A mean (average value) that is obtained through the use of multiplication and Nth roots rather than by addition and division. To calculate, take the Nth root (the power of 1/N) of the product of all N terms. The geometric mean has the interesting property that a certain percentage change in any one of the terms has the same effect as the same percentage change in any of the other terms and even successive changes in the same term will have the same effect as if the changes were instead spread over other terms. What this means in benchmarking terms is that a 10% improvement in one benchmark has the same effect on the overall mean as a 10% improvement on any of the other benchmarks and that another 10% improvement on that benchmark will have the same effect as the last 10% improvement. Thus no one benchmark in a suite becomes more important than any of the others in the suite