PMP PDUs: diminishing value sham or real professional development?
There’s been a disturbing trend in the professional development (read: education) marketplace where PDUs for renewing your PMP are being over-commoditised.
Let’s backup and cover a bit of background on the PMP certification and its ongoing requirements…
When one earns the Professional Project Manager (PMP) certification, you have passed a rigorous examination in all the areas of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). This certification is awarded by the internationally recognized Project Management Institute (PMI).
PMPs are required to “renew” their certification every three years by accumulating 60 Professional Development Units (PDUs). PDUs are earned in a number of structured categories. These categories are generally split between “practice” and “education” lines (an over-simplification, but one that’s sufficient for this discussion).
The troubling trend seems to be the wide array of potentially low-value education PDUs that can be earned from certified education providers. These vendors advertisements - found even in PMIs own internal PMP-oriented magazine - are breathless offers of “get your PDUs fast!”, “re-certify quick!”, and “recertification has never been easier!”.
Human nature in these regards often mimics core hydraulics practice - water seeks its easiest path of movement.
But is the PMI really doing the right thing by allowing PMPs to recertify so readily with the PDUs that can be picked up at the corner from the guy with stolen watches on display in the other jacket lapel?
The PMI recently published that there are over 242,000 certified PMPs (September 2007). If those PMPs are all actively practicing project management for 15 PDUs per three years, then those PMPs need to “buy” another 45 PDUs to complete their certification requirements.
So let’s do the math… This implies that 10.9 million PDU hours need to be “purchased” per three year cycle for these PMPs. If we assume that half of those hours are satisfied internally by employers, then that leaves about 5.5million PDU hours to be obtained in the “marketplace”.
If the retail cost of 10 PDUs is roughly $350.00USD, then that implies a $1.9Billion marketplace need.
With that kind of money in a market space of easily reused content, it’s no wonder that there are a number of players out there who seem to be offering PDUs for sale rather than continuing education and self-improvement.
Is it hard to earn the PMP certification? I believe the answer is yes. Is it hard to re-certify? The answer is most decidedly no. Is the money for recertification well-invested? That answer is most decidedly in the hands of the PMPs themselves.
I saw absolutely no substantiation in the claims above. It could be true, but it is certainly unsubstantiated. I suggest providing some concrete examples.
The PMI has every reason to uphold high standards. Also, vendors have every reason to provide a quality product or service. Vendors also would be crazy not to try to come up with less expensive and more convenient ways to earn PDUs! What is the REAL problem here!
By way of example, my company, Project Management Training Online, sells web-based training for PDUs at a price far below the $350 per 10 PDUs quoted above. And we have received nothing but positive feedback on the courses, which were actually created by REPs. In addition, PDUs can be earned by volunteer service. I, for one, have volunteered to work on the committee seeking speakers for our events - for the New Jersey Chapter of the PMI. PMPs can also earn PDUs from other volunteer work related to project management, and can write and speak on the subject to earn PDUs also.
If there are issues, I think they should be brought out, but broad and baseless generalities are not effective at doing that.
John Reilng, PMP
Project Management Training Online
http://www.pmtrainingonline.com
Comment by John Reiling — September 22, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
[...] better way are helping to SOLVE the problem. In my opinion, the author quoted – his post: “PMP PDUs: diminishing value sham or real professional development?” – is not being part of the solution, and really is not even effectively describing a [...]
Pingback by PMP PDUs: Is Inexpensive and More Convenient a Bad Thing? | Project Management Insights, Ideas, and Analysis — September 23, 2007 @ 7:05 am
Interesting debate here. For someone who is evaluating course material it is really difficult to know the value of specific courses. One never knows if online reviews are real. But I tend to agree with John, just because the training is less expensive ie. example Cornelius Fichtner PMP Prepcast podcast training which offers 35 PDUs for $49, PMCampus´s 35 PDU online course for $199 or $400 for a PMP preparation course at Johns company.
Looking at the different online training sites I get the feeling that what this is really about is that prices are being marked up by online course providers.
As an example consider the following. MIT is making all of their courseware available online. So people could do all those courses online with the $100 laptop and then take an exam at a small training center in a small village in India for $30 or they could take the exam at MIT for a total cost of $180,000. Who would know more?
Best Regards,
Mans Shapshak
Project Management Trainee Program
Comment by Mans Shapshak — June 12, 2008 @ 4:58 am