Do you ask for Resources or deliverables?

When we borrow a person from one or another department, there is rarely much support from his office - we have the responsibility to make the best of the person.

What if we instead agreed on a deliverable which the department must provide - perhaps via the same resource, but it does not matter. The fact is that now we have a supplier with an obligation, and we can concentrate on other things. Then it is up to the department to back up the matter and possible call for more resources.

Of course we have to specify the precise delivery and delivery time, etc. etc. BUT we should have done that anyway if we had simply borrowed the person.

The advantages are that we (again) focus on skills and quality and the ceding departments will be clarified on what is demanded.