The nice thing about cross functional squads is that people from a given function report to others (more senior) who share the same function and craft.

These fellow craftspeople have the skill and context to properly mentor, nurture, defend, review and ultimately promote or fire their juniors.

So in a battle between two different people from two different functions (each with two different perspectives and two different different jobs to get done), each come at the problem with equal footing, fully empowered to fight the fight and have the best idea win.

If they can’t come to a principled decision, it is natural and common for them to escalate to their managers - ostensibly two more senior craftspeople - to debate from a higher vantage point with more context and seniority.

The result is a healthy competition of ideas, and the escalation of differences of opinion, without one function dominating the others.

This, of course, does not mean that some functions are - by virtue of their role - not half a step ahead of the others and often play an outsized role in influencing outcomes and coordinating the other functions. Product and marketing are obvious examples.

Be careful to avoid adopting the “cross functional squads” model while undermining its biggest strengths. In this case the strength of empowered functional representatives each bringing their full power to the table combined with the power of escalation to surface weaknesses in context or difficult decisions that need careful attention.