I think one problem is people tend to be locally self-managed: they'll do work assigned just to them, or a close-knit team, but as soon as something is blocked by say the dba team, they'll put very little effort into ensuring the work progresses (unless they have a personal interest in seeing that task through). Or they'll prioritize incorrectly: towards their skill/interests, or what their friends are waiting on (as opposed to the whole team/company), or even a simple misunderstanding of importance.
And of course you have things like deadlocks that have to be resolved, ie dba waiting on programmer, and programmer waiting on artist, and artist waiting on dba.
So the manager serves a distinct, and presumably necessary role. And by necessity, he must be invasive: if there was sufficient communication, the deadlock would resolve itself. But if the manager is necessary, there is not sufficient communication: that is, someone is not announcing important information by their own will (perhaps because they aren't aware its worth announcing). It has to be wrung out.
And if you're trying to stop such problems before they occur, then you'll end up asking seemingly redundant or even arbitrary questions. (Because you can't know the correct questions to ask!)
