Gather Product Information

The successful test manager also gathers product information, in the form of defect counts, test pass rates, and other meaningful data. The test manager defines the data, and then gathers it for presentation to corporate management. For example, I gather what I consider to be the "basic" metrics:
Defect find and close rates by week, normalized against level of effort (are we finding defects, and can developers keep up with the number found and the ones necessary to fix?)
Number of tests planned, run, passed by week (do we know what we have to test, and are we able to do so?)
Defects found per activity vs. total defects found (which activities find the most defects?)
Schedule estimates vs. actuals (will we make the dates, and how well do we estimate?)
People on the project, planned vs. actual by week or month (do we have the people we need when we need them?)
Major and minor requirements changes (do we know what we have to do, and does it change?)