Episode 150: Earn 60 Free PDUs

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This video explains how to earn 60 Free PDUs from The PM Podcast. All you have to do is subscribe, listen and claim!

This video is an update of the information previously published in episodes 150 and 183. The videos of those episodes have been removed.

This episode is sponsored by:

This episode of The PM Podcast is titled “Earn 60 Free PDUs” because we want to show you how to do exactly that simply by listening to The PM Podcast. Here's how in a nutshell:

• It’s very simple to earn these 30 free PMP PDUs (and they are also relevant PDUs for other credentials too)
• Just keep doing what you are doing right now:
• Listen to (or watch) The PM Podcast regularly
• Claim 30 Category C PDUs from PMI.

Many of you may already be aware of this and also how it is done, but in the last couple of months I have received a large number of emails from listeners out there asking me about how exactly to claim these Category C PDUs that I have decided to make this into a podcast. Project Management Professional credential holders need to earn 60 PDUs for PMP® renewal, so claiming these Category C PDUs will give you a headstart to completing your PDU requirements.

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.

Podcast Introduction

Cornelius Fichtner: This is The Project Management Podcast™. We bring project management topics to beginners and experts. Find us on the web at www.pm‑podcast.com or send your emails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode #150. I am Cornelius Fichtner. This is The Project Management Podcast™, nice to have you with us.

This episode of The Project Management Podcast™ is titled “Earn 15 Free PDUs” and obviously in the next few minutes, I will show you how to do exactly that. And for this you have to know that first of all it’s very simple to earn these 15 PDUs. All that you have to do is just keep doing what you are doing right now and by that I mean listen to or watch The Project Management™ regularly and then claim 15 Category 2-SDL PDUs from PMI.

Now I understand that many of you may already be aware of this and also how it’s done. But in the last 2 months, I have received a large number of emails from listeners out there asking me how exactly do I claim this Category 2 PDUs. Therefore, I have decided to make this into a podcast episode and you’ll hear the details about this in the next few minutes.

So let’s take a look at how this is done.

I started The Project Management Podcast™ in about 2005 and since then, podcasts have emerged as a valuable tool for project management-related education. They are a simple of method of delivering project management-based thought and education to the project management community at large. That would be you. This is especially true for those practitioners among us to whom geography or scheduling is a road block. And this is why it has been possible for you as a PMP or a PgMP to claim Category 2-SDL PDUs for listening to project management-related podcasts and this is since 2006.

SDL, by the way, SDL stands for Self-Directed Learning. To learn more about this, please refer to the PMI’s official handbook. There is a separate handbook for each of the credentials that PMI offers. It’s generally the same here for these Category 2-SDL PDUs. Go to www.pmi.org, look under Career Development and then on the right-hand side, at least at the time of the recording of this, you will find the various handbooks that PMI has.

There is one important fact that you need to remember and that is every PMP is subject to an audit when you submit PDUs through the online website. The PMI reserves the right to reject some or all of the PDUs that you submit. That means that during the PDU submission process, you may have to show in exactly what way you have earned all of your PDUs that you want to claim here for listening to a podcast or for watching a podcast. And there are also some basic rules that you should remember.

First of all, you can only submit a maximum of 15 Category 2-SDL PDUs for each certification cycle. That means every 3 years, you can get a maximum of 15 of these. You can claim 1 Category 2-SDL PDU for each hour of listening to podcasts and the topic of these podcasts must relate to the knowledge areas in the PMBOK® Guide. If a podcast happens to be less than 60 minutes in duration, less than 1 hour, then you have listen to several podcasts that discuss the same topic and you have to add them up. So for instance,if you listen to 2 half-hour long podcast on risk management, you can add those up and that will give you 1 Category 2-SDL PDU.

Here is how you prepare for such an audit:

(1)   First of all, subscribe to The Project Management Podcast™ because it’s completely free.

(2)   Get it on your iPod, on your Blackberry, on your Zune, whatever type of portable media player that you are using and then listen to our episodes on your player. It will automatically update about every 2 weeks or so when we publish a free episode and don’t forget that in iTunes online in the RSS feed, you will only see the latest 5-6 episodes and if you want to listen to more, if you want to watch more, just go to the website. All of them are available on the website.

(3)   Make sure that you listen to at least 15 complete hours of discussion since we publish a new episode every 2 weeks, that means you can just continue to listen for a year or 2 and you will go way beyond this 15 hours of discussions that you need to listen to.

(4)   Keep a written log file of the podcast that you listen to in preparation for such an audit that may happen.

(5)   And then once you’re good with that, go online the PMI-CCRS website and claim the total of 15 Category 2-SDL PDUs that you can.

Let’s take a look at that log file that I mentioned just now. Here is the type of information that you should keep track of in the log file:

(1)   First of all, obviously, the episode # and title of the podcast that you listen to.

(2)   You should also keep track of when you listened to it.

(3)   And of course what the duration of the podcast was.

(4)   It’s also a good idea to keep track of the interview guest, who is this person there.

(5)   And obviously, the topic to show that it can relate back to the PMBOK® Guide.

We are working on providing such a log file for you that you can download and then print and just fill in by hand so keep coming back to www.project-management-podcast.com/pdu for this log file and download it.

And now, let’s go through the individual steps that you have to go through to actually claim the PDUs on the PMI website.

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete PDF transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.