How much responsibility should a technical writer have for identifying what needs to be documented?
I'm curious how this works at other companies because I'm trying to figure out whether my expectations are off.
I support a platform with multiple projects/features being developed at the same time. I'm included in sprint ceremonies and have access to Jira, Confluence, Lucidchart, etc., but there isn't currently a single place where I can see a complete list of projects/features in development or what's expected to go to production. A more centralized PMO process is only now being introduced company wide.
Recently, I was asked for documentation on a feature that was implemented several months ago. There hadn't been a documentation task assigned for it at the time. I attended the team's regular Scrum ceremonies, but wasn't included in the specific handover for that feature (I am almost never included in handovers). I later learned there was a handover recording/transcript and a Lucidchart for it, but I hadn't been made aware that those resources existed.
The expectation that was clarified to me afterward is that I should make sure anything the team releases to production has the appropriate documentation (and I'm the one who should determine what that is).
I absolutely think a technical writer should be proactive and identify documentation needs rather than simply wait for tickets. At the same time, I'm struggling with the expectation that jira tickets, scrum ceremonies and Lucid charts I don't know exist should be enough for me to document the business and technical aspects of any new feature. Every time I ask for information I'm nervous because if this info exists somewhere in jira or confluence already there is an expectation that I should know/should have found it.
For those working in similar environments: Is it generally the technical writer's responsibility to independently identify every production change that requires documentation? Or should Product/Engineering also have a defined responsibility for bringing releases/features into the documentation process? And also are they right that Jira and scrum ceremonies should be enough? Am I wrong asking them to answer questions about the features?!
I'm genuinely interested in hearing how more mature documentation teams handle this, since I'm the first tech writer in this company. Are my expectations wrong or are theirs?