[throwawaaarrgh]

Immediate managers must have some experience with the report's work, absolutely. But farther up the chain, they still need to check work. There's certain details of progress you just can't fake.

If you have 10 pieces of work, and you show each piece getting done at regular intervals, along with demos, then you can show your actual results and exactly how close you're getting to finished. Even someone who has no insight into the product can follow along and see the progress's results and trajectory. The more detail you get about the work, the harder it is to fake (you can fake a demo, but it's much harder to fake an entire Jira board)