Action-Researching with the PMBOK® Guide

This paper explains the reliance on A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) — 2000 Edition as a base to prepare IS qualitative researchers focused in action-research. Action-research was selected because it is presently the preferred research method among information systems (IS) researchers. But action-research has several weaknesses when applied, such as a lack of control to provide and improve its rigor and quality. To address this situation, several proposals have appeared that give relevance to using IS action-research through a vision of project management (PM). In this paper, we explain our work to define and to prepare IS action-researchers through a capability maturity model for action-research by using the PMBOK® Guide (2000). This paper reports the results of this study. The study considers the PMBOK® Guide (2000) as the basis to identify a dimension of management and a dimension of construction, both linked and deployed through practices and five maturity levels (novice, basic, organized, managed, and adaptive)