"Delivered in phases until end of Q1 2025" -- sounds like it could be reasonable, or might actually be some kind of waterfall disaster. My advice is that you d

"Delivered in phases until end of Q1 2025" -- sounds like it could be reasonable, or might actually be some kind of waterfall disaster. My advice is that you do your best to push for actual users having their hands on the software as early as possible. And for there to be a direct route from the users to you and your team members. That is going to matter more than anything. As far as the team, you should have a chat room open all the time, and people know they will get a response within a few hours during work hours, or right away if the other person isn't really in the middle of something. It should also be easy to enter a voice chat, video chat or screen share. Everyone should know that the chat room should be used freely when necessary but not as a distraction. The manager should be in the chat room. If he/she won't/can't pay attention, push updates for anything that requires their attention and weekly progress reports. As things progress, some of the users should be in the chat room also. Try to aim for a release that users are testing at least once a week, as soon as that becomes possible.