How can I troubleshoot Outlook hanging?

Split from this thread.

Well I am using the current version of MS Office for Mac 2011 and I get the spinning wheel with Outlook also.  I called MS Office and was told that if I paid for a support contract they could fix it.  Well I had one and actually gave them the data and they could not find it in their data base so they continued to be smart and ask for more money.  Mine is a university purchased copy and is supposed to have full support but I got none.  I sure wish I had some way to get in touch with management rather than IT folks who live elsewhere in the world.