Would I rather get feedback from my project managers and specialists regarding their perceptions or factual feedback regarding the elements of their work? I want both.

The factual feedback seems obvious - such as "did we meet a milestone by a particular date" or "are we x amount of hours short on a needed field deployment". But feedback on their perception gives me early warning signs on maybe a bigger issue that will affect the project, but for which I don't know how to ask the question.

I'm essentially asking for a pulse on the mood of the participants.

If anxiety is high, even though we are meeting all the official milestones then there's is probably some intagible I need to get to the bottom of quickly (example: rumors are spreading about another high-powered project that might divert availability from a key Subject-Matter-Expert).

Conversely, if optimism is high then maybe I will discover that what appears to be a danger sign is not in fact a problem (example: a team has an internal habit of waiting till the last minute and then piling on the body-count to meet deadline just in time).