Is there really a difference between women and men as project managers?

Women are key players in modern project management. Although the field of project management began as a male dominated activity, primarily in engineering and construction, women moved decisively into project management, including in engineering and construction. This work reports on research examining the perceptions and attitudes of women in project management through both women and men's views about what is important to project managers. A number of issues identified as important by practicing women project managers evolved into a set of questions about these issues. A pilot evaluation using a small group of women project managers provided suggestions for improving clarity and content for several of the questions. Using these improvements, members of two large project management institute chapters, one in the United States and another in New Zealand, responded to the questions. This paper presents the responses of both the men and women participants from these countries to the questions, and posits some insights about the meaning of those responses to the issues identified by women project managers.