The required training hours may be accrued by successfully completing courses, workshops and/or training sessions provided by; tertiary institutions (eg as part of a degree course), PMI Registered Education Providers (PMI-REP), other training companies, consultants, PMI Chapters and/or your employer. Both classroom based and distance education courses are acceptable (but not PMI Chapter meetings or self-directed training). Courses offered by Mosaic and other R.E.P.s [see more on PMI Registered Education Providers] are pre-approved by PMI for the designated Contact Hours. The eligibility of contact hours from other training sources are the responsibility of the PMP candidate and will be determined on a case-by-case basis through the application audit process.

Your training must include content from all nine of the PMBOK ‘Knowledge Areas’: -

1. Integration: The processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are properly coordinated
2. Scope: The processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.
3. Time: The processes required to ensure timely completion of the project.
4. Cost: The processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget.
5. Quality: The processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.
6. Human Resources: The processes required to make the most effective use of the people involved with the project.
7. Communications: The processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and ultimate disposition of project information.
8. Risk: The processes concerned with identifying, analysing, and responding to project risk.
9. Procurement: The processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the performing organization.

Counting your 35 Contact Hours

PMI defines a Contact Hour as follows: 'One contact hour is equal to one hour of participation in an educational activity.' This means that if you sit in a classroom for 60 minutes and you are trained on a project management topic you have earned 1 Contact Hour. How long ago the training occured does not matter - unlike the experience requirements there is no time limit. 

Mosaic's Mentored Email™ courses are approved by PMI for the 35 Contact Hours needed for the PMP exam (23 Hrs for CAPM) - the time you personally spend on the course is irrelevant as long as you complete all of the modules; PMI's approval is based on the long term average time taken by all trainees to complete the course.

University and college courses may also count for Contact Hours but only the actual hours spent studying formal project management topics - you need to assess these and have some documentation to back up your claim - its highly unlikely all of an Undergraduate (Bachelors) Degree course will be focused on project management.

Contact hours must be earned in formal training sessions conducted by a trainer. Self study does not count, nether does attending PMI Chapter meetings unless the meeting is a specific training event such as an exam preparation workshop.

Technically PDUs and Contact Hours are not the same, but as you are preparing for the PMP exam you can consider them the same. The difference is you need Contact Hours before you apply for the PMP Exam and you will need PDUs after you have passed the exam in order to keep your certification going. Therefore, if you have attended a formal project management training and you received a certificate for 10 PDUs, then you can use this certificate for 10 Contact Hours. [see more on PDUs]
 

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