The phrase "managed to make progress" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when describing a situation where someone has successfully advanced or improved in a task or project despite challenges.
Example: "After several setbacks, the team managed to make progress on the project and met the deadline."
Alternatives: "succeeded in advancing" or "was able to improve."
Somehow, I managed to make progress.
The talks also managed to make progress in agriculture, a sector that has proved to be a deal breaker repeatedly in global trade talks.
Asked how he had managed to make progress within the bureaucratic morass of much of the Iraqi government, Mr. Wahid said he had simply learned to go it alone.
Government spending has actually risen by $0.2tn between 2009 and 2015) but overall Obama has managed to make progress in reducing the deficit, despite political deadlock, due to rising government receipts.
Still, she has managed to make progress without canine assistance, surveying habitats, capturing and measuring, and analyzing feces to determine the turtle's diet.
While the Trump campaign managed to make progress towards closing the fundraising gap in July, a recent report from NBC News and SMG Delta found that the Clinton campaign and its associated PACs are outspending the Trump campaign by a 15-1 margin.
Yet if it manages to make progress in these areas, the rationale for sprawling big business groups sometimes almost like mini-states in their own right, as substitutes for the real thing will gradually disappear.
Asked how he would manage to make progress if Mr. Giuliani and his allies on the board tried to thwart him, Mr. Levy said only, "A good manager brings out the best in the people he works with".
In the field, our colleagues manage to make progress in the face of huge obstacles.
When I moved to Paris I had the notion that I would be immersed in French life and language; that turned out not to be the case, although I've managed to make some progress.
Despite Mr. Rumsfeld's behavior, the NATO ministers managed to make striking progress on restructuring the alliance along the lines agreed to during a NATO summit meeting in Prague last year.
