I started as a software engineer at the company I'm currently at. Over time, I was either the only one willing to or capable of taking responsibility for various systems, and so I was "promoted" to being IT Manager. Now, during my time as software engineer, I would create functional tests for the various software modules I would build, and as a result, even today I am able to quickly test various parts of the system that I have worked on. However, there is a large large code base with little to no coverage from the other various developers who have been working here.
Now, as IT Manager, I want to be able to test that all the parts of the system are working, but there is:
A) no budgeted time dedicated to creating code test coverage
and
B) No desire from the "chief software engineer" to start creating testing suites to help me monitor that the software is functioning.
I don't expect the software team to drop everything they are doing and spend 2 weeks creating test suites, but it would be nice if they started expanding the test suite coverage over time so I can confirm that the various parts of the system are working.
So boiling it down, how do I get the software team to start building test suites?
Other caveats:
A) I'm still asked to do software projects in addition to managing our IT dept (a unix engineer, desktop support guy, and related office and production equipment)
B) My unix admin has a really hard time getting production systems up running the full code base, and we aren't getting good help from the software team. He can't run any kind of diagnostic to see where the web app is failing on the new installs. The VP of the company keeps telling me to go in and do print_r's in the code to see what is happening. This sucks!!!