Are Women Better Project Managers?

A colleague of mine, Terrie Mui, co-authored a paper on just this topic. Her paper was published in IEEE conference proceedings. The opening paragraph of the paper reads, "Women may be the perfect project managers! Programmed by evolution toward nurturing, and groomed by culture to handle multiple, simultaneous activities, women appear to possess inherent abilities and practical skills needed in the role of project manager."

The paper quotes research from University of California that found, "… women have stronger communication, empathy, and better response to stress skills than men." Sounds pretty right-on to me.

Terrie and her co-author Gerald Mulenburg did original research and studied survey results from both women and men in project management positions. The issues that women identified were no different than the men in the study. And Mui and Mulenburg were not able to conclude that there was much difference between women and men in the profession. Interestingly, though, women cited working with a team and achieving a feeling of accomplishment as stronger motivators for remaining in the profession than their male counterparts.

You can find a copy of the entire paper at: http://www.riedelconsulting.com/res/reading.html
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