Let me first explain what a PDUhere is. PDU stands for Professional Development Unit. Project ManagementInstitute (i.e. PMI) measures the number of hours spent in undergoing ProjectManagement training in terms of PDU. One PDU is equivalent of one hour of structuredlearning.

Now, what is structured learning?By Structured learning PMI expects participants to undergo learning in adirected manner. So if you do self learning by going through some white paperson Project Management that might not be considered as structured learning.However, if you sit in a classroom kind of environment or you go through somegood Project management related e-learning content, that could be classified asstructured learning.

PMI expects that anyone who isinterested in appearing for a Project Management Professional (PMP)certification examination must acquire minimum 35 hrs of PDU. Meaning, you mustgo through at least 35 hrs of structured learning on Project management beforeyou file your application to appear for the PMP exam. This is a mandatorycriterion over and above the minimum number of project management experience.

Is acquiring 35 PDU a must? The answeris yes. Ok…so where can one go and attend the requisite training to get the 35hrs PDU certificate?

The answer is you can attend suchtraining in two ways. Either you can attend classroom training or you canattend online training. Which one shall one go for is entirely a personalchoice. However, here are some of the tips that I can suggest.

When to choose Online PMP Training:

• ü  You are too busy to sit in a training room for multiple days of classroom training
• ü  You like the online learning convenience. So you just need good structured learning content and doubt clarification on click of a button.
• ü  You want to learn at your own pace.  Learn, Rewind, Listen Again!
• ü  You are self motivated.
• ü  You are paying on your own. Remember online courses are quiet economical compared to physical classroom courses.
• ü  You cannot afford to waste time commuting to a training center.

When to choose Classroom PMP Training:

• ü  You are in between projects and have enough time to attend full day classroom training.
• ü  You want to focus only on PMP Training and complete it as soon as possible like a Project.
• ü  You like the rigor of a classroom training. You believe in doing one thing at a time.
• ü  You think you are lazy enough to take online course seriously.
• ü  When you Employer is paying for your classroom training. Classroom courses are quiet costly compared to an online course.
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Effectiveness of the Training Delivery

The next question is which one ofthe two is effective, my frank answer to that is, and it depends on theindividual. There are 1000s of professionals, who have cleared their PMP Examinationby going through online courses provided by companies like Simplilearn. That’sa big enough number to conclude that online courses work! If your aim is topass the PMP certification exam and your online course allows you do that, whatmore do you want?

The second plus with onlinecourses is that you can speak to other users on how good the course is. You canread reviews about the course, where as in a classroom training, it all dependson how good the Trainer is. Some times in my experience I have been, even goodtrainers get too tired my doing the same training again and again. So in many acases, they rush through the training resulting in confusing participants.

The other important fact that Ilike about online trainings is the learning pace. Different individuals havedifferent grasping capability. In a classroom, you have no control on, who theother participants are. Whereas, in an online self paced learning, you can gothrough the same content 5 times if required. There is no pressure to learnfast and catch up with rest.

Conclusion

I am a big fan of onlinetrainings. This is truer for professional certifications. The fact that one isplanning to go for professional certification is good enough reason to believethat the person is self motivated. All one want is guidance and hand holding toprepare in the right fashion. Online content allow you to just do that.