How to Earn PMI-ACP 21 Contact Hours Online?

In order to be eligible for the PMI-ACP® exam, PMI-ACP® candidates need to obtain at least 21 contact hours of project management training or education in Agile methodologies. This blog post will introduce you the easiest yet most effective way to obtain the 21 PMI-ACP® contact hours – through an online podcast course.

What are Contact Hours?

If you are not familiar with PMI’s terminologies, the term “contact hours” will be quite misleading. PMI actually does not require PMI-ACP® aspirants to be in a brick-and-mortar classroom to be in direct contact with an instructor for 21 hours. What PMI actually means for the PMI-ACP® contact hours requirement is that PMI-ACP® applicants need to have received at least 21 hours of formal education that fulfills the following criteria:

1. The education must about Agile methodologies (e.g. general Agile project management or specific Agile methodologies like Scrum); and
2. There is a course-end assessment in the form of a test or examination for the student to demonstrate competency in the course contents.

In fact, with the advances in technology, nowadays the 21 contact hours can be obtained through at least three ways:

• Classroom lectures / bootcamps
• Online live lectures
• Online pre-recorded lectures / podcast courses

Though the education is not restricted to the PMI-ACP® syllabus (in fact if you have already attended Scrum Master courses, you are considered to have fulfilled the education requirements), it is highly advised to take an PMI-ACP® exam prep course anyway as the exam syllabus for the PMI-ACP® exam is much much wider. You will be tested on Agile principles and major Agile methodologies (of which Scrum is just one of them):

• Scrum
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Lean
• Crystal Family
• DSDM Atern
• Kanban
• Adaptive Software Development (ASD)

The list of books recommended for the PMI-ACP® exam has more than 4000 pages! You will definitely want study for your PMI-ACP® in a much “Agile way”. This is where PMI-ACP® exam prep course, in particular those delivered online, can help you.

The Recommended Online PMI-ACP® Course

A good choice of PMI-ACP® exam prep course provided by PMI Authorized Training Partner (Registered Education Provider) is the Agile PrepCast™. This is the PMI-ACP® exam prep I used to prepare for my PMI-ACP® exam. It will not only get you the 21 contact hours but also prepare for PMI-ACP® exam at the same time. The Agile PrepCast™ is the only downloadable online PMI-ACP® exam prep course on the market so that you can download all the courses to your smart phones and prepare for your PMI-ACP® exam anywhere (i.e. you are not tied to the computer or internet network for your study any more).

Please click here to learn more about the benefits of the Agile PrepCast™.

P.S.: Must the 21 PMI-ACP® Contact Hours be Delivered by PMI Authorized Training Partner?

PMI Authorized Training Partner stands for “Registered Education Provider” by the Project Management Institute. The designation can be considered a seal of quality as all PMI Authorized Training Partner need to follow the rigorous quality standards set out by PMI. However, PMI does not require the 21 PMI-ACP® Contact Hours (nor PMP contact hours, PDU, etc.) to be provided solely by PMI Authorized Training Partner

Though any training organization can provide the required 21 Contact Hours, it is highly recommended to select PMI-ACP® prep courses delivered by PMI Authorized Training Partner You will definitely not to get the 21 contact hours with the cheap but questionable quality providers that cannot prepare you well for the PMI-ACP® exam, right?

In addition, if you are a PMP holder, you can earn PDUs in Category A if you get your 21 PMI-ACP® Contact Hours through a PMI Authorized Training Partner Category A PDUs are without upper limit for each PMP re-certification cycle.