You’ve worked hard to earn your PMP certification. Now, it is time to renew your PMP certification. And you are looking for PMP PDU Courses to renew your PMP certification. Don’t worry, you’ve landed on the correct page! We’ve explored the PMP PDU courses that can earn you 60 PDUs and complete your PMP renewal process.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE PMP PDU resources throughout the article.

💡Julia Boyer earned 60 PMP PDU hours and renewed her PMP certification. Read Julia’s PMP renewal story!

PMP PDU Courses

PMI requires PMP certification holders to earn 60 PDUs every three years. There are certain PMP PDU requirements, and the most popular way to earn PDUs is by attending PMP PDU courses. You can see the PDU categories in the following infographic.

While there are several ways to earn PDUs, the most popular way followed by PMP-certified professionals is attending  PMP PDU courses or training.

Here is why PMP certification holders choose PMP PDU Courses to renew their PMP:

1. No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the education category, so, you can earn all 60 PMP PDUs in one program, and renew your PMP.
2. Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
3. Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced PMP PDU course bundle for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you cannot earn all PDU needs in one event.
4. Requires less effort: When you enroll in PMP PDU Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn PDUs, and renew your PMP. However, other PDU earning ways require significant effort from the PMP-certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, volunteering, etc.
5. Less prone to PMI audit: Since the PDU training programs are used by many PMP-certified professionals, PMI already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, PDU submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit a PMI audit.

Watch how Julia Earned 60 PDUs and Renewed Her PMP

Julia Boyer is a PMP-certified Professional from Dallas, Texas. Julia enrolled in the 60 PMP PDU Program from SFBS and renewed her PMP. Watch now her PMP renewal journey.

What are the Best PMP PDU Online Courses?

If you’ve googled about the PMP PDU online courses, you will see several resources. Some of them offer technical courses, that will not benefit your career. Some of them offer just PDF papers to read, and that does not bring any skills.

The best PDU online courses should offer you business courses, earn new business skills, and contribute to your career growth.

For instance, San Francisco Business School offers a comprehensive 60 PMP PDU Online Course program. The program offers three self-paced business training programs: Executive Leadership, Strategy Creation & Execution, and Marketing Strategy. For each course in the program, SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning PDUs, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

Program #1- Executive Leadership Program

Improve your decision-making, and cross-functional competence, expand your understanding of the global marketplace, and build your way to servant leadership. Learn how to tackle business challenges. Earns 20 PMP PDUs.

Program #2- Strategy Creation & Execution Program

Develop the global perspective, quantitative background, and creative problem-solving skills to take your strategy from formulation to execution. Harness the power of disruptive innovation to craft winning strategies and turn them into play. Earns 30 PMP PDUs.

Program #3- Marketing Strategy Program

Boost revenue and profit by targeting the right segments, designing effective go-to-market strategies, and building high-value brands. Align your marketing and promotion efforts with business strategy to maximize Return on Investment. Earns 10 PMP PDUs.

When choosing a PMP PDU online course program, do not just look at the price. You will spend 60 hours with the program you will attend, and make sure you will earn some skills at the end of the program.

You can learn 11 Ways to Earn PMP Renewal PDU in our article.

What should be covered in a PMP PDU Program?

PMI accepts project management-related or business courses as a source of PDUs. For example, if you are a software developer, and attended a coding course, this course will not count as a source of PDU to renew your PMP certification. Because, the coding course is technical, and does not teach project management or other business areas.

Typical PMP PDU course programs cover:

• Business courses: Any business courses such as leadership, strategy, marketing, etc. can be considered as a PDU course.
• Project Management courses: Project management courses such as Agile, kanban, etc. can be considered as a PDU course.
• Soft Skill courses: Communication skills, negotiation, decision-making, etc. can be considered as a PDU course.

Note that, we tried to list the popular domains covered in PDU programs. There may be other courses that cover other topics and count as PDUs for PMP.

Free PMP PDU Online Courses

There are YouTube videos, free courses, and webinars available on the web. You can enroll in these free activities and earn PDUs towards renewing your PMP certification. Typically, these events earn 1-2 PDUs. Earning all 60 PDUs through Free PDU events is not feasible. Even if you can attend free events, your schedule may not allow you to attend assuming you are a full-time working professional. You may need to spend your evenings and weekends or even you may need to take a day off from your work to attend these free events.

