At a recent Central Indiana Chapter meeting, a gentleman made a request for submissions for the 'Women in Project Management' column. The guidance for the article was that it should cover or discuss issues that affect women in project management. I was intrigued by the request. I am a woman in project management. What issues do I deal with? I deal with communication issues, scope creep, resource issues, schedule issues, and issue after issue.

But isn't that the same stuff men in project management deal with?

I continued to ponder the request. What issues are specific to women? I couldn't think of a thing. I usually forget the fact that I am woman while at work. I am more concerned about the contractor versus staff issues. As a contractor, it is important to be perceived as a valuable asset to the team. I study a lot, read lots of different publications and try to provide support where possible.

Still curious about what was being sought, I asked a friend of mine about this topic. She is involved in the IT project management in the banking industry. I caught her at an opportune time as she was frustrated with one of her male PMs. She felt there was a clear difference: men in project management are not as attentive to details. She said that in her experience, the male project managers she dealt with did not have their project plans granular enough in detail. Interesting, but to me, it seemed a little too broad.

Recently, I attended a women's retreat. Due to this article, I was curious if the men's version of the retreat covered the same information. I was told it did. So I asked the staff of the retreat what was different between the women's and the men's retreat.

The first major difference was in the decorations. At the retreat I attended, there were beautiful flower arrangements, elegant table settings and a festive snack table. These decorations were not trivial to the guests. They set the mood, created an emotion and colored our memories of the event. During the retreat most of the guests were gushing about the planning, creativity and time and effort involved in creating the decorations. According to the staff, the men's retreats have very little decoration, as the men "don't even see them".

The second major difference was in the food - specifically the over-abundance of meat served at the men's retreat compared the women's. At our snack tables, we had fruit, vegetables, cheeses, meats and chocolate. The men's snack tables have all of the items listed, plus meatballs, chicken wings, chicken nuggets and other meats!

I thought about what my friend had said about the lack of attention to details by her male project manager peers. Immediately I thought of a few examples I could cite referencing meeting planning. To generalize, it seems that when we have our female PMs plan our meetings, we have coffee and danish in morning and sodas and snacks in the afternoon. When we have male PMs plan our meetings, we have ...to bring our own coffee and find the vending machines for sodas and snacks. Note that these differences have nothing to do with either the success of the meeting or the efficiency of the meeting.

I thought about the presentations I created, compared to the presentations my male boss created. I always tried to ensure that the slides were grammatically correct and that each bullet was constructed symmetrically with the other bullets. My boss was not concerned with the fact that not all of his bullets a single slide started with a verb.

I then realized what my friend was saying. It may be that female project managers may need to see the details of the project in addition to the deliverables. These details may include the supporting processes, dependencies and tasking. It may be that male project managers focus more on the deliverables of the project and delve into the details as necessary. To say it another way, the male project managers may focus more on the meat and look at the decorations only if necessary. That is not to say that this distinction dictates a more successful project or a more successful project manager based on gender.

It reminds me of the color blind test pictures. The color blind will state that the picture is a pattern of dots. But the women (and the men who are not color blind) can say that the picture is a pattern of dots with a red "12" in the middle. But in this case, the only acceptable answers are: 1) pattern of dots; 2) swirl of colors; or 3) ink spots.

Perhaps to assist in effective communication with our male project managers and male team members, we need to focus our discussions on the meat of the issues. Though I am confident that the meat has always been in our communications, we may need to remove the decorations within our messages to be sure the meat is easily located.