This paper investigates the context of self-directed work teams (SDWT) in the education of information systems (IS) professionals, underlining the essence of human aspects in the process of IS design and construction. The investigation elaborates on the SDWT context from the perspective of problem-based learning (PBL). What this means for teaching and learning is often not a core subject curriculum so much as core characteristics, qualities and kinds of outcomes for all who experience IS education. The discussion on the capability of self-directed learning, especially in team settings, and its challenge in higher education becomes important. The issue lies in the conceptual shift in thinking about our practice from delivering knowledge to fostering independence of learning in which students develop the ability to discover and reconstruct knowledge for themselves. Actually, this could be the core of a PBL-based approach in IS education: an understanding of one’s own knowledge needs, application of knowledge to novel problem situations, collaboration, and lifelong learning. The nurturing of self-directed work teams of IS professionals in the academic setting, therefore, deals with two essential entities that are vital to the operation of a professional curriculum: group collaboration and self-directed learning. Together, they provide substance for the social and psychological dimensions of the learning interactions embedded in the curricular imperative that is a sophisticated design requiring attention to learner and to teacher, to content and to context.