Different Ways To Acquire Mandatory 35 Pdu To Write The Pmp Exam

Let me first explain what a PDU here is. PDU stands for Professional Development Unit. Project Management Institute (i.e. PMI) measures the number of hours spent in undergoing Project Management training in terms of PDU. One PDU is equivalent of one hour of structured learning.

Now, what is structured learning? By Structured learning PMI expects participants to undergo learning in a directed manner. So if you do self learning by going through some white papers on Project Management that might not be considered as structured learning. However, if you sit in a classroom kind of environment or you go through some good Project management related e-learning content, that could be classified as structured learning.

PMI expects that anyone who is interested in appearing for a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification examination must acquire minimum 35 hrs of PDU. Meaning, you must go through at least 35 hrs of structured learning on Project management before you file your application to appear for the PMP exam. This is a mandatory criterion over and above the minimum number of project management experience.

Is acquiring 35 PDU a must? The answer is yes. Ok…so where can one go and attend the requisite training to get the 35 hrs PDU certificate?

The answer is you can attend such training in two ways. Either you can attend classroom training or you can attend online training. Which one shall one go for is entirely a personal choice. However, here are some of the tips that I can suggest.

When to choose Online PMP Training:

1.  You are too busy to sit in a training room for multiple days of classroom training

2.  You like the online learning convenience. So you just need good structured learning content and doubt clarification on click of a button.

3.  You want to learn at your own pace.  Learn, Rewind, Listen Again!

4.  You are self motivated.

5.  You are paying on your own. Remember online courses are quiet economical compared to physical classroom courses.

6.  You cannot afford to waste time commuting to a training center.

 When to choose Classroom PMP Training:

1.  You are in between projects and have enough time to attend full day classroom training.

2.  You want to focus only on PMP Training and complete it as soon as possible like a Project.

3.  You like the rigor of a classroom training. You believe in doing one thing at a time.

4.  You think you are lazy enough to take online course seriously.

5.  When you Employer is paying for your classroom training. Classroom courses are quiet costly compared to an online course.

 Effectiveness of the Training Delivery

The next question is which one of the two is effective, my frank answer to that is, and it depends on the individual. There are 1000s of professionals, who have cleared their PMP Examination by going through online courses provided by companies like Simplilearn. That’s a big enough number to conclude that online courses work! If your aim is to pass the PMP certification exam and your online course allows you do that, what more do you want?

The second plus with online courses is that you can speak to other users on how good the course is. You can read reviews about the course, where as in a classroom training, it all depends on how good the Trainer is. Some times in my experience I have been, even good trainers get too tired my doing the same training again and again. So in many a cases, they rush through the training resulting in confusing participants.

The other important fact that I like about online trainings is the learning pace. Different individuals have different grasping capability. In a classroom, you have no control on, who the other participants are. Whereas, in an online self paced learning, you can go through the same content 5 times if required. There is no pressure to learn fast and catch up with rest.

 Conclusion

I am a big fan of online training. This is truer for professional certifications. The fact that one is planning to go for professional certification is good enough reason to believe that the person is self motivated. All one want is guidance and hand holding to prepare in the right fashion. Online content allow you to just do that.