Project Management Professional Certificate Renewal

The Project Management Institute has changed the requirements for Project Management Profession renewal. While the certificate holder is still required to earn 60 Professional Development Units in each three year period, the guidelines have changed for the acceptible categories. In addition, some of the qualifying activities have changed as well. Luckily, there is now more consistency involved for those attempting to earn the required PMP renewal credits.

In the past, there were peculiar rules in place for some of the credit earning categories. Certain activities earned arbitrary numbers of credits that did not reflect the amount of effort expended by the project manager. This has been largely rationalized. Now the general rule is that each hour of applicable activity is worth one Professional Development Unit. For example, one hour of course instruction time or one hour writing a project management article are each worth one PDU renewal credit. This guideline does not apply to employment as a project manager, however. That category continues to earn a maximum of five renewal credits per full year of employment.

With the change that equates most activities to credits, certified project managers now have an easier time working towards their certification renewal. GIven that there are three years in each renewal cycle, or 36 months, the project manager must earn about 2 credits per month to ensure that they acquire the required total of 60 credits by the third anniversary of their certificate date. Obviously 36 months times 2 credits per month equals 72 credits which is more than required. The certificate holder is able to carry forward up to 20 credits into their next certification cycle so the excess will not be wasted. By planning to earn 2 renewal credits per month, the project manager can afford to take a few months off from their credit earning activities and still meet the 60 credit requirement with ease.

Project Management Professional renewal activities must include continuing education activities and may include a mixture of employment and knowledge creation activities. The continuing education requirements can be met through approved classroom instruction, other project management classroom instruction or self directed learning activities. All continuing education activities must pertain to project management topics. Self directed learning now may include reading about project management in books, magazines or on the Internet. Much of this activity can be free, of course. There are books available at your public library on project management topics. There are many relevant podcasts and webinars on the Internet. You may earn up to 30 PMP renewal credits in the self directed learning category now. Plan on devoting about an hour a month to such work.

Another useful activity that earns PMP renewal credits is creating project knowledge. This involves writing about project management topics. You can publish your work in a book, on the Internet or in a published project management journal. With practice, you could find this activity to be very rewarding and useful as part of your credit earning work. Like most project work, this exercise should be approached with a definitive plan. This will help ensure that you have success reaching your goal of renewing your Project Management Professional certification.