produces compromises that satisfy neither function.
4. 4

   Use a Shared Weighted Scoring Matrix as the Single Source of Truth

   A shared scoring matrix changes the nature of stakeholder disagreement. When every evaluator scores the same criteria with the same weights in the same document, a disagreement about which platform is better becomes a conversation about specific scores and the evidence behind them, rather than a debate between competing overall impressions.

   The matrix should be visible to all evaluation stakeholders throughout the process, not just to the core team. Stakeholders who can see scores accumulating in real time are less likely to arrive at the final recommendation session with a fundamentally different picture of the evaluation than the team that ran it.

   Assign one evaluator per criterion per vendor demo, and hold that assignment constant across all demos. Rotating evaluators across criteria introduces scoring inconsistency that is difficult to explain and easy to challenge. A typical weighted matrix for a DAM evaluation carries four to seven criteria. Governance and integration fit are commonly the highest-weighted criteria in enterprise evaluations where brand control and martech connectivity are primary drivers; UX, vendor support, total cost of ownership, and scalability share the remaining weight.

   After each demo, hold a thirty-minute debrief where evaluators share their scores and the evidence behind them before scores are entered into the matrix. This step surfaces inconsistencies early and builds a shared evidentiary record that supports the final recommendation.

   Do this

   Build the scoring matrix in a shared tool accessible to all stakeholders, not in a local spreadsheet.,Assign evaluators to criteria before the first demo and keep assignments constant.,Hold a structured thirty-minute debrief after each demo to align on evidence before scores are entered.

   Example

   After a vendor demo, the evaluator assigned to the governance criterion scores it 6 out of 10 and cites a specific gap: the platform does not support role-based download restrictions at the asset collection level, only at the individual asset level. That specific evidence is recorded in the matrix and referenced in the final recommendation document, making the score defensible to any stakeholder who questions it.

   Best practice

   Lock the matrix for editing during demos. Evaluators should take notes during the demo and enter scores in the debrief, not during the vendor presentation. Live scoring during a demo is influenced by the vendor's framing of each feature.
5. 5

   Hold Structured Stage-Gate Reviews After Each Evaluation Phase

   A stage-gate review is a structured checkpoint at the end of each evaluation phase where the team confirms alignment on the results before moving to the next phase. Three gates are standard: after shortlisting, after demos, and after the pilot. Each gate produces a documented decision and a list of any open issues carried forward.

   The shortlisting gate confirms that the non-negotiables were applied consistently and that the three shortlisted platforms are the right ones to take into demos. The demo gate confirms that the scoring matrix reflects the team's shared assessment and that any significant scoring gaps between evaluators have been resolved. The pilot gate confirms that the pilot results are sufficient to support a final recommendation.

   Stage gates are alignment checkpoints, not approval meetings. The decision-maker does not need to approve every gate; the evaluation team confirms alignment and the decision-maker is informed. The decision-maker's formal approval comes at the final recommendation, not at each gate. If a gate review surfaces a significant unresolved disagreement, do not advance to the next phase until it is resolved. Carrying unresolved conflict forward compounds it: a disagreement about the shortlist that is not resolved before demos begin will resurface as a disagreement about demo scores, and then as a disagreement about the final recommendation.

   Do this

   Schedule all three gate review meetings at the start of the evaluation, before the first vendor contact.,Prepare a one-page gate summary for each review: what was assessed, what the scores show, what issues are open.,Document the gate outcome in writing and distribute to all stakeholders within twenty-four hours.

   Example

   The demo gate review reveals that two evaluators scored the same platform's integration capability very differently: one scored it 8 out of 10, the other scored it 4 out of 10. The debrief surfaces that they were assessing different integration scenarios. The team agrees on a single interpretation of the criterion, rescores, and advances to the pilot phase with a consistent record.

   Best practice

   Keep gate reviews to sixty minutes. A gate review that runs longer is usually a sign that the preceding phase produced insufficient documentation, not that the team needs more discussion time.
6. 6

   Manage Late-Breaking Objections with a Documented Change Process

   Even a well-run evaluation will surface late-breaking objections: a stakeholder who raises a new requirement after the shortlist is set, a senior leader who questions the weighting of a criterion after demos are complete, or a function that was Informed rather than Consulted and now has a substantive concern. These objections are not inherently unreasonable; they are often signals that a genuine requirement was not captured earlier.

   The worst response is to ignore the objection or accommodate it informally. Ignoring it produces a stakeholder who opposes the final recommendation. Accommodating it informally produces a process that no one trusts, because the criteria appear to shift based on who raises concerns.

   The right response is a documented change process defined in the charter before the evaluation begins: a short structured session to surface the underlying requirement, a group decision on whether it rises to the level of a criterion or non-negotiable, and a formal update to the charter if the answer is yes. If the answer is no, the decision is documented and the objection is closed. This process treats every late-breaking objection with equal seriousness and equal discipline, which is the only way to maintain the credibility of the evaluation.

   Do this

   Define the change process in the evaluation charter before the evaluation begins.,When a late-breaking objection is raised, schedule a structured session within five business days.,Document the outcome of every change-process session and distribute to all stakeholders.

   Example

   A senior leader raises a concern about vendor financial stability after demos are complete. The change process session determines that this is a legitimate non-negotiable that was not captured in the original requirements audit. The team agrees to add a financial stability check to the evaluation, applies it to all three shortlisted platforms, and documents the addition to the charter.

   Best practice

   The change process should have a clear owner, typically the evaluation lead, who is responsible for scheduling the session and documenting the outcome. Without a named owner, late-breaking objections drift unresolved.

What This Guide Does Not Cover