Polyphony in architecture

Based on interviews with a number of architects and managers from a wide range of organizations, we characterize how architecture is perceived in practice. We identify three groups of organizations that differ with respect to their level of architectural thinking and the alignment of business and IT on architectural issues. Analysis of the interviews further indicates that these three groups differ in the architecture aspects and critical success factors they emphasize. Our results provide a starting point for assessing architecture maturity and alignment within organizations, and can be used to help harmonize different architectural tunes played within organizations.