Mean, Median, and Mode

Typical has several meanings

The mean adds values and divides by their count. It answers a balancing-point question and uses every observation, so extreme values can move it sharply. The median is the middle value after sorting; half the observations lie on each side. The mode is the most frequent value and is especially useful for categories.

response times: 80, 90, 100, 110, 1620 ms
mean   = 400 ms
median = 100 ms
mode   = none

Neither mean nor median is universally correct. The mean reflects total resource consumption: five requests consumed 2000 milliseconds altogether. The median reflects a typical request and resists the one timeout. Report both when a skewed distribution makes their different stories operationally important.

Analogy: The mean is where a seesaw balances if every observation is a weight. One very heavy weight can move the balance point. The median is the person standing in the middle of a sorted queue and barely moves when the last person carries a huge suitcase.

Warning: An average without a unit, population, and time window is not interpretable. Average latency 100 must say milliseconds, which endpoint, and over what period.