Is this comment section to devolve into a discussion about software engineering practices? We could now write thousands of pages on that topic or we can cut down to the chase. If the manager can't tell whether his project is on track or not, remember nobody gives a damn whether it takes 50000 lines of code or 500 or that you closed X tickets, then the project has either already failed or the project manager is taking a huge risk with a greenfield project where he is just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.