Question:
Dear Mr. Cornelius,
I am a certified PMP and got certified in the year July 2011.
I have used your course for passing the PMP exam and had wonderful results.
It is tragic to inform you that I am now at the start of the third year of my CCR, but i haven't reported any PDUs yet.
I did attend nearly 5-6 sessions in the local PMI chapter, but missed to report the pdus. And now i do not remember which sessions did i attend hence am unable to report these pdus.
I am urgently seeking your kind assistance in getting my 60 pdus for the CCRS.
Before this, my question is, can i earn all 60 PDUs in one year? Is there any restriction here?
I am currently in Bangalore, India. There is a 3 day event in the local pmi chapter that gives 23 pdus, please suggest.
Seeking your urgent assistance,
With Regards,
Nitesh Srivastava
Answer:
Nitesh,
First of all: Don't worry. One year is plenty of time to "catch up" and earn 60 PDUs for your recertification. PMI doesn't say that you have to earn your PDUs regularly throughout the 3 years (although that is the recommended approach), so it is theoretically possible to earn all 60 PDUs in just two weeks.
Here are my top suggestions for you in each category and how you could earn your PDUs:
PDU Category A: The 3 day even of your PMI chapter is definitely an option for you. I can see that the price for chapter members is Rs. 10,250, which is about $162. This is relatively inexpensive and a good way to also network with other project managers in your area. But it means that you may have to take 2 days off from work. If you cannot do that then you could select to purchase The Agile PrepCast at
www.agileprepcast.com/pdu
. This self-study course costs $179.99 and gives you 37 PDUs. The benefit of this is that you can watch the lessons any time you want and don't have to take time off from work.
PDU Category B: I see that there are a lot of training companies, schools and universities in Banbalore that offer all kinds of project management related training. There are also a lot of online companies that offer 1 hours long, free webinars that qualify for this. The choice is again yours.
PDU Category C: Here I recommend listening to The PM Podcast. It's free and it qualifies for 30 free PDUs in this category. You can learn more about this at
www.pm-podcast.com/pdu
PDU Category D: The easiest way to earn PDUs in this category is to write an article about your last project in the form of a white paper or a lessons learned review. Shoot for about 1,000 - 1,200 words. Every hour that you spend writing this article can be counted as 1 PDU. Once you have it completed you can submit it to the newsletter editors of all PMI chapters in India and give them permission to print it in their next newsletter.
PDU Category E: It may be a little late for this one, but have you considered becoming a volunteer for your local PMI chapter? Again... every hour that you volunteer counts as 1 PDU for you.
PDU Category F: This is the easiest one to earn 15 PDUs over 3 years. If you are working as a project manager then you can claim 5 PDUs for every year that you employed as a PM. This means that you get PDUs just for doing your job.
So in conclusion you can see that it is rather simple to earn PDUs and it doesn't really matter when you earn them. However, my recommendation to anyone is that instead of trying to "catch up" at the last minute you should make earning PDUs a regular activity. This not only keeps you engaged but most importantly it ensures having to rush at the last minute.
