Running on ODA
for CSPs

Demonstrates ODA as a way of working to address the three key challenges; interoperability, complexity and time-to-market.

ODA is the industry standard way of working

Open Digital Architecture (ODA) provides a way of working to help CSPs transform into agile digital organizations that can rapidly bring new products and services to market while improving customer experience. To recognize CSPs that are successfully using ODA within real-world environments to drive efficiency and growth - TM Forum’s Running on ODA status is accredited to those CSPs that have passed a joint (TMF and CSP) ODA evaluation of their business line. 

Update: BT achieves Running on ODA status which has enabled them to be more agile, in developing, delivering, and scaling new products and services.

Read ODA Unboxed story.
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Adopters gain tangible business benefits from ODA​

CSPs are adopting TM Forum’s ODA methodology, to create and recover value from existing technical debt. ODA delivers the right capability at the right time to the market.


ODA Architecture provides a blueprint that enables the creation of flexible, scalable, and interoperable digital services. It provides a common set of standards to design, develop, and deploy innovative solutions

ODA is the de facto telco industry standard producing tangible outcomes in ODA solutions that transform business agility, customer experience and operational efficiency.

Find out more about the additional marketing benefits
Communication Service Providers running on the Open Digital Architecture (ODA)
Communication Service Providers running on the Open Digital Architecture (ODA)

Discover why Running on ODA is so important to our members

Don't just take our word for the benefits of ODA. Discover how our members describe some of their real-world use cases, or learn more by reading our blogs and Inform articles.

CityFibre: How RoODA brings speed and flexibility

CityFibre’s Victoria Higgin, Chief Digital and Information Officer explains how RoODA will enables them to new deliver services

Deutsche Telecom fulfilling customer needs with ODA

Deutsche Telekom’s Andreas Bohmann on how ODA helps collaboration with its partners through a scalable, fast changing architecture to deliver for their customers.

ODA heroes: ODA adoption is critical

TM Forum members explain why they support the Open Digital Architecture (ODA), the innovation it enables and their vision of how the industry can collaborate for the benefit of operators, vendors and customers.

Telia COO discusses “Running on ODA’

Dr Rainer Deutschmann, Group COO, Telia Company talking to Nik Willetts, CEO TM Forum about why they excited to be recognised as ‘Running on ODA’ and the benefits it brings to their organization.

Telstra benefits of RoODA

Mark Sanders Cheif Architecture at Telstra why RoODA ensures they can define and implement growth across all the business

TELUS: Next CSP ‘Running on ODA’

TELUS’s Hesham Fahmy, Chief Information Officer, explains why TM Forum Open Digital Architecture (ODA) is a key part of achieving TELUS’ vision, reducing costs and time-to-market

CityFibre: How RoODA brings speed and flexibility

CityFibre’s Victoria Higgin, Chief Digital and Information Officer explains how RoODA will enables them to new deliver services

Deutsche Telecom fulfilling customer needs with ODA

Deutsche Telekom’s Andreas Bohmann on how ODA helps collaboration with its partners through a scalable, fast changing architecture to deliver for their customers.

ODA heroes: ODA adoption is critical

TM Forum members explain why they support the Open Digital Architecture (ODA), the innovation it enables and their vision of how the industry can collaborate for the benefit of operators, vendors and customers.

Telia COO discusses “Running on ODA’

Dr Rainer Deutschmann, Group COO, Telia Company talking to Nik Willetts, CEO TM Forum about why they excited to be recognised as ‘Running on ODA’ and the benefits it brings to their organization.

Telstra benefits of RoODA

Mark Sanders Cheif Architecture at Telstra why RoODA ensures they can define and implement growth across all the business

TELUS: Next CSP ‘Running on ODA’

TELUS’s Hesham Fahmy, Chief Information Officer, explains why TM Forum Open Digital Architecture (ODA) is a key part of achieving TELUS’ vision, reducing costs and time-to-market

How can my company get Running on ODA?

A status achieved by a CSP or business line, recognizing its foundation in ODA’s key principles and its roadmap commitment to support ODA’s evolving standards by adopting ODA as their way of working. The Running on ODA status is maintained through a biannual major review using the ODA Success Framework, and a minor review in the intervening years.

RoODA qualifying

The adoption threshold is a membership-tier-dependent representation of ODA production and consumption activities This is indicated via a ‘points based’ metric. This helps you get a big picture view of your ODA adoption.

Your Engagement Manager can produce a gap analysis of activities that will show how you use and develop ODA as way of working within your organization.

The 'points' are given in recognition of a member organization's commitment to consuming and producing ODA content within collaboration projects, Catalyst projects or the production of Open APIs.

