It is vital to have someone close enough to the project that the team trusts them to see their honest opinions about progress and blockers, including non-bullsh

It is vital to have someone close enough to the project that the team trusts them to see their honest opinions about progress and blockers, including non-bullshit pointing of tasks, who is the point person for communicating progress to management, and who is capable of producing reports that are technically bullshit in an is-this-quantifiable-this-way sense but actually do reflect reality usefully to managers. Someone who does that well is worth All The Money. They're useless if you're giving management direct access to team planning & communication tools, of course.