  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.
