I like to Ha Ha Only Serious that the ask for documents is just a standard technique for getting out of having to care about whatever it is you're talking about. If they ask you for documentation, and you don't have it, you automatically lose and they get to ignore you.
If you always have it, eventually they stop asking you. (Until someone new joins and tries it on you.)
Cynicism aside, it's useful stuff anyhow. Rubber ducking is a well-known debugging technique where you describe your problem to someone who doesn't have your context, even if it's only a rubber duck, and the mere act of describing will often reveal the problem. Writing documentation for other people is the closest equivalent for rubber ducking at the architectural level. When you're sitting there writing the complicated things you have to do to do X, you get an outsider's view of the situation. Take that and use it as motivation to fix the problem. Try very hard not to be just cynical about it and let your sensitivity to that signal become calloused... it is incredibly useful!
If you always have it, eventually they stop asking you. (Until someone new joins and tries it on you.)
Cynicism aside, it's useful stuff anyhow. Rubber ducking is a well-known debugging technique where you describe your problem to someone who doesn't have your context, even if it's only a rubber duck, and the mere act of describing will often reveal the problem. Writing documentation for other people is the closest equivalent for rubber ducking at the architectural level. When you're sitting there writing the complicated things you have to do to do X, you get an outsider's view of the situation. Take that and use it as motivation to fix the problem. Try very hard not to be just cynical about it and let your sensitivity to that signal become calloused... it is incredibly useful!