How to Get Your PMP® 35 Hours of Training Requirements for Less Than $60

There are an estimated 16.5 million project managers in the world, and if you’re reading this, you might be one of them. But not every project manager has opted to test their mettle and get the recognition for professional competence that comes with being a certified Project Management Professional.

The Project Management Professional certification (PMP for short) is a professional credential, comparable to what CPA offers for accountants. It’s a certification for experienced professionals, and has some basic requirements:

• A four-year degree (in any field)
• 36 months of project management experience
• 35 hours of project management training (from certified trainers)
• Pass a 200 question multiple-choice exam
• Pay the Project Management Institute $550

Becoming a PMP Isn’t Cheap! …or Is It?

The cost of the exam and access to the study manual is likely steep enough for a lot of project managers to be turned off from the prospect of getting certified. But if that wasn’t enough, the cost of the project management training from a limited pool of certified trainers has long been a much more painful amount, creating a significant bottleneck to the number of project managers around the world that can align themselves with PMP standards of practice.

Prior to the advent of online learning platforms, project managers could expect to fork out thousands of dollars to meet the minimum training requirements for their PMP course. Even now, universities offering courses to prepare students for PMP certification requirements have course fees of more than $3,000 or even up to $4,000 dollars! But even tailored online learning programs still charge a solid $500 for you to get that 35 hours of training.

But thankfully, whether you’re on a budget or just stingy with your dough, there is a third option. Linkedin’s eLearning platform (Linkedin Learning) has a handful of certified PMP trainers, and aren’t you in luck, they offer access to all the courses on a subscription basis and the first month is free.

An eLearning Curriculum Just for You

I’ve made an eLearning playlist which you can access at the below link as long as you have a Linkedin account. In it, you’ll find almost enough video lectures to reach the certification requirements. You could even easily finish the whole playlist during the free trial month.

This collection of project management eLearning materials can offer you 26.5 PDUs/PMI contact hours. What I love about these learning materials is that each course is broken into short 3–10 minute videos that you can easily take in during your daily commute with the only assignments to complete being quick and easy quizzes that help you remember key learnings.

These courses are well suited for new project managers or experienced project managers looking to refresh their knowledge. The essentials of project management like the iron triangle of budget, scope, and schedule are covered. Not only that, the courses also offer a great overview of key PMP topics like stakeholder management, risk and budget management, as well as team and communication management.

These foundations courses will give you the most important principles and lessons you need for planning projects effectively and also the ‘how-to’ for essential pre-launch project analysis like:

• Stakeholder mapping
• Project schedule optimization and estimation
• Budget estimation
• Identifying standards and collecting requirements
• Qualifying and quantifying risk
• Pareto analysis for quality management and optimizing how problems are addressed

Another awesome thing about these courses is that many of them share important project templates like the stakeholder matrix, communication plan, Gantt chart, risk matrix, risk response plan, and many more. I’ve also included a few courses catered to different industries to add some context on how project management practices are adapted to lead projects in fields like international business, government, healthcare, or engineering.

To finish off the final hours of your certification required training, I recommend a course that’s a bit more engaging and premium. This one you can take on Coursera, and unlike those on Linkedin Learning, it has more difficult quizzes and a final minimum passing grade, and in general a bit more technical learning material.

The learning level in this course is slightly more advanced, meant for serious learners or experienced project managers. There are no templates for project planning provided, but this is the only course I’ve seen that shows you how to do more complicated project management analysis meant for both planning and execution stages.

You will learn critical analysis techniques like Earned Value Analysis (EVA), the Cost Performance Index (CPI), Critical Path, as well as how to calculate the critical event in your project. Its fee (upon completion) is $59.

So Here’s Your Chance

The online learning era has democratized access to education and with it, access to previously unaffordable international professional certifications like the PMP. I’ll be the first to admit that not all courses are equal and that you’d likely gain something worthwhile by settling in for an intensive 2-week face-to-face course.

But for those of us who can’t justify parting with a few thousand USD to do so, here’s your best option and your chance to join the growing cadre of Project Management Professionals working to higher standards and bringing order and value to projects all around the world.

Good luck!

Read more about the PMP certification HERE. And newsflash! The Project Management Institute recently made it possible to do the exam online for the first time ever!