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Congratulations! All your hard work and studying has paid off, and you now have a certification from PMI. You’re ready to go forth and put your new credentials into practice. You’ve mastered all there is to know about Project Management. You log into PMI to grab a copy of your newly granted certificate to upload to your company’s HR portal, and notice a button, “Report PDUs” and a graph stating you must earn so many PDUs within the next few years for your certification to remain in good standing. You look at the timeline, and the amount, and are immediately bewildered as you don’t even know where to begin. You have a fulltime job, volunteer with a local youth group, and are now looking at a different professional certification! You can’t possibly have the time to earn these PDUs! Don’t worry, earning PDUs to maintain your certification is not nearly as onerous and difficult as you might think.  

First, what on earth are PDUs? PDUs are Professional Development Units. These are tasks that PMI certificate holders must complete to maintain their certification. Each PMI certification has different amounts of PDUs you must earn, usually over a three-year cycle, and report to PMI. As the field of Project Management is ever evolving, PMI requires continuous learning. You also don’t become an expert in your field by simply earning your certification, you need to have experience, as well as keep up with the current trends and information. PMI has developed the Continuing Certification Requirements System (CCRS) for certificate holders to be able to track their PDUs with ease.

PMI has also broken out what kinds of PDUs you need to earn. Each certification requires you to earn a certain amount of PDUs from three different areas, based on the PMI Talent Triangle. These three areas are Ways of Working, Power Skills, and Business Acumen. These three areas highlight the skillset PMI believes holders of their certifications require to be successful and adaptable. For each certification, there are set mandatory amounts of PDUs for each side of the PMI triangle you need to earn. You can earn more in a certain area if you wish, but you can’t just choose to earn all your PDUs in one area of the triangle. How you earn these required PDUs is completely up to you, as there are many ways to earn them, including some that may not seem as obvious. You also don't have to spend a significant amount of money to earn PDUs either, unless you choose so.

You may have also noticed there are two broader ways of earning PDUs listed under your certification dashboard: Education and Giving Back. Education is both structured and unstructured learning, while Giving Back is in turn, demonstrating your own knowledge and passing on that information to others.  

Education PDUs, as stated, can take the form of both structured and unstructured learning. Structured learning takes many different forms. If you are working toward a new certification, you may be able to count some of those hours as PDUs. While you won’t be able to count a whole MBA program, if you took a course in Six Sigma, you will be able to count some hours as PDUs.

You can also earn PDUs by earning additional PMI certifications and micro-credentials. Currently, PMI has their Organisational Transformation Series courses on for 20% (OTSERIESGLOBAL is the coupon code to use for each course). You can earn PDUs by completing these courses. PMI also has free courses available on their website and has virtual events throughout the year that you can register for as well. PDUs earned through PMI courses and virtual events, much like the webinars on ProjectManagement.com, will also automatically be reported to the CCRS. 

Your company’s Learning Management System (LMS) may also have courses you can take that will count as PDUs. Skillsoft, for example, will often list in the course description if the course will count towards PMI PDUs, what you need to complete to earn the PDUs, and how many PDUs you will earn for taking the course. Udemy,Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning are also great resources, along with the option to take in-person classes. You're not just limited to PMI's offerings for training.

Note: If you hold a Halifax Public Library card, you have free access to LinkedIn Learning. See here for details.

PMI has a spin-off website, ProjectManagement.com. This site has articles, whitepapers, on-demand and live webinars, that you can use to earn PDUs. Registration is free, but to get the full benefit of the site, you do require a PMI membership. If you aren’t a PMI member, the number of on-demand webinars available to you is limited to approximately 200 out of the thousands that are on there, and you won’t be able to register and partake in the live webinar offerings. However, as this site is linked to PMI, any webinars you view in their entirety, will automatically be reported to the CCRS for you within a few days of completing. 

If you are a PMI member, and have joined your local chapter, you can attend chapter events and meetings to earn PDUs. PMINS has many events throughout the year, both virtual and in person. Some events are also open to non-members for a fee. Be sure to check the PMINS Events calendar and register. As an added perk for joining PMINS, you also have free access to ProjectBites, which has on-demand and live content such as podcasts and webinars. Be sure to check your members only section on PMINS for more information.

If you enjoy reading, you can count articles, blog posts, and books towards PDUs. One hour of reading is the equivalent of one PDU. In fact, if you’re in need of PDUs, one you have finished reading this blog post, head to CCRS and put in 0.25 PDUs under the Ways of Working section, if you wish. You’re learning about PDUs, which are required as part of PMI’s Ways of Working.  

PDUs don’t have to be hours of your time. You can earn partial PDUs, and you don’t have to learn them in a classroom. Listening to a short 15-minute podcast while walking outside during your lunchbreak will earn you 0.25 PDUs. 

Giving Back PDUs primarily surround providing education content to others. Depending on your certification, you can claim a particular amount for just doing your job. A PMP holder, for example, has 8 PDUs instantly just by submitting to PMI a summary as to what their job entails.  

Remember how you were worried about trying to earn PDUs because of the volunteering you do with a youth group? You can earn PDUs through volunteering in your personal time as well. Say your youth group is holding a fundraiser for a special trip. As a Project Manager, you’re the go-to person to lead the organisation of this task and can count it towards your PDUs.  

You can also volunteer with PMI directly. You can register through the Volunteer Relationship Management System (VRMS) site for opportunities or reach out to your local chapter. PMINS, for example, recently kicked off the Mentorship Program for 2023. The program has 30 pairs of mentors and protégés, which will take place for the next four months. Both members of the pairing will earn PDUs. The protégé will earn PDUs via Education while the mentors will be able to claim PDUs through Giving Back. There are also other volunteer positions through your local chapter that you can apply for, or be elected to, in the case of a board position.  

There are many other opportunities available, and not just within your local chapter. Some of these opportunities include evaluating PMI content. You can earn the PDUs for a particular product from PMI, such as a PMI online course, along with separate PDUs if you partake in interviews and surveys about the course content itself. These PDUs will automatically be reported to the CCRS by PMI on your behalf. 

Note: If you wish to volunteer with PMI, you need to be a PMI member of good standing. This entails paying your annual dues. 

You can also earn PDUs by presenting at conferences, creating webinars and podcasts, writing blogs, books, and/or articles to provide educational content and subject matter expertise. You could even provide a course on Udemy or LinkedIn Learning. You can complete most Giving Back tasks to earn PDUs without being a PMI member, including being a mentor. While there are many benefits to paying the annual fee to be a PMI member, there are reasons why one may choose not to join PMI. 

Many certificate holders feel that the Giving Back way of earning PDUs is mandatory, and often feel stumped trying to come up with the amount of Giving Back PDUs their dashboard states is available. Giving Back PDUs are optional, and the amount listed is the maximum number of PDUs you can earn, if you choose to earn PDUs this way. You can choose to earn all your required PDUs through Education only.  

Note: If you happen to hold multiple PMI certifications, most of your PDUs will be reported against all certificates. Good example, if you have both the PMP and PMI-ACP, if you watched a webinar on how to improve your Scrums, the webinar will count as PDUs for both certifications.  

Ok, now that you have a basic understanding of some things that count as PDUs, how do you ensure PMI knows you’ve completed them? Remember that “Report PDUs” button you saw on your dashboard? Well clicking that will take you to the CCRS. There you will be able to manually report PDUs, check PDU claim statuses, and renew your certification(s). 

You’ve finally completed earning all your PDUs! Now you can renew your certificate. If you’re a PMI member, this cost will only be about $60USD, while non-PMI members will be required to pay $150USD. You may have even earned your required PDUs sooner than the three-year cycle. You can renew your certification at any time. This will not change the cycle for earning PDUs. For example, if you earned your certificate in February 2023, and completed all PDU requirements by February 2024, you can renew your certification, and you will then have until February 2029 for your next renewal cycle.  

Even after you’ve renewed your certification, don’t stop learning! Continuous learning is a valuable skill to hold. You can still log your PDUs to the CCRS as well, whether you manually input the PDUs, or PMI automatically enters them for you. Some of these PDUs will end up counting for your next renewal cycle. Any PDUs earned past the amount required within the last 12 months of your current three-year cycle will be transferred over to the next cycle. Say you earned your certification in June of 2020, and earned your required PDUs and renewed your certification. Any PDUs you earn from July 2022 to June 2023 will count towards your renewal cycle for June 2023 to June 2026.  

While earning PDUs may seem like a daunting task, it’s not nearly as complicated as it seems at first glance. PDUs should be seen as something enjoyable to earn, and not a chore. The choice is yours for how you earn them. While there are still certain restrictions, you can still tailor your methods and interests to fit within those restrictions and successfully maintain your certification. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to PMINS, and we’ll be happy to assist. It might even allow you to earn some PDUs.