Your 60 PDU claim project for PMP

Dear fellow Project Managers/ PMP,

Congratulations to you in achieving the coveted PMP. Now it is your turn to plan for your 60 PDU in the 3 year cycle. It may look difficult to earn this 60 PDU if you do not know the way, but I assure you that it will be very easy to achieve if you plan and do it the Project Management Way.

Now PMI has greatly simplified the PDU category. It falls under two classifications of (1) Education PDU with No Maximum limit of earning and (2) Giving Back PDU with maximum limit of 45 PDU. Each classification has 4 categories each.

Details about the classification and the category can be found at the PMI website link given below:

The New framework of CCRS of PMI classifies PDU to be earned under 3 major classification of Talents by a Talent Triangle. You can see the triangle at the start of this article, with Leadership, Technical Project Management and Strategic & Business Management as the three talents of Talent Triangle.

For the benefit of fellow PMPs, I wish to give below the categories, along with few reference resources.

Category A

It covers the courses offered by PMI REP, PMI chapters and communities. There are many many resources under this category, but few of the providers, which will give you free as well as paid PDU are as below:

1. International Project Management (IPM) Day - FREE PDU

As part of IPM Day on 1st Thursday of November every year, International Institute of Learning (IIL) gives access to their virtual seminars,for every registered member. This free, interactive virtual event includes many video presentations. It gives you 12, 10 & 5 PDUs based on fixed number of presentations of your choice FREE and the access to the Seminars online will be normally available for 15 days, following the IPM Day every year.

You need to register before the IPM day and registration is free. Registration for IPM Day 2014 is open now, you can register through the link below.

2. PDU Podcast^TM

This is a flexible and podcast based PMI-REP product. On subscription, it delivers monthly recorded PowerPoint style webinars which you can be used at anytime and anywhere of your convenience. It is a product by the great Cornelius Fichtner, who revolutionized Project Management learning through podcast.

It has a 3 year plan enabling you to fetch the required 60 PDU. It has a free trail link as well Monthly subscription is $19.99 and annual is $199.99 (An affiliate re-seller of this product). The link is as below:

3. International Institute of Learning (IIL)

On demand learning from (IIL) offers online paid PDU packages on subjects of Project, Program and Portfolio Management. IIL has its unique 30 day deals on select PDU packs with deep discounts. Now it offers discounts on many of its PDU packs on the eve of IPM day. Both can be assessed through the below links.

4. RMC Project Management Inc.

The well known RMC Project Management Inc., has various courses to suit your need and budget and gives discounted bundle packages for PDU and the link as below:

5. Cheetah Project Management

Cheetah Learning offers great online certification courses for those who want to get the PDU effort and also get certified in certain courses. It has courses of varied subjects and different range of 1 to 60 PDU and Certification program PDUs. The PDU/PM class link is below.

Another best way to accumulate PDU freely is through the various CoP (Community of Practice) webinars of PMI, both scheduled and recorded. This feature is available only for PMI members and the only condition is that you should register with the CoP of your choice, to get notifications of scheduled webinars.

Category B

It covers continuing education, which refers to Formal educational programs, which you may attend relating to Project Management. Though continuing education programs are many, the qualifying criteria of which can be got from PMI through their link said in introduction. However a source in this category which I often refer is as below:

1. The Project Management Bookstore - FREE PDU

This author Book review webinar series by Project Management Book store gives 1 PDU for listening to Book reviews of around 1 hour each. It gives PDU for new as well as recorded webinars.

Category C

It covers the Self-directed learning, which is of great interest to me, due to the wide range of resources available online. It covers your systematic reading projects, listening based study such as Podcasts etc. The sources I refer which are paid and unpaid are as below:

1. PM-Podcast - Free subscription - FREE PDU

Project management podcast by its founder Cornelius Fichtner, has more than 200 podcasts and it keeps on getting added, however only older episodes are available for free listening.On registration for free subscription, an episode every alternate week will be delviered into your mailbox. It covers various titles on project management, interviews with field experts and listening to an hour of it will fetch you 1 PDU. You can claim up to max. of 30 PDU for listening to podcasts and is free.

2. PM-Podcast - Premium subscription

The premium subscription version of Project management podcast gives you: (a) Access to all episodes starting from #1. (b) A new episode usually once per week. (c) PDF transcript starting with episode 136. (d) Automatic participation in all promotions. (e) Variety of titles from experts in the field. (f) A maximum of 30 Category C PDUs

Monthly subscription is $5.99 and annual is $59.99. (Affiliate re-seller) The link to premium service is as below:

Giving Back PDU has categories D and E.

Category D

This is for creating any new Project Management Knowledge such as writing a Book, making a presentation related to Project Management, with the maximum PDU limited to 45.

Category E

This is for the voluntary services related to Project Management. We can find voluntary service opportunity with local chapters of PMI and PMI also. PMI website link is as below:

Category F

This is the PDU for your Project Management experience, with the limitation of 5 PDU per year or 15 PDU per 3 year cycle.

1. This is a sure shot PDU due to our real practice of project management principles in our Projects, in whatever position we are in a project.

Another good source of PDU is the ProjectManagement.com site, which is powered by PMI. You can find lot of PM resources in the website and they have live webinars as well as webinars on demand in different community of practice area. PMI registered members can view the Premium content webinars also and the site directly reports your PDU with PMI, once you login with your PMI login credentials.

Coming back to the recent PMI Talent triangle for PDU. The below video explains in brief the PDU requirement as per the new classification, as explained by a PMI-REP.

With the above hub, I have put together the resources I refer normally and many others. But there are many other PMI REP, which gives a handful of free 1 PDU webinars occasionally and paid online courses for higher PDU. You too can make the 60 PDU project within the 3 year cycle comfortably. Also remember, you can carry forward 20 PDUs to the next cycle, if you earn more than 60 PDU in the current cycle.

Any suggestions or comments or questions are welcome for this hub.

Happy 60 PDU earning project.

If your answer is 'NO" for the above poll, pleae leave your questions in the comments section, I will answer them as early as possible.