Contact us to find out more
RoODA Assesment

The criteria for Running on ODA are assessed jointly by the CSP and TM Forum’s CTO office using the ODA Success Framework – a light but rigorous evaluation based on 6 key dimensions necessary for delivering successful business outcomes using ODA. The 6 assessment dimensions are:

  1. Principles and rules
  2. Skills
  3. Open APIs
  4. Components
  5. Agile governance
  6. Process models
Contact us to find out more

5 Steps to reaching Running on ODA status

Everyone’s journey towards RoODA is different and is based on your own business needs and challenges. However, the underlying way of working is the same – adopt ODA as e2e way of working to improve your business, the wider the reach across our business, the faster you solve business challenges, the more you will progress to adoption threshold. Your Engagement Manager (EM) will help create a bespoke pathway for you. To find out more contact your EM, here, and they will get back to you.

The steps to reaching “Running on ODA" (RoODA) status are few and straightforward:

  1. Reaching adoption threshold: This happens through making full use of your membership and engaging in activities that support the collaboration and use of ODA principles and concepts. These value driven approaches are contributing to and consuming/implementing ODA TM Forum solutions. The more of your people that are engaged in this e2e way of working, the quicker your journey to reaching adoption threshold which is indicated through the ‘points-based metric’.

    Your Engagement Manager can provide you with your current adoption status (indicative ‘points-based metric’) and work with you to develop a plan for meeting business needs and challenges with ODA. In turn, this will bring to the right level for being able to take RoODA Success Framework. To find out more contact your EM, here, and they will get back to you.

  2. RoODA Success Framework (Self-assessment): Once the adoption threshold for your Corporate Band has been reached you will be ready for OSF (ODA Success Framework) self-assessment.
    1. You will be provided with a ODA Unboxed template. This is designed to tell give an executive summary of the evidence and business value derived from using ODA as your e2e way of working. (This later becomes a marketing benefit which we publish on Inform and this RoODA homepage).
    2. You will be provided with a self-assessment document to complete, in which you will provide additional evidence of your implementation of ODA within the company.
    3. Getting the right people involved is important - for suppliers we recommend that the product owner is responsible for the assessment.

Your EM will provide you with your ODA Unboxed template and self-assessment documentation and talk you through the process.

  1. TM Forum review: Once you have completed your internal self-assessment – you will be invited to your formal review (normally within 1 month of you submitting your self-assessment) with one of the Forum’s senior leadership team. This is a collaborative meeting where you will be invited to present the evidence of your RoODA e2e way of working findings from the self-assessment.
  1. What happens next:

Accordance: If the reviewer considers that you are operating in accordance with ODA then you will receive RoODA status, and your company will be given significant marketing benefits to demonstrate your success to the industry.

Non-accordance: If for any reason you are not successful you will be given key written feedback and a plan of action from the assessment on the key aspects needed to reach RoODA status. Your Engagement Manager will be glad to support you.

  1. Maintaining your status:

The RoODA status is valid for 2 years, with 1-year health checks to make sure everything is still going fine.

Your membership will continue to provide you with all the tools you need to meet new criteria and this is a great driver to keeping your ODA journey on track.

Your Engagement Manager is your point of contact throughout this assessment journey. To find out more contact your EM here, and they will call you back.

The industry needs a common understanding

Communications service providers (CSPs) are facing a dilemma. While their revenue and growth continue to stagnate, they are under tremendous pressure to simultaneously cut costs, deploy 5G, create differentiated customer experiences and overhaul the way they develop and deliver new services. From the defining their business needs, through designing information systems and implementing Open APIs and data models, to managing the actual deployment with their software technology partners, Telcos who want to move from the bottom left quadrant in the diagram below to TechCos in the top right need an industry-wide common understanding such as the Open Digital Architecture (ODA).

ODA provides the building blocks for growth and efficiency

ODA replaces traditional operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) for CSPs with a new approach to building software for zero-touch interoperability and creating a dynamic plug and play environment through its components and canvas concepts. These concepts provide the building blocks for CSPs to evolve towards a TechCos company through:

ODA for efficiency: ODA supports CSPs to automate their operations so they can focus on improving customer experience while still improving productivity. Using AI and Open APIs to enable automated closed-loop intent-based automation, CSPs can focus on providing real-time zero-touch operations to drive towards digital efficiency.

ODA for growth: ODA enables CSPs to become digital enablers, working with ecosystem partners to create zero-touch partnering solutions for vertical markets (smart factories, autonomous vehicles, digital healthcare…) based on 5G, network slicing, edge computing, AI and other advanced technologies.

Telco to Techco graph