Chief programmer team

A chief programmer team is a programming team organized in a star around a "chief" role, granted to the software engineer who understands the system's intentions the best. Other team members get supporting roles.

The concept is similar to that of a surgical team in which a surgeon who performs the operation is supported by medical staff such as an anaesthetist and nurses, and similarly, the chief programmer is surrounded with the team of minor programmers, with the respectively differencing in the salary levels..Fred Brooks describes the concept in detail in The Mythical Man-Month, as proposed by Harlan Mills in 1971.

The team consists of ten people. Various roles have been defined for team members, the following are taken from Brooks.

In this arrangement the chief programmer and backup programmer actually work on the problem. The remaining team members provide "all conceivable support."

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