I think in a lot of industries the work "speaks for itself" like a creative agency or people producing widgets. For creative work you can walk through the assets produced and everyone can theoretically see that there is value being created. I believe software development gravitates towards heavy processes mostly because it's hard for "decision makers" to accurately gauge good software from bad, or even understand what progress is being made at all.

Having more engineers in decision making positions certainly helps, but I think it boils down to whether the organization is set up for trust.