How to Find Free PDU in Technical, Leadership and Strategic Education for PMP / PMI-ACP?

Step-by-step instruction for getting FREE PDUs in PMI Talents Triangle (Technical Project Management, Leadership, Strategic and Business Management) skills areas


How to Categorize PDU According to PMI Talent Triangle for PMP / PMI-ACP

PDU Requirements for PMP / PMI-ACP® Certifications

From 1st December 2015, PMP and PMI-ACP® Certification holders will need to categorise their education PDUs according to the PMI Talent Triangle with 3 key aspects:

  • Technical Project Management: Knowledge, skills and behaviors related to specific domains of Project, Program and Portfolio Management
  • Leadership: Knowledge, skills and behaviors specific to leadership-oriented, cross-cutting skills that help an organization achieve its business goals
  • Strategic and Business Management: Knowledge of and expertise in the industry or organization that enhances performance and better delivers business outcomes

Click here for a highlight of the current PDU requirements for PMP / PMI-ACP® Certification holders (with infographic)

The minimum amount of PDU for PMP in each skill area is 8 PDU while that for PMI-ACP® is 4 PDU. The PDU requirements for your certification are clearly indicated in your PMI.org certification dashboard. You would see that I still need 0.5 Strategic & Business PDU in order to satisfy the minimum PDU in the PMI Talent Triangle skill areas.

PMI.org certification PDU requirement dashboard

PMI.org certification PDU requirement dashboard

Though there is no increase in the total amount of PDU to be collected for re-certification, it is now more difficult to gain PDUs in the correction PMI Talent Triangle areas from training organizations other than PMI/PMI Authorized Training Partner as the classification of the training activity PDU is solely determined by PMI (non-PMI Authorized Training Partner will not indicate the category of the PDU the activities belong to). The best way to gain the required classification of PDU is, for sure, through PMI.

Gaining Educational Technical, Leadership and Strategic PDUs for FREE

Is there a way to gain the Educational Technical, Leadership and Strategic PDUs for free?

Yes! For those who have just passed the exam to be certified, remember you have already paid the membership fee for the PMI? You can actually earn FREE PDUs with your membership. Note that the PDUs earned this way is Educational which has NO upper limits (i.e. you can earn all the 60 PDU/30 PDU for your PMP / PMI-ACP® re-certification through this).

PMI has provided lots of live and recorded webinars at www.projectmanagement.com. Valid PMI members (i.e. the membership has not expired) can log into projectmanagement.com directlyl with their PMI account name and password. The hundreds of recorded webinars (a.k.a. On-demand Webinars) can be find by hovering the cursor over the “Webinar” menu.

hovering the cursor over the "Webinar" menu for recorded webinar

Hovering the cursor over the “Webinar” menu for recorded webinar

From there you will have a list of Filters on the left side of the page. These filters are meant to help you find suitable recorded webinars for getting PDUs for your certifications. You can select filters in the “PMI Certifications” (for a particular certification such as PMP or PMI-ACP®) or “PMI Talent Triangle” categories (for a particular PDU category: Technical, Leadership or Strategic).

filters in the "PMI Certifications" (for a particular certification such as PMP or PMI-ACP)

Filters in “PMI Certifications” (for a particular certification such as PMP or PMI-ACP®)

Filters in "PMI Talent Triangle" categories (for a particular PDU category: Technical, Leadership or Strategic).

Filters in “PMI Talent Triangle” categories (for a particular PDU category: Technical, Leadership or Strategic).

Since I need at least 0.5 PDU in Strategic area, I checked the “Strategic” checkbox (by the way there are 177 recorded webinars related to “Strategic” skills area as indicated, which is much much more than enough for each re-certification cycle). And I am presented with a list of webinars sorted by “date added” (which you can change the sorting criteria).

There is a red “PREMIUM” word indicated just below the webinar title. Don’t worry, that does not mean that you will have to pay for viewing the webinar. Your PMI Membership already includes the subscription to the PREMIUM contents on projectmanagement.com. Just click on the title and go to the recorded webinar page:

On the recorded webinar page, simply click on the video screen to being the webinar.

On the recorded webinar page, simply click on the video screen to being the webinar.

But don’t begin the webinar yet, get to know how many PDUs in Technical, Leadership and Strategic skill areas you will get by scrolling down the page. There you will have a full-list of PDUs for each PMI Certification in each skill area:

Full-list of PDUs for each PMI Certification in each skill area

Full-list of PDUs for each PMI Certification in each skill area

The webinar I have selected can gain me 1 PDU for my PMP re-certification (0.5 PDU in Technical and 0.5 PDU in Strategic) and 0.5 PDU for my PMI-ACP® re-certification (0.5 PDU In Strategic).

Now, scroll up the page and click on the “Play” button on the video box and the webinar will begin immediately (of course you will need a reliable and speedy internet connection). Please note that you will need to allow the webinar to run from beginning all the way to end in order to get the PDU.

How to Report the PDU?

The best news is that the Education PDU earned through projectmanagement.com is reported automatically to PMI.org within a few days. I got the following email from PMI in less than 24 hours after watching the recorded webinar:

PDU claim acknowledge email from PMI

PDU claim acknowledge email from PMI

And the PDU claim was also instantly approved (since the webinars on projectmanagement.com has been pre-approved to satisfying the PDU requirements by PMI). In this way, I can gain FREE Educational PDUs for my PMI Certification.

