Ask HN: Managers of HN, how do you track IC progress

Exactly this - there is no technical solution to a people problem and as a manager keeping people on track and knowing when to help get it back on track is a people problem.

When I worked in office, I got into the habit of just eating lunch with my team - always thought it was weird that the seniors (actually leads anywhere else) went to lunch together separately from the devs and the juniors, often we'd go a week without discussing work and I'd never bring it up (lunch time is lunch time and been off the clock is good for a reset) but more than once something that would potentially balloon into a major problem got headed off because someone mentioned it over lunch.

Generally speaking just be someone who is comfortable hearing "bad news" on progress - that is make it "OK, how do we solve this together" problem not a recrimination problem because you want people to be able to tell you when things have gone sideways when they know and not when it's so sideways they can't avoid telling you :).