Reprinted with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center

Have you ever had a project "go sideways" on you? When it happens to you, it feels like you are treading water. You're working hard, but going nowhere. After building a beautiful coordinated project plan in Microsoft Project or Microsoft Excel, your dates start slipping. You can see that too much time is being wasted on unnecessary communications, but how do you take back control? Typically, the problem isn't in the upfront planning, it's in the ongoing communication and collaboration.

Follow these three steps to ensure all team members are on the same page, making progress to your mutual goal.

1. Create a collaboration site. Endless hours are wasted and bandwidth consumed from circulating documents via email. The larger the project, the worse this problem becomes. Because the document isn't centrally stored, multiple versions are created, and that's where questions and confusion pop-up. "Is this the latest version? Has John reviewed this?" Midsize and enterprise companies have typically relied on a tool like SharePoint Server 2010. They can also get SharePoint Online as part of an affordable bundle. A collaboration site should be neatly organized into folders so that information is easily accessible. It should also contain contact information for all project stakeholders.

2. Share your calendars. Meeting scheduling is a snap when you can see everyone's calendars - and can be quite frustrating when you can't. If you have Microsoft Exchange running in your office along with Microsoft Outlook, calendar sharing is an easy task. You simply share your calendar and request others to share their calendar with you. Then when you create a meeting invitation, you can look to see if all the key people and resources are available.  If you also have Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Office LiveMeeting, you can not only share your calendar; you can include links to documents, business portals, and online meeting information in your meeting invitations. Microsoft calendars can easily be shared via the Internet, allowing others outside of your office to see your schedule.

3. Create a formal process for non-formal communication. How do you want your team communicating for quick questions? Some companies are turning to instant messaging tools like Office Communications Online to get everyone chatting. This allows people to discuss and resolve problems as they arise.

Effective project management depends upon effective communication. Creating systems to capture and control both formal and informal communications can help your project stay on track and move swiftly toward the anticipated goal.