Communication is not only important, but also essential in the quality improvement process. It is necessary to coordinate the various functional perspectives into pulling in the same direction to achieve the planned quality specifications.

The design team, particularly in concurrent engineering activities, includes engineers and managers from different disciplines. Communicating the goals of product improvement to this team directs the engineers and managers into applying elements from their background and experience into each stage of the development cycle. Each member of the team has the opportunity to communicate any restraints or dependencies in designing, developing, or implementing the product or service improvement. The success in communication of those improvement goals contributes to the quality, time to market, and cost of improving the product's quality.