Obtaining your Project Management Processional (PMP)® Certification is a lot more than reading the PMBOK® Guide, it is also involves completing the PMP® Exam application, which can be a time consuming sometimes confusing process. In completing the education requirements section, you see that you need at least 35 contact hours.

1. Six ways to earn 35 Contact
Hours for your PMP® Exam
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2. Obtaining your Project Management Processional
(PMP)® Certification is a lot more than reading the
PMBOK® Guide, it is also involves completing the
PMP® Exam application, which can be a time
consuming sometimes confusing process. In
completing
the
education
requirements
section, you see that you need at least 35 contact
hours.
• What exactly are contact hours?
• Why do you need them?
• What do you need to do to obtain them?
Contact hours are not the same as a Professional
Developmental Units (PDUs), you need to have at
least 35 contact hours of prior to the completion of
your application be eligible to take the PMP®
Exam, whereas once you obtain our PMP®
Certification, you will need 60 PDUs every three
years to maintain the certification.
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3. All of the hours you want to use towards contact
hours must be in the form of a formal project
management training or course work. Approved
project management-related topics include project
quality, project budget, project risks, project
scope,
project
communications,
project
procurement, and project integration management.
If you have taken training or course work in the
past that would count towards the contact hours
you need -- even if it was 10, 15, or 20 years
ago, it still counts as long as you have the
documentation
confirming
your
attendance.
There are six categories of providers available from
which you can obtain training or course work to
meet the 35 contact-hour educational requirement
to submit an application to take the PMP® Exam.
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4. Category A – PMI Registered
Education Providers (R.E.P.s)
Take some training through a PMI
Registered Education Provider (R.E.P.).
These courses can be easily located on
the Project Management Institute (PMI)
website
under
the
“Professional
Development” section where you can
search for a specific activity or provider
based on such requirements as your
location, the type of training you are
looking for, keywords, and language.
Training taken from one of PMIs
Registered Education Providers is usually
pre-approved to meet PMIs education
requirements for contact hours.
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5. Category B – PMI Chapters or
Communities of Practice
• Participate in a training activity provided by one of PMIs
many Chapters or Communities of Practice (CoP).
• Check out the schedule of your local PMI® Chapter; many
offer low cost training opportunities that you can count toward
your 35 contact hours.
• Attending a PMI® Chapter does not qualify for contact hours
unless at least one hour of that meeting is dedicated to a
training activity. There are also many PMI® Communities of
Practice that offer training opportunities.
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6. Category C – Employer / Company–
sponsored programs
If your employer is providing project
management-related training where you
are required to demonstrate you have
learned the material and there is a quiz
at the end, you can claim each hour
spent towards project quality, budget,
risks,
scope,
communications,
procurement,
and
integration
management as a contact hour. Keep all
of the related material just in case PMI®
has any questions about this training
while reviewing your application.
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7. Category D – Training companies or
consultants (e.g., training schools)
Attending training provided by a training
company, school, or consultant that is
project management specific can be
counted towards the contact hours you
need. These are generally organized
training events or classes where you are
tested both during the training and upon
completion. As with other non-preapproved PMI® trainings, make sure you
keep the materials and any test scores just
in case PMI has any questions while
reviewing your application.
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8. Category E – Distance-learning
companies
• Taking a distance learning course is another method for
earning your contact hours.
• These training courses can typically be conveniently
completed from anywhere based on your schedule.
• The training is project management specific around the
topics
of
project
quality, budget, risks, scope, communications, procurement, a
nd integration management and there is an end of-courseassessment.
• Make sure you keep a hold of any assessments showing you
successfully completed the course just in case PMI ® has any
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questions while reviewing your application.

9. Category F – University / College
academic and continuing education
programs
 Academic and continuing education programs provided by a
College or University are another good opportunity to obtain
contact hours.
 These courses will typically have an end-of-course
assessment that you can use to prove you have successfully
completed the course.
 You can only claim the amount of time you spent in the
course on project management topics such as project quality,
budget, risks, scope, communications, procurement, and
integration management.
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10. If you have discovered you need a few more
contact hours or even all 35, a good place to start
would by checking out the PM® PrepCast. PM®
PrepCast is a PMI® Registered Education Provider
that provides a distance learning course where you
can obtain all 35 contact hours by simply watching
videos, and these will also help in your PMP®
Exam prep. The PM® PrepCast course falls in both
Category A and F and is offered by OSP
International LLC, a PMI® Registered Education
Provider (R.E.P.).
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