As you may have heard, PMI is changing up the details of their Continuing Certification Requirements. This is the program that classifies how you earn your 60 PDUs to maintain your certification.

The general process isn’t changing; there are just new limitations in the different categories. It varies per certification, but I’ll focus on PMP.

Let’s start by separating two major categories: “Education” and “Giving Back”. You’ll need a total of 60 PDUs, but this 60 is split up between the two categories.

“Education”: This category used to have neither a minimum nor a maximum of required hours. Now, a minimum of 35 PDUs is required to be Education hours

Additionally, for each skill below, you’ll need at least 8 hours.

“Technical” (8 PDUs), “Leadership” (8 PDUs), and “Strategic Business Management Skills” (8 PDUs).

Alright math wizards, notice anything that isn’t adding up? Out of the 35 PDUs required for education, that leaves 11 hours up for grabs. PMI says that these remaining hours can be allocated in any of the skills above (as long as you have the minimum of 8).

Moving on, the “Giving Back” category has some updated requirements as well. You can earn a maximum of 25 PDUs in this category (it used to be a maximum of 45).

Here’s the breakdown of skills:

“Working as a Professional”: No more than 8 hours can be claimed here. This is one of the more major updates.

“Volunteering” and “Creating Knowledge” don’t have a max, but again, these fall under “Giving Back”, so in total they can’t exceed the 25 PDU max.

For further details on these updates, visit PMI’s page HERE. There are some helpful infographics on this page as well. These new rules go into effect on December 1st, 2015. While this may seem far away, don’t let it sneak up on you!