I dont really think you are grasping what I am saying. I want engineers to make tickets, and prioritize their time themselves. Creating a ticket to update docs is fine because it allows the engineer to set the scope, and define the audience.
That said, I dont want an engineer spending days on a task that will not bring value, nor do I want work done that will fall through the cracks, or have duplicate work done.
Asking an engineer to create a ticket to create documentation is not the hurdle you think it is.
I'm a successful engineer. I hate JIRA. I like keeping docs up to date, but if you're gonna make me deal with JIRA's BS just so I can do a quick doc PR, guess what, no updated docs for you.
They want full visibility into what everyone is working on all the time. Some managers, especially non-line managers, really like this idea. I can understand why, it sounds really good! Transparency can't be bad, right? In practice, it works a lot better to create fairly small teams, let them run independently and opaquely to the outside, and then coordinate between them periodically (bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever is found to work best).
I think one key thing those folks miss is that willpower is a limited resource. For me personally, dealing with bureaucracy drains it much quicker than my actual work product, writing and designing code. Making me track everything is thus a strong net negative on my output.
I'm senior enough to know what I'm doing, so don't make me waste my (and my company's, they're paying me after all!) time.
That said, I dont want an engineer spending days on a task that will not bring value, nor do I want work done that will fall through the cracks, or have duplicate work done.
Asking an engineer to create a ticket to create documentation is not the hurdle you think it is.