ICT for development: evolving the WhatsApp project management office in Shomolu

Nwagboso, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1412-3189, 2025. ICT for development: evolving the WhatsApp project management office in Shomolu. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases. ISSN 2043-8869

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Abstract

This postgraduate-level teaching case explores the complexities of informal project governance in a digitally connected agricultural cooperative in Shomolu, Lagos, Nigeria. At the centre is Mrs. Doyin Adebajo, a seasoned poultry farmer and cooperative lead who coordinates a growing cluster of smallholder producers through WhatsApp. Without formal project management tools or institutional structures, the group relies on real-time messaging, interpersonal trust, and tacit routines to execute shared projects such as livestock health interventions and school feeding contracts. As the group expands across value chains and localities, the limitations of informal coordination become increasingly evident. A crisis involving a delayed veterinary response triggers reflection on the group’s accountability structures, timing failures, and governance capacity. Doyin must decide whether to formalise the WhatsApp PMO into a cooperative-led project structure with defined roles and escalation mechanisms and how, or to preserve its flexible and inclusive format despite growing inefficiencies.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases
Creators:	Nwagboso, C.
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan (part of Springer Nature)
Date:	3 December 2025
ISSN:	2043-8869
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1177/20438869251383069 DOI 2516336 Other
Rights:	© Association for Information Technology Trust 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	11 Dec 2025 16:45
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2025 16:45
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54856

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