SFBS offers a 3-hour Free PMP PDU Course program as well. You can earn 3 PDUs by attending this program.

Learn more about Free PDU for PMP Renewal.

Summary

PMI requires PMP certification holders to earn 60 PDUs and renew their PMP every three years. There are education and giving back PDU categories to earn PDUs. While there are several ways to earn PDUs, enrolling in PMP PDU Online course programs is the most affordable and convenient way to earn 60 PDUs to renew PMP certification. It is important to choose a PMP PDU program that will earn you new business skills not just PDUs.

The post PMP PDU Courses – Earn 60 PDUs to Renew PMP appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

Do you hold a PMP® Certification? You need 60 PMP PDU hours every three years to retain your PMP certification. PMP-certified professionals have lots of questions about the PMP PDU details. We’ve explored all topics about PMP PDU in this post.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE PMP PDU resources throughout the article.

💡Julia Boyer renewed her PMP certification. Read Julia’s PMP renewal story!

Why do I need PMP PDU Hours?

PMI requires PMP certification holders to earn 60 PMP PDU hours every three years to retain their certification. That is why you need PMP PDU hours if you hold a PMP certification.

PMP® Certification is the most renowned project management certification around the globe. There are more than one million PMP-certified professionals around the world. For sure, the US is the most dominant country for PMP certification with nearly 400,000 PMP certification holders. (Numbers taken from PMI website).

While you earned it, do not lose it just because of missing PMP PDU hours in your renewal cycle. Because many organizations looking for project management roles are requiring PMP certification. You can see a sample LinkedIn job posting from California, and PMP certification is required for the position.

What are the PMP PDU Requirements?

There are certain requirements to earn PMP PDU hours. Let’s dive into PMP PDU requirements.

There are two main PMP PDU categories:

1. Education: Education PDUs can be earned at professional seminars, webinars, classes, or even self-directed learning.
2. Giving Back to the Profession: Giving Back PDUs are for time spent volunteering, mentoring, working with professional groups, and more.

For each PMI certification track, there are further requirements, such as minimum and maximum PDUs that can be earned from each category.

PMP PDU requirement for certification holders is to collect 60 PDUs through a maximum of 25 Giving Back PDUs and a minimum of 35 Education PDUs. However, there is no cap for education PDUs. You can earn all 60 PDUs in the education category. You can see the PMP PDU requirements breakdown in the following figure.

The 35 Education PDUs also have other requirements:

• reporting at least 8 Ways of Working project management PDUs
• reporting at least 8 Business Acumen PDUs
• reporting at least 8 Power Skills PDUs.

There is a maximum PDU reporting cap for the Working as a Professional subcategory of the Giving Back PDU category. If you are working in a project management related job, you can report up to 8 PDUs under working as a professional PDU category.

What are the PMP PDU Courses?

As we’ve outlined in the PDU categories section, there are two main ways to earn PDU: Education and Giving Back. PDU courses are a way to earn PDU credits in Education Category.

There are six different sub-categories under the Education category to earn PDU hours. Let’s explore these:

1- Course or Training

Instructor-led formal education courses or classes held in-person or online belong to this category.

• Virtual and in-person instructor-led courses from PMI Training
• Online courses are available on demand
• Academic education through programs accredited by the PMI Global Accreditation Center (GAC)
• Training courses offered by PMI Authorized Training Partners
• Disciplined Agile or PMP® certification training courses offered by a PMI Authorized Training Partner
• Courses from other third-party providers (SFBS 60 PMP PDU Course Online program belongs to this category).

You can read more on our PMP PDU Courses article.

Watch how Julia Earned 60 PDUs and Renewed Her PMP

Julia Boyer is a PMP-certified Professional from Dallas, Texas. Julia enrolled in the 60 PMP PDU Program from SFBS and renewed her PMP. Watch now her PMP renewal journey.

2- Global Events

Meetings and events that bring together the global community are another way to earn PDUs. These events include educational sessions, keynote, and featured speakers. Typically you can earn 7 to 50 PDUs by attending these events.

3- Local Meetings

Local activities and events that are related to the project management profession count for PDUs. Often held at PMI chapters, these are also a great opportunity to network. These meetings earn typically 1 to 2 PDUs.

