The role of informal communication in building shared understanding of non-functional requirements in remote continuous software engineering

Building a shared understanding of non-functional requirements (NFRs) is a known but understudied challenge in requirements engineering, primarily 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; many organizations continue 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 of team communication. 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. We conduct a 6-month ethnography-informed case study of a remote CSE organization. We identify a number of practices for building a shared understanding of NFRs, such as validating NFRs through feedback. We also studied the practices of remote collaboration and in particular, the use and affordances offered by the collaborative workspace Gather that the organization used for remote interaction; our findings suggest that it allows for informal communications instrumental for building shared understanding. In addition, we describe the limitations to building a shared understanding of NFRs in the organization, such as gaps in communication and the limited understanding of customer context. Furthermore, we conducted further interviews to validate our findings for relevance and to gain additional insights into the shared understanding of NFRs within the organization. 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.