If you are willing to earn the PMI-ACP certification, you should earn Agile education hours, not PDUs. Many PMI-ACP aspirants confuse this with PMI-ACP PDU. So, if you already have a PMI-ACP certification, you must fulfill the PMI-ACP PDU requirements to retain your certification or it will expire.
PMI-ACP PDU Requirements In a Snapshot:
- You must earn 30 PDUs every three years.
- Minimum 18 PDUs must be from the Education category – no maximum limit, meaning you can earn all 30 PDUs from education.
- Maximum 12 PDUs from the Giving Back category – a maximum of four PDUs can be claimed from your project experience.
We will detail these requirements one-by-one in this post. You can read the full PMI-ACP PDU post for all the details.
PMI-ACP PDU Requirements
PMI has set out a mandatory requirement for the PMI certification holders that they must renew their certification every three years. If the certification is not renewed after every three years, it will be suspended. PMI will then give you one year of grace period to renew it. If you still don’t renew it, your certification will expire and you will need to retake the PMI-ACP exam.
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The following table shows the total number of PDUs required to fulfill the PMI-ACP PDU requirements. It also shows the distribution of the total PDUs needed in the two PDU categories – Education and Giving Back. The cost to renew your PMI-ACP certification is also mentioned in this table.
PDUs Required (Total) | Education PDUs (Min) | Giving Back PDUs (Max) | Renewal Cost |
30 | 18 | 12 | US$ 60 / US$ 150 |
How can I earn Education PDUs?
The Education PDU category to fulfill the PMI-ACP PDU requirements expects you to gain new knowledge and skills in the field of Agile or project management. You need to earn a minimum of 18 PDUs from the Education PDU category. And if you wish, you can earn and claim all the required 30 PDUs from your education activities.
PMI has created a Talent Triangle comprising three categories of education. The Talent Triangle restricts you to gain new knowledge and skills that fall in one or all of these three categories. The PMI Talent Triangle is explained below:
1. Ways of Working
Ways of Working demands you to have skills and knowledge that help you manage projects in technical aspects. As an Agile or project management professional, you need to possess many technical project management skills. For example, Earned Value analysis, data gathering, data modeling, project scheduling, financial accounting, governance, agile project planning, and execution, etc. In addition to these, possessing industry-specific skills to some extent is also necessary. For example, if you are working in IT, you should have basic knowledge and skills to manage IT projects. Similarly, you should have specific ways of working skills to manage the projects in the industry you are working in.
2. Power Skills
A leader is expected to possess a variety of power skills. For example, some of the important leadership skills that you should possess to manage your projects include team building, problem-solving, conflict management, critical thinking, commitment, active listening, emotional intelligence, confidence, creativity. So, you need to learn or be trained on these skills as well to fulfill the PMI-ACP PDU requirements.
3. Business Acumen
Business acumen skills are needed to understand the organization’s strategy and implement actions and decisions that are aligned with the strategy. And for effective business acumen, you often need to possess different kinds of skills and knowledge. So, to help you with strategic and business management, you could learn about competitive analysis, stakeholder management, market awareness, regulatory compliance, benefits management, benchmarking, customer, and business relationships. Therefore, it is important that you must have these skills to be able to better comprehend your organization’s requirements and fulfil these.
Ways for earning Education PDUs
So, what are your options to acquire skills and knowledge according to the PMI Talent Triangle? Well, you can participate in a whole lot of things to earn PDUs in the PMI Talent Triangle categories. For example, you can:
Take training
Taking training is a great learning opportunity and it will earn you PDUs too. You can take training on a variety of Agile or project management topics that you like. For example, project scheduling, conflict management, leadership, business analysis, Agile practices, etc. Indeed, you can take the training through many means. For example, you can take live online training, self-paced online PMI-ACP PDU training, or physical classroom training. And you can choose a large variety of subjects for your training.
You can earn PDUs online with our PM courses. You can check out the number of PDUs provided by Master of Project Academy’s courses on the PDU list matrix.
You are free to take training from any provider. It could be a private training institute, an online learning academy, a University, or your employer. You can also choose course providers that are accredited by the PMI Global Accreditation Center (GAC). The list of PMI GAC accredited centers can be found on the PMI website.
You can also check the PMI website for online instructor-led courses that the PMI Seminars World conducts. This is an online PMI platform where regular seminars are held on a large variety of management related topics.
Attend local workshops, seminars, or meetings related to Agile practices or project management
To fulfill the PMI-ACP PDU requirements, you can also attend many such events. With a little web search, you will find details about the upcoming events in your area. These events are often not very long in duration, so you may be able to earn not many PDUs by attending such events though.
Arrange an informal meeting with acquaintances to learn
This could be an interesting way for you to earn some PDUs and fulfil the PMI-ACP PDU requirements. What you will have to do is just arrange a casual meeting with your friends or colleagues for a discussion on Agile or project management. A discussion on how to manage conflicts or how to monitor project performance or how to better manage project stakeholders are just a few examples of the topics, which you can include in your discussions.
How can I earn Giving Back PDUs?
The PMI-ACP PDU requirements expect you to also contribute to the process of earning PDUs. In the Giving Back category, you can earn a maximum of 12 PDUs. However, there are many things that you can do in this category to earn PDUs, as explained below:
Working as a professional
This is the easiest way to earn PDUs. If you have worked in the recent past or are currently working in the field of Agile or project management, you already have earned many PDUs. However, the maximum number of PDUs that PMI allows you to claim by working as a professional is 4.
Creating knowledge & volunteering
If you like writing, then you can write articles or academic, scholarly research papers. Or you can create sample project management plans, project management templates like a WBS template. You can spend some time on the online project management forums and contribute with your knowledge there. Moreover, mentoring someone or giving a presentation will also earn you PDUs.
Master of Project Academy offers Free PMI ACP PDU Training bundle and earns you 2 PMI ACP PDUs for FREE. Enroll now!
Volunteering is also an option to earn PDUs. Volunteering involves being a helping hand for a charity or a non-profit organization. So, if you like to help others, this could be another good opportunity for you to participate in volunteer activities. There are many ways to help a charity or a non-profit organization. For example, you may schedule their project activities, create procurement documents, project plans, or monitor and report on their projects’ progress.
By volunteering and creating knowledge, you can claim a total of 8 PDUs maximum to fulfil the PMI-ACP PDU requirements.
PMI-ACP Renewal Cost
Once you have fulfilled the PMI-ACP PDU requirements, you can then pay the PMI-ACP renewal fee. After making the renewal fee payment, your certification will automatically renew for another three years.
What is the cost to renew your PMI-ACP certification, you may wonder? Well, the cost to renew your PMI-ACP certification varies depending on your PMI membership status.
If you are an active PMI member, the renewal fee is US$ 60. But, if you aren’t a member then the fee you will have to pay is US$ 150.
Summary – PMI-ACP PDU Requirements
Often people are not aware of the PMI-ACP PDU requirements. Some people do not even know that the certification needs to be renewed. A sudden reminder email from PMI to renew your certification then comes as a surprise to them. Since it is a mandatory requirement to renew your PMI-ACP certification, you must start to look for PDU earning activities soon after you have earned your PMI-ACP certification.
We have explained in this post the PMI-ACP PDU requirements. You must have realized that earning 30 PDUs in three years to fulfil the PMI-ACP PDU requirements is not a difficult task at all. Therefore, once you have started doing the PDU earning activities, you may complete all your PDUs even in one year. So, doesn’t matter when you have earned all the required PDUs, once you have earned them all, you are free to submit them to PMI anytime. And once you have done that, you can instantly renew your certification with the renewal fee payment.