4- Online or Digital Media

Self-paced learning is conducted online or through varied forms of digital media. (SFBS Free PMP PDU Course Online Program belongs to this category).

5- Reading

Self-directed reading relevant to the certification you hold can be claimed for PDUs. For instance, reading a project management-related blog, a business education blog, or a book can count PDUs toward renewing your PMP certification.

6- Informal Learning

You can earn PDUs by engaging in structured professional discussions with others, for example, mentoring or “lunch and learn” sessions. For instance, if you are giving a presentation to your colleagues about project management, you can submit this as PDU.

Explore 11 Ways of Earning PMP Renewal PDU.

Can I earn Free PMP PDUs?

There are several free courses, webinars, and events that you can attend and earn PDUs toward renewing your PMP certification. However, earning all required 60 PDUs from free resources will not be practical. 60 PDU hours require around 60 hours of activity. Most of the PMP-certified professionals are full-time working busy professionals, we assume you are busy too. Therefore, it is not easy to find free events. Even if there are PDU events in your neighborhood, that may not fit your schedule.

SFBS offers a 3-hour Free PMP PDU Course program as well. You can earn 3 PDUs by attending this program.

Free PMP PDU Webinars

Some platforms schedule online free webinars. If a webinar is about project management, you can submit PDUs for the duration of the webinar. For instance, if you attended a 1-hour webinar on negotiation skills, you can submit 1 PDU in your PMI profile.

Finding free PDU resources and fitting them into your schedule can be cumbersome. Most of the PMP-certified professionals attend a self-paced PMP PDU course program, they follow the courses at their pace and earn PDUs easily.

Learn more about the 11 Free PDU Earning Ways.

How many PMP PDU Hours can I claim for Working as a Practitioner?

PMI accepts your day-to-day activities as PDUs. However, there is a maximum limit for this category. You can submit a maximum of 8 PDU hours for working as a practitioner category.

What are the best PMP PDU Online Courses?

If you’ve googled about the PMP PDU online courses, you will see several resources. Some of them offer technical courses, that will not benefit to your career. Some of them offer just PDF papers to read, and that does not bring any skills.

The best PDU online courses should offer you business courses, earn new business skills, and contribute to your career growth.

For instance, San Francisco Business School offers a comprehensive 60 PMP PDU Online Course program. The program offers three self-paced business training programs: Executive Leadership, Strategy Creation & Execution, and Marketing Strategy. For each course in the program, SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning PDUs, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

Program #1- Executive Leadership Program

Improve your decision-making, and cross-functional competence, expand your understanding of the global marketplace, and build your way to servant leadership. Learn how to tackle business challenges. Earns 20 PMP PDUs.

Program #2- Strategy Creation & Execution Program

Develop the global perspective, quantitative background, and creative problem-solving skills to take your strategy from formulation to execution. Harness the power of disruptive innovation to craft winning strategies and turn them into play. Earns 30 PMP PDUs.

Program #3- Marketing Strategy Program

Boost revenue and profit by targeting the right segments, designing effective go-to-market strategies, and building high-value brands. Align your marketing and promotion efforts with business strategy to maximize Return on Investment. Earns 10 PMP PDUs.

Summary

PMP certification holders need to earn 60 PMP PDU hours every three years to maintain their certification. There are two main categories of PMP PDUs: Education and Giving Back. Education PDUs can be earned through courses, webinars, events, reading, and informal learning. Giving Back PDUs can be earned through volunteering, mentoring, and working with professional groups.

There are certain requirements for earning PMP PDU hours. For the Education category, at least 35 PDUs must be earned, with a minimum of 8 PDUs in each of the Ways of Working, Business Acumen, and Power Skills subcategories. For the Giving Back category, a maximum of 25 PDUs can be earned, with a maximum of 8 PDUs for working as a professional. There is no maximum limit for earning PDUs in the education category. You can earn all 60 PDUs in the Education category.

While there are some free PDU offerings, completing 60 PDUs through free activities is not practical. Choose a PMP PDU course that will enhance your business skills and earn new certificates that will shine in your resume.

The post PMP PDU Guide [Updated] – Incl. Free PMP PDU Courses appeared first on San Francisco Business School.