It's actually really hard to do well. Moreover, it suffers from "how hard could it really be" syndrome, especially when working with developers who think they're smarter than everybody. It's the kind of job that a software developer approches from first principals and does a terrible job at, because starting from first principals ignores all of humanity's experience and practice managing projects, and projects have existed since before the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

We have better tools today, but it takes a skilled practitioner to wield them well. Yes I'm talking about Jira and I hate sitting down and pointing things too, but managing a large complex project with a large number of humans is real actual work and a full time job in and of itself. sometimes even more than one person can handle. places that I've seen are successful are able to recognize that, and don't treat it as dead weight.