What are Professional Development Units (PDUs)?
Professional Development Units (PDUs) are one-hour blocks of time that you spend learning, teaching others, or volunteering. By accumulating and tracking these over your certification cycle you can maintain your certification status with PMI.
The certifications have different requirements based on the number of PDUs for maintenance. Project Management Professional (PMP)®, Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)®, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®, PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA)®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)®, Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP)®, PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP)® and PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP)® are either on a 3-year renewal cycle or a 1-year renewal cycle (for Disciplined Agile certifications).
PDUs are broken into two categories - Education and Giving Back to the Profession.
- Education PDUs can be earned at professional seminars, webinars, classes, or even self-directed learning.
- Giving Back PDUs are for time spent volunteering, mentoring, working with professional groups, and more.
Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) Program
PMI’s Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) program supports the ongoing educational and professional development of PMI certification holders so they are always prepared to meet the demands of today’s complex business environment.
Download the CCR Handbook
What PMI's Talent Triangle
To help project professionals navigate this changing world of work and embrace smarter ways of working, PMI updated the sides of the PMI Talent Triangle to now focus on: Ways of Working (formerly Technical project management), Power Skills (formerly Leadership), and Business Acumen (formerly Strategic and Business Management). The competencies can be defined as follows:
- Ways of Working: Whether it’s predictive, agile, design thinking, or new practices still to be developed, it's clear that there is more than one way that work gets done today. That’s why we encourage professionals to master as many ways of working as they can - so they can apply the right technique at the right time, delivering winning results.
- Power Skills: These interpersonal skills include collaborative leadership, communication, an innovative mindset, for-purpose orientation, and empathy. Ensuring teams have these skills allows them to maintain influence with a variety of stakeholders - a critical component for making change.
- Business Acumen: Professionals with business acumen understand the macro and micro influences in their organization and industry and have the function-specific or domain-specific knowledge to make good decisions. Professionals at all levels need to be able to cultivate effective decision-making and understand how their projects align with the big picture of broader organizational strategy and global trends.
PMI continuously tries to keep its project management certifications relevant to the industry and organisation needs. And in order to do so, it takes inputs from industry veterans to keep updating the content and pattern of exams. PMI clearly declared the areas of competence that a current-day project manager needs to consider.
The "PMI TALENT TRIANGLE" and the PMI Talent Triangle image
are marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
How many PDUs do I need to maintain my certification?
PMI requires its certification holders to obtain a certain number of PDUs in order to maintain their certification. But how many PDUs are required?
I have a PMP®, PgMP®, PfMP®, PMI-PBA®
- I need to earn 60 PDUs in a three-year cycle
If you hold a Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP), Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP) or Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA) certification, you are required to earn 60 PDUs in a 3-year cycle. These 60 PDUs can be further broken down as follows:
- 35 Minimum Education PDUs
- 25 Maximum Giving Back PDUs
I have a CAPM®
- I need to earn 15 professional development units in a three-year cycle.
If you hold a Certified Associate in Project Management Professional (CAPM)® certification, you are required to earn 15 PDUs in a 3-year cycle. These 15 PDUs can be further broken down as follows:
- Minimum of 9 Education PDUs
- Maximum of 6 Giving Back PDUs
I have a PMI-ACP®, PMI-RMP®, PMI-SP®
- I need to earn 30 PDUs in a three-year cycle
If you hold an Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP), or Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP) certification, you are required to earn 30 PDUs in a 3-year cycle. These 30 PDUs can be further broken down as follows:
- 18 Minimum Education PDUs
- 12 Maximum Giving Back PDUs
How can I earn PDUs?
The Project Management Institute has divided the PDUs to obtain in order to maintain PMI certifications in two different categories, Education PDUs and Giving Back PDUs. PDUs can be earned in different ways and through different activities.
Education PDUs
In order to earn Education PDUs required by the CCR program, you need to choose from one of the following options offered by PMI:
- Course or Training - Check the list of ExamSimul courses providing PDUs
- Global Events
- Local Meetings
- Online or Digital Media
- Reading
- Informal Learning
Giving Back PDUs
In order to earn Giving Back PDUs required by the CCR program, you need to choose from one of the following options offered by PMI:
- Work as a Practitioner
- Create Content
- Give a Presentation
- Share Knowledge
- Volunteer
How can I self-declare my PMI PDUs?
In order to maintain your PMP® certification or other PMI certifications, it is mandatory to submit and claim the PDUs you earned, by using CCRS. In order to maintain the certification status as active, you need to register your PDUs and complete the renewal process.
You can claim your Education PDUs earned with ExamSimul training courses following these easy steps:
1. Go to the PMI.org and login
2. Select myPMI, then Dashboard on the drop down
3. On the right side, scroll down and select Report PDUs
4. Select the Course or Training box
5. In the Provider box, type "BITIL.COM"
(IMPORTANT: Do not select any prefill option. Type or copy and paste BITIL.COM)
6. In the Title box, type the title of the BITIL.COM course. For example: "ITIL® 4 Foundation"
(IMPORTANT: Do not select the autofill title. This will cause an error. Please type or copy and paste the title of your course.)
7. For the Description, you can use the one on the product page on our website. (Copy/paste)
8. Select the Date Started and Date Completed.
9. Enter PDUs Claimed. Each course certificate provides the breakout by category. To see the breakout by category of your course, please visit this page.
10. Finally, select the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
We remind you that, after submitting and claiming the PDUs, their acceptance will be on charge of and audited by PMI.
You will receive a confirmation by PMI as soon as they will have accepted your claimed PDUs.
