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A Case Study of Building Shared Understanding of Non-Functional Requirements in a Remote Software Organization

Building a shared understanding of non-functional requirements (NFRs) is a known but understudied challenge in requirements engineering, especially in organizations that adopt continuous software engineering (CSE) practices. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many CSE organizations complied with working remotely due to the imposed health restrictions; some continued to work remotely while implementing business processes to facilitate team communication and productivity. In remote CSE organizations, managing NFRs becomes more challenging due to the limitations to team communication coupled with the incentive to deliver products quickly. While previous research has identified the factors that lead to a lack of shared understanding of NFRs in CSE, we still have a significant gap in understanding how CSE organizations, particularly in remote work, build a shared understanding of NFRs in their software development. We conduct a three-month ethnography-informed case study of a remote CSE organization. Through thematic analysis of our qualitative data from interviews and observations, we identify a number of practices in developing a shared understanding of NFRs. The collaborative workspace the organization uses for remote interaction is Gather, which simulates physical workspaces, and which our findings suggest allows for informal communications instrumental for building shared understanding. As actionable insights, we discuss our findings in light of proactive practices that represent opportunities for software organizations to invest in building a shared understanding of NFRs in their development.