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Edward Chung

Edward Chung aspires to become a full-stack web developer and project manager. In the quest to become a more competent professional, Edward studied for and passed the PMP Certification, ITIL v3 Foundation Certification, PMI-ACP Certification and Zend PHP Certification. Edward shares his certification experience and resources here in the hope of helping others who are pursuing these certification exams to achieve exam success.

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24 Responses

  1. Khin says:

    Hi Edward,

    I am very thankful for your PMP notes and links that you shared. I had studied those and passed PMP exam on 2016.
    I came back again here to renew my PMP re-certification and study about ITIL Foundation Course.
    Thanks again!!!

  2. Jane L says:

    This is by far the best instructions regarding PDUs! Thank you for your thorough instructions. I also want to thank you for being a huge part of earning my PMP cert in 2018. I read through all of your materials on your site and was able to pass the first try. I am paying it forward by mentoring others at work. Thanks!!

  3. Muse says:

    Hi Edward,
    Recently I took 2 months online short course on Sustainability Leadership from Cambridge. Is it possible to request for PDU in this type of courses. My re-certification is due within a year. Thanks!

  4. Javier says:

    Hi
    I’ve taken the ITIL v3 2011 Foundation course. I would like to know how many hours should I reporte according with the PMI talent triangle.
    Could you please give me a hand with it?
    Thanks

  5. Vikas Ganju says:

    Hi Edward,

    I am very thankful to you for explaining how to earn PDUs in such details. Just started my journey to earn 60 PDUs for PMP and followed the process as you have advised. Very glad to report that it went exactly as described in this page. I totally agree with an earlier comment stating that the information you have put out is way more helpful than the actual PMI website. Appreciate your help.

    Just to confirm my understanding, all the 60 PDUs can be earned in the three categories under Education header of PMI talent triangle. Can we in that case levae the Giving Back header as is (ie. not report any PDUs in this category)?

    • Edward Chung says:

      Thanks for your compliments!

      Yes, you can earn all PDUs in the form of Education. I did not report any “Giving Back” PDUs as I earned enough PDUs from continuous education.

  6. Sofia Di Biase says:

    Thank you so much for this page! It is way more useful than the PMI website in looking for their learning database 🙂

  7. Shelly H says:

    Having PMI APPLY the PDU’s is an issue. I have more than the amount of PDU’s needed, all have been approved, and as you state, it was instantaneous. However, the issue of having them not getting applied is an issue. Talking with PMI is of no help, they say it takes time. Well, it’s been 3 months and I have only 2 months left before my PMP expires. I don’t trust PMI on this one. Have you had issues with getting PDU’s applied? (not approved but APPLIED).

    • Edward Chung says:

      I did not have the experience before. Almost all of my PDUs were gained from PMI events. Perhaps that’s why they would approve those PDUs so fast. Hope your PDUs will be approved soon.

  8. paul says:

    A quick pointer: Don’t attempt to leave feedback comments until the Webinar has completely finished! Yes, your comments will be recorded, but your session will reset, and you’ll have to restart from the beginning. Not fun!

  9. Gerry Crumbley says:

    the webinars only play for 1 minute the quit. I am logged in with my PMI account. What gives?

    • Edward Chung says:

      The webinars play smoothly on my side. Perhaps there is some technical issues either on the server or on your computer. You are advised to contact projectmanagement.com direct in order to solve the issue. Thanks!

  10. Vesh says:

    Hi Edward, Please help me – I am in South Africa and logged in on projectmanagement.com – however when I want to play a video – i get this error message:
    An unanticipated problem was encountered, check back soon and try again
    Error Code: MEDIA_ERR_UNKNOWN
    Session ID: 2017-08-01:cba0fdb63f38f613c6d98b4d Player ID: BCvideoPlayer

    What can be the problem?

    Thanks,
    Yuveshni

    • Edward Chung says:

      Oh, that’s strange. I tried and could play the webinars smoothly. Perhaps you had encountered temporary technical issues. Please try again a bit later.

  11. Ben says:

    Hi Edward, thanks for the introduction about pdu from projectmanagement.com. I just passed my PMP exam, can I accumulate 60 pdu right now? since my pmi account will expire in Oct.
    Or did PMI request pdu to be earned equally in 3 years? thanks

    • Edward Chung says:

      Congratulations! You can get all the 60 PDUs anytime you want (it is perfectly okay even if you get all 60 PDUs in 3 days after you get PMP certified)!

      Just note that only the extra PDUs (beyond the minimum 60 PDUs) gained in the 3rd year of the re-certification cycle can be carried forward to the next cycle.

  12. Debashis Mitra says:

    Hi Edward

    Many thanks for putting up such an informative and helpful website.
    Could you please clarify that to claim the PDUs for watching webinars on ProjectManagement.com, I do not need to explicitly report my claim. It would automatically get added to my PMI account? Because for other PDUs claims I have had to manually add the claim, hence the clarification.
    Thanks for your help!

    Best regards
    Deb

    • Edward Chung says:

      Yes, you are right. There is no need to report the PDUs earned from ProjectManagement.com as it is automatically reported for you. You will receive the PDU claim email in a week or two.