Pluralsight Skills offers numerous courses to help you prepare for your PMP (Project Management Professional) certification exam and maintain your PDUs (Professional Development Units).
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Note: Much of the information in this article comes from Project Management International’s (PMI's) website and may change at any time and without notice. Please reference PMI’s website (external site, opens in new tab) for the latest information and to register for certification.
What are the requirements for the PMP® exam?
To qualify for the PMP® certification exam, you must meet the following requirements:
- A four-year degree
- 36 months leading projects
- 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification
—or—
- A high school diploma or an associate’s degree (or global equivalent)
- 60 months leading projects
- 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification
Once you meet these requirements, you’re ready to apply for the PMP® certification exam. Begin by collecting and documenting your education, experience, and professional training, as you will need to enter this information during the application process.
Information related to your experience managing projects or portions of project work must include:
- Where you've worked
- Your role and responsibilities
- The approximate amount of time spent working on each project phase
- Contact information for someone who can attest to your role in the project. This may be a colleague, supervisor, client, or other knowledgeable person.
To document meeting the education and training requirements, you’ll need the following information:
- Source of education
- Applicable courses completed
- Qualifying hours per course
Which Skills courses count for PMI®?
Skills provides relevant project management courses via the Project Management for Professionals path (opens in new tab). This content helps you prepare for and achieve your PMP® certification, and all courses in the path can count towards both contact hours and PDUs for PMI®.
To determine whether or not a Skills course will count towards continuing education PDUs, search or browse for courses in PMI's course catalog (external site, opens in new tab).
Note: Skills's PMP® courses also count toward CAPM®'s optional 23 hours of project management education.
How many contact hours or PDUs do I need?
PMI® describes contact hours as project management education. Before applying for the PMP® certification, you must earn 35 contact hours.
PMI® (external site, opens in new tab) describes PDUs this way: "PDUs are the measuring unit used to quantify your professional development as part of the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) program. 1 PDU = 1 hour of learning/activity." You may log hours in increments of 15 minutes (or a quarter hour), rounding down. For example, a course that is 2 hours and 17 minutes long may be logged as 2.25 hours.
To maintain your PMP® certification, you must earn 60 PDUs every three years. Additionally, credit units are split into 3 categories: Technical, Leadership, and Strategic and Business Management. Skills courses are approved based on those categories. Courses cannot be moved or re-classified to count towards other categories. We highly recommend searching the list of courses on the PMI site before taking them to ensure you know the amount of PDUs and the category they count towards.
How do I report contact hours and PDUs?
If you're preparing to take the PMP® exam, you can use Skills courses in your application with PMI®. Or to maintain your certification, you can submit Skills courses to maintain your PDU requirement.
Reporting contact hours for your PMP application
Create an account with PMI® (external site, opens in new tab) to begin your application process. Once you get to the professional education section, you’ll be required to enter information about each project management course you’ve used to meet the PMP® exam training requirement.
Enter "Pluralsight" in the Provider Name box. For qualifying hours, reference the Course Duration listed on your Pluralsight course certificate of completion.
When complete, continue with your application.
Reporting continuing education PDUs
Log in to your PMI account and navigate to this page (external site, opens in new tab) to report PDU. Submit each course individually that you've completed. Enter "Pluralsight" in the Provider Name box.
For more information on how to earn PDUs, take a look at PMI®'s Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) Handbook (PDF, opens in new tab).
How do I get a certificate of completion?
While not necessary for the application process, you should download certificates of completion for your Skills courses to confirm the eligible training hours offered by each course and to document your training in case your application is randomly selected for audit. See Certificates of completion for instructions.
If you need help, please contact Pluralsight Support.