Average response time is where monitoring begins, not where it ends.

To interpret slowness correctly, correlate it with:
p95 → are all requests slower, or just a subset?
Throughput → is this load pressure or system degradation?
Queue time → are we waiting longer to start or finish?

Tools should reduce MTTR and improve morale. That’s the whole thesis.
Scout does correlation without ceremony, courses, or credential creep.

https://www.scoutapm.com/blog/application-monitoring-101-how-to-correlate-average-response-time-with-other